On prioritizing organic purchases

08 Aug 2007

Got questions about the environment? Ask Umbra.

Hi Umbra!

I just recently became a stay-at-home mom. Life is bliss, except for the one-income household we now have (my husband brings home the tofu-bacon). Now that we have very limited funds I cannot afford to buy all organic food. Sometimes organic food is nearly double the price of conventional food ... yikes! I looked around and could not find a great website for foods you need to buy organic. I know that some conventional foods are not so pesticide-laden as others, but I'm not sure which. Could you please tell me this: if you could buy only some organic food, what should it be?

Tammi
Bailey, Colo.

Dearest Tammi,

Apologies for not explicitly providing this basic resource to dearest readers. I've mentioned the Environmental Working Group's produce shopping guide, but that doesn't help you search the Ask Umbra archives for "best organic foods." Sorry.

Basket case.

Photo: iStockphoto

The EWG guide is designed to answer the "which food" question for fresh fruits and vegetables. EWG looked at USDA food consumption data and USDA and FDA pesticide residue tests, and developed a pesticide residue ranking from worst to best for 44 types of produce. If you have specific concerns, you may wish to read more about EWG's methodologies -- for example, common habits of peeling and washing are incorporated into the tests.

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.

Ask Umbra continues below

ADVERTISING POLICY

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.

A prime offender?

Photo: iStockphoto

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.

The magazine does offer a series of tips on saving money while shopping organic, including comparison shopping, comparison shopping at the farmers' market, buying directly from livestock producers, and joining a Community Supported Agriculture program. OK -- wait -- it looks like I've never written about CSA, either. Could someone please send in a question for me to answer?

Let me just briefly add other cash-saving ideas, including forming a buying club with friends to deal directly with a food distributor, buying large bulk amounts at stores that offer a discount for so doing (my local co-op gives a 10 percent discount on 25-pound bags of rice, for example), and buying fewer animal products.

Correctively,
Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Please send Umbra any nagging question pertaining to the environment -- but first check out her FAQs!

The claims made in this column may not reflect the views of this magazine. Neither the magazine nor the author guarantees that any advice contained in this column is wise or safe. Please use this column at your own risk.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

Comments: (10 comments)

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To Buy or Not to Buy Organic

I just finished reading "To Buy or Not to Buy Organic," by Cindy Burke. She addresses exactly this question and also talks at length about considering distance traveled, or "food miles," when deciding whether to buy conventional or organically grown groceries. The book includes a very helpful shoppers guide. I highly recommend it.

by Kathleen at 10:26 AM on 08 Aug 2007

Bananas? Really?

Umbra, I'm concerned about your assumption that "a link between pesticide residue and pesticide application seems likely". Most (8 out of 12) of the produce items on the "lowest residues" list have shells, husks, or peels, and you mention that "common habits of peeling and washing are incorporated into the tests". If the pesticides get sprayed on while the fruit is safely inside its peel, and then the fruit is tested peel-free, wouldn't it make sense that very little of the pesticide applied would end up counting as pesticide residue... that there could be risks to food growers and the environment that don't carry over to the consumer?

What caught my attention was seeing bananas on the safe list. While the peel probably shields us eaters from all the nasties used to grow them, Pesticide Action Network North America tells us, "Pesticide use on plantation bananas is more than 20 times greater than average pesticide use on crops in industrialized countries, with corresponding levels of worker pesticide exposures and illness." (http://www.panna.org/resources/gpc/gpc_200404.14.1.06.dv. ...) Are we really only interested in protecting the meal in front of us?

I would be interested in finding lists that factor ecological and human rights concerns into the what-to-buy-organic equation. For me, those are the highest-priority reasons for shopping organic in the first place. And, like, shouldn't ecological impact trump personal health concerns from the Umbra Perspective, too?

by Ariana at 11:47 AM on 08 Aug 2007

Farmer's Markets

Look in your area to see if there are any Farmer's Markets, CSAs or Co-ops. You can do this at localharvest.org.

Talk to these small producers about their farming methods. Go to their farms and check up on things as well. Often times they will be pesticide and herbicide feed but not able to use the organic label due to costs. Their products will often be less expensive than those in local supermarkets or whole foods stores as well. They enable you to get more bang for your buck.

If you're worried about human rights, then look for fairtrade certified items. They are required to be low pesticide or organic items as well as providing a decent wage to the workers. You will find this most often found with things like chocolate, coffee and tea. Other products can be certified fairtrade as well though. It will be more expensive but you're money is feeding families not business profits.

by wayneluke at 12:59 PM on 08 Aug 2007

CSA

I'm in the same one-income boat and joining a CSA was the best food decision I've ever made. You feel really invested in the product and the community, you get to try a lot of different types of very healthy foods and the farmer takes all of the "what should I buy this week" out of the equation, which I kind of love. And it's turned out to be a pretty great deal. Anybody know what to do with 5 pounds of summer squash?

by Christine Gardner at 2:09 PM on 08 Aug 2007

CSA

I second the CSA suggestion. Often you can find local farmers growing organic produce, and since you're eliminating the middleman, your veggies may cost less than the conventional pesticide-laden produce at the store. It's cheap, local, in season, often organic, and it supports independent farmers instead of the exploitive megafarms.

As for organic products, I personally don't bother. It may be slightly better for your health, but all that processing and shipping doesn't do anything for the environment.

--
Aaron

Taking accounting to the extreme since 2004.

by akbeancounter at 6:01 PM on 08 Aug 2007
[ Parent ]

Summer Squash

You can blanch squash and then freeze it for later in the year when it isn't available. Less nutritious than fresh but better than canning.

by wayneluke at 9:44 AM on 09 Aug 2007

Eco-friendly detergent that actually works!

I just tried a enviro-friendly laundry detergent that actually works! It's called Wintree, I bought it at Costco but haven't seen it for sale anywhere else.

I've used a few other enviro-friendly detergents in the past and was frustrated b/c they never seemed to work very well.

Wintree cleaned way better than the other eco-friendly detergents that I've tried and was less-expensive too, which is an added bonus for me!

by wendyoc at 10:49 AM on 09 Aug 2007

Antibiotic use

Since the woman who wrote in to Umbra mentioned bring home the tofu-bacon, (by the way, the best place to get great tofu-bacon is the restaurant Vegetae in DC; amazing veggie brunches), I'm assuming she probably doesn't buy animal products, but I would advise anybody who does to listen to Umbra's suggestion to not only eat less of them, but to make sure to only buy free-range/organic/grass-fed/local/humane-raised, etc. because the antibiotics and hormones are really dangerous to people, as well as harmful to animal welfare. Here's a good discussion of antibiotic use on factory farms: http://www.hsus.org/farm/resources/research/pubhealth/hum ...

by amc89 at 11:47 AM on 09 Aug 2007

Silagel adult toys

Recently while I was shoping at a web site that sells adult toys, I noticed that a company called Doc Johnson had come out with a new line of toys made of a new material called Silagel. The company claimed that this new material is non-toxic and body-safe but several things made me suspicious; first, the toys cost between 1/3 to 1/4 what silicone toys cost, second, the manufacturer stated that the toys had a "pleasant smell", and third the material was described as having a consistency that was a cross between silicone and jelly. Do you know anything about this new material and is it safe?

by Merlinever at 2:37 AM on 13 Aug 2007

$300 a month

Hubby and I spend $300 a month on all our food and beverages (including wine). We are vegetarians, eat organic, cook gourmet meals and even shop at an independent food store whose products are generally .15 - .30 cents more than the larger local chain store.

You must think we're crazy, even I can't believe we only spend that much, but it's true! We're not minimalists, in fact we're obsessed with good food. What lowered our food bills from $600 or even $800(!) a month was cutting out the daily stops to the grocery store on the way home. We'd end up with a pantry full of food, yet would keep shopping b/c a meal ingredient was missing.

Before we put ourselves on a budget, we did something really creative and fun...we challenged ourselves for a month to use up everything in our pantry, fridge and freezer, only buying fresh veggies for that month. Friends loved the idea and would call each night to say "what are you having now?" and I'd update them on our current supply "well, we finished all the pasta and frozen food so we're down to brown rice and veggie broth". Don't get me wrong, some meals were down right boring.

Once we cleaned out/utilized our current food resources, we set a budget of $300 for food each month. How do we reach it? We meal plan, take leftovers to work for lunch and lowered the frequency of purchasing extraneous indulgences we don't need to be eating anyways (ice cream, soda, most snacks).

Instead of buying pints of local ice cream each week, I buy them every other week. It's taught us to slow down and enjoy our food (see www.slow food.com) leaving us more satisfied than before.

Good luck, and try to cut other expenses so you and your partner can model healthy living for you child. That's priceless.

by OsoEco at 6:20 PM on 14 Aug 2007

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On prioritizing organic purchases