There is no doubt that the price of food is expensive. I can practically see you cringing at the thought of buying organic. I get it! Looking at the cost of food items, organic or not, is gut-wrenching.
But there are some instances where it's actually cheaper to buy organic over its conventional counterparts. (I'll give an example later on.) Plus, I'll explain further in this post why spending a little more for organic now will ultimately save you money in the long run. Your future self (and family) will thank you!
First, let's discuss what it means to be organic.
When crops and livestock are farmed organically, it means that the products they are producing are free from the following:
- Artificial fertilizers
- Sewage sludge as fertilizer
- Synthetic pesticides
- Irradiation to preserve food
- Genetic engineering
- Antibiotics, or growth hormones
Why is this important? Let's take a closer look at the first three listed and break it down.
Artificial (synthetic) fertilizers
Though synthetic fertilizers start to treat the crops immediately, are cheap, and convenient to use, they also come with long-term negative effects.
Synthetic fertilizers kill beneficial microorganisms in the soil, which means they deplete the soil and nutrients for future crops. Plants that are grown in this soil are deficient in iron, zinc, carotene, vitamin C, copper and protein.
On top of our food being deficient in key nutrients, nitrogen- and phosphate-based synthetic fertilizers leach Into groundwater, increasing its toxicity and causing polluted waters, damaging aquatic ecosystems.
The toxicity doesn't stop there. Plants produced from high nitrate level soil, upon consumption, can convert to toxicity in our intestines. When the nitrites react with our hemoglobin, it can damage our vascular and respiratory systems.
That's a lot to consider for the price of convenience.
Sewage sludge as fertilizer
I mean, I probably don't have to go into much detail here, but let's go ahead and take a closer look.
Sewage sludge is a product of wastewater treatment. According to centerforfoodsafety.org, "Wastewater and stormwater enter the sewage system and flow into wastewater treatment facilities, where the solid wastes are separated from the liquid wastes through settling. At this point, they are processed and "digested," or decomposed by bacteria. These separated processed solids - sewage sludge - contain numerous known and unknown hazardous materials. This includes everything that is flushed into the sewer system, including: household, medical, chemical, and industrial waste; chemicals and metals that leach from the sewer pipes themselves; and novel materials that are created in the wastewater treatment plant as a result of the combination of chemicals and organic compounds present."
Once treated, the sewage sludge is then dried and applied to crops, and or bagged and sold as "bio solid compost" for use in agriculture and landscaping. That means that this fertilizer that is full of toxic compounds, nano materials, hormones, and dangerous pathogens, are found in the food we eat. Yummy.
The Center for Food Safety also adds, "While certain sanitation processes do decrease some health risks, chemicals such as PCBs, flame retardants, heavy metals, and endocrine disruptors - many of which are carcinogens - are not filtered out. Instead, they accumulate in the soil and are taken up by crops, putting human health at risk."
I think I'll pass.
Synthetic pesticides
Synthetic pesticides are man-made chemicals designed specifically to kill or repel pests, which in turn increases farm yield.
However, the use of synthetic pesticides can have acute and chronic effects on human health and the environment.
Acute health effects from pesticide exposure includes irritation of the nose, throat, and skin causing burning, stinging and itching as well as rashes and blisters. Other common symptoms include nausea, dizziness and diarrhea.
According to pesticidesreform.org, "Chronic health effects include cancer and other tumors; brain and nervous system damage; birth defects; infertility and other reproductive problems; and damage to the liver, kidney, lungs and other body organs. Chronic effects may not appear for weeks, months or even years after exposure, making it difficult to link health impacts on pesticides."
The article continues, "Pesticides have been implicated in human studies of leukemia, lymphoma and cancers of the brain, breasts, prostate, testes and ovaries. Reproductive harm from pesticides includes birth defects, still birth, spontaneous abortion, sterility and infertility."
Are you starting to see how spending money on organic food will save you in the long run?
Let's take a look at the chronic effect, cancer, for example. According to the C.D.C., that disease alone is predicted to cost more than $240 billion annually by 2030.
If having read the aforementioned has you feeling stressed about the food in your kitchen, don't sweat it. You don't need to toss everything and go 100% organic all at once! And I certainly don't want you giving up pure foods just because it isn't organic! Conventionally grown pure foods are still better than processed foods.
Instead, I recommend slowly converting to organic when you run out of something, or when you need a particular ingredient. A great place to start is using the Environmental Working Group's (EWG) Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen cheat sheets. These lists indicate which produce you should buy organic, and which are safe to consume from conventional crops.
Furthermore, don't be afraid to compare organic prices to conventional ones. In my local grocery store, I can buy two bags of organic carrots that are equivalent in weight, to one bag of conventional carrots, for less.
Though you might pay a few extra dollars for some organic products, it is clearly worth paying up front to prevent disease, rather than paying to treat it.
What are your thoughts on organic? Have you learned something in this post? I'd love to hear your take on things! Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.