Don't bother shopping for organic seafood or body care products, because the standards are too weak to mean much, says Consumer Reports. But spend an extra dime for organic baby food as well as certain fruits and vegetables, says the magazine's publisher, the Consumers Union. The group pooled its own research with recent scientific studies and found that you may be able to protect your body from poisonous pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics if you shop carefully.
On the Consumer Reports' list of "must buy organic" are these easily-contaminated grocery store items:
apples, bell peppers, celery, cherries, imported grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach, strawberries, meat, poultry, eggs, dairy products, baby foods
But unless you're wealthy, go ahead and buy these as conventionally grown, because the organic versions are unlikely to be much better for you:
asparagus, avocados, bananas, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet corn, kiwi, mangos, onions, papaya, pineapple, and sweet peas
Find the Consumers Union's full shopping tips here, with pointers for finding organic foods on a shoestring. Buying produce in season at farmers markets is your best bet for cleaner, greener, cheaper eats.
It's not what organic produce has in it that matters... it's what it doesn't have in it.
Posted by: Elliot Schwartz | 2006.01.21 at 11:00 PM
The whole organic subject is totally funny to me. I used to have huge arguements with my ex-wife about it because we would spend a good $50 extra just to purchase organic foods. So when I worked at a place called HealthMedia, I asked the Nutritionist with a PhD in Nutrition from the University of Michigan, and she basically said that organic foods has absolutely no more nutritional value than regularly farmed produce. She added that at times it has less because many farmers add vitamins to the produce farmed. On the other hand, the environmental impacts of organic produce must be substantial enough to pay extra.
Posted by: Fausto Gortaire | 2006.01.18 at 09:05 PM