Organic Food: Worth the Price?
By: Elizabeth Ward, MS, RD
Q: When I don’t buy organic, I feel like I’m not buying the safest and most nutritious food for my children, but I can’t afford the extra cost. What should I do?
A: First of all, don't feel bad! Organic foods can gobble up your food dollars, so it’s impossible for most of us, including me, to go completely organic. Like you, I read the research about organic food versus convential food. As a mother and a registered dietitian, it’s come down to this for me: While organic food is probably more beneficial for children because it’s lower in synthetic chemicals that may affect development, there’s no need to worry about serving children conventional foods. While interesting and certainly worth consideration, the current research about the safety of organic foods doesn't unquestionably justify the cost right now. In addition, questions linger about the nutritional superiority of organic foods.
The most important thing is to provide children with an array of healthy foods. However, that’s no reason not to take a cautionary approach to limiting a child’s chemical exposure. I reserve my organic choices for the foods my children eat most frequently. Whatever you choose to do, here are some organic shopping strategies that won’t break the bank.
Pick Your Produce
In their Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit consumer protection agency, lists 12 of the cleanest fruits and vegetables and 15 of the most contaminated. While the EWG is an organization that works for a good cause, like every group, it has its own agenda. Nevertheless, I put a lot of stock in the EWG’s findings, and consider their list, which is updated every few years, the best resource out there for judging produce.
The EWG based their conclusions on tens of thousands of tests for pesticide residues collected by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. And according to it, the following are considered the 15 fruits and vegetables with the fewest chemical residues: onion, avocado, sweet corn, pineapple, mango, asparagus, sweet peas, kiwi, cabbage, eggplant, papaya, watermelon, broccoli, tomato, and sweet potato.
The EWG estimates you can drastically cut your pesticide exposure by upwards of 80 percent by avoiding conventionally-grown peaches, apples, bell pepper, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, grapes (imported), carrots, and pears. If your child eats these fruits and veggies on a regular basis, you may want to opt for organic versions to be on the safer side.
Go Organic for (Some) Grains
Skip the organic versions of refined grains, such as white bread and white rice. Chemical residues are stripped away during grain processing, when the bran is removed from the rest of the grain kernel. When you can, spend extra for organic whole grain foods, because the grain in these products is intact.
Organic Milk and Meat: Budget Busters, But Worth The Money?
I favor organic milk. It costs nearly double that of regular milk, I consider it a wise investment because my children drink a lot of milk.
Organic milk comes from cows that have been fed an organic diet for at least the past year or during their entire lives. I like that organic milk is from animals that are not given growth hormones, such as recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), or antibiotics. While there is yet no absolute proof that drinking milk from cows who have consumed rBST is harmful, I won’t take that chance with my children. Some conventional milk, while not organic, are from cows that have not been given rBST. That type of milk tends to be much cheaper than organic, and is a good compromise.
Organic beef and poultry come from animals that were raised on 100 percent organic feed and were never given growth hormones, antibiotics, or any other drugs. These animals eat 100 percent certified organic feed or grass that’s been grown without toxic pesticides or fertilizers. Quite frankly, I rarely buy organic meat or poultry because of the cost. I would rather spend my limited food budget on organic milk, whole grains, and produce. When I do choose organic meat, I purchase small amounts to save some cash, and combine it with pasta or beans to stretch what I have. Leaner cuts of all types of meat are cheaper, so you can save on organic meat that way, too. By the way, don’t bother with so-called "organic seafood" -- there are no federally-approved organic standards for fish yet, so you won't see the USDA certified-organic seal on your flounder for some time.
"Organic" Doesn't Equal "Good For You"
The organic designation does not always translate into 'good for you." Many processed kid-friendly organic foods, such as cookies and chips, are high in calories and fat as well as sodium and sugar, and they are not worth the cost.
Elizabeth Ward, MS, RD, is a Kaboose.com medical advisor and the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Feeding Your Baby andToddler (Alpha, 2005).
RELATED FEATURES:
