Posted in Health

Recently, I spoke about the ideas set forth in Trim the Fat: The Ultimate Book of Cutting Costs at the Grocery. One chapter of the book discusses how to include organic food in your food budget, without going BUST on your food budget. People are often shocked when they find out how simple this really is! Why? well simply because of the over-all myth of the expense of organic food. I have been trying to educate moms about the real deal with organics. One question that keeps coming to my email box, is which items will I absolutely NOT purchase if they are not organic. After several individual emails, I decided that I would post my list here and share it with everyone.

Purchase ONLY Organic

Berries

Peppers

Lettuce/spinach

peaches

cantaloupe

celery

apples

cucumbers

carrots

nuts

milk

tomatoes

grapes

green beans

apricots

These items do not come into my home unless I am able to find organics. However, you should know a few other things about some items. Bananas and corn are LOADED with pesticides. Long story short, they come and go off lists and I normally base my decisions on their originating locations. Any fruit that has a skin, lemon, bananas, oranges, avocado, etc I will sometimes purchase conventional. The pesticides used (although they can be very high) have minimal penetration to the actual fruit. Wash the fruit BEFORE peeling. Wash it again. Rinse with water whiel you are peeling citrus. This should remove the bulk of the pesticides. When finished, wash hands thoroughly.

Grains are another issue. I try to use only organic grains, but sometimes they are not available or they are out of my budget. BUT you should know that these are highly treated with pesticides, especially in processed grain foods, such as cereals. NAME BRAND companies and offshoots have been found to have LARGE amounts of pesticides. (Sorry for my vagueness, but I am covering my butt here).

Also, Kiwi comes and goes. I normally buy organic, but occasionally I cannot get it and I have a son who is a Kiwi junkie. Wash as directed above if using conventional, BEFORE cutting.

These are my thoughts.