The mister recently watched Food Inc. and while recounting the horror stories of what food in America goes through as its grown, we both decided that now seemed like a good time to switch to organic. We are fairly lucky in that we can afford to do the majority of our shopping organically. But my biggest problem now is deciding what should be bought organic. Should we buy organic cheese and bread? Or are meats, fruits and veggies the main things we should focus on. Is buying organic at the grocery store good enough or is the farmers market better?
This summer I read In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. While I think this book would have been better suited as a long article, it did bring up some good points about food and specifically buying from the farmers market. Michael Pollen (the author) argues that when you buy from a farmer direct you can ask questions and talk to the farmer about how the produce is grown. When the farmer knows he's accountable to his customers directly, it keeps him honest and wanting to grow the type of fresh and organic products his customers want. (I'm paraphrasing - he says a lot more than this)
I don't yet have the full picture on shopping organic, but I did come across this great chart (and website) called the 'Clean 15'. While this isn't strictly about organic produce, it does help you to determine which fruits and veggies you would want to buy organic, since organic contains less pesticides. The fruits and veggies on the 'Clean 15' card are ones that are least likely to test positive for pesticides. I'm unsure if produce on the 'Clean 15' needs to be purchased organically or if the regular stock is ok. Shopping organic is a lot of work and research. Any comments are appreciated!
Here's some more information about the 'Clean 15' and 'Dirty Dozen'.
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