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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] On prioritizing organic purchases
  • Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 08:42:49 -0700


from On prioritizing organic purchases
http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2007/08/08/buyingorganic/

The 12 fruits and vegetables with the highest amount of pesticide residues
are peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries,
cherries, lettuce, imported grapes, pears, spinach, and potatoes. These are
the ones to spend your money on. The 12 with the lowest residues are
onions, avocado, frozen sweet corn, pineapples, mangoes, frozen sweet peas,
asparagus, kiwi, bananas, cabbage, broccoli, and eggplant. When short of
cash, go ahead on conventionally grown versions of these.

The shopping guide gets us started on produce, but how about the rest of
our diet? Consumer Reports has an interesting series of articles about
prioritizing among organic products. Their top priorities include the
produce chosen by EWG. They also believe meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy
should be an organic priority because of risks including mad cow and the
antibiotics and hormones used in conventional animal husbandry. Their third
top priority is baby food, for reasons of small bodies and potential
concentrated residues in processed purees.

I agree with these personal health priorities, in part because they
correlate with larger environmental concerns. A link between pesticide
residue and pesticide application seems likely, and large-scale meat
production benefits only the financial bottom line.

The rest of the Consumer Reports list is intriguing: They say if price is
no object, go ahead and buy organic grains and processed foods. However,
they argue, these foods lose many nutrients and "health value" during
processing, hence do not offer enough added value in their organic form to
always justify the price increase. To me, making that argument from a
personal-health perspective does not exempt those who can afford to buy all
organic from doing so based on environmental stewardship. CR also
pooh-poohs organic seafood, because no U.S. certification exists, and
organic cosmetic products, based in part on another report from EWG,
because they apparently are often fraudulent. Egad.






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