Uneasy Rhetoric

The NY Times has an article on five simple ways to go organic.  Briefly, they are:

1. Milk
2. Potatoes
3. Peanut Butter
4. Ketchup
5. Apples

Milk is easy. Just about every supermarket carries at least one organic milk brand.  At Nugget you can get Horizon or Crystal. At Safeway you can get Horizon or their store-brand organic. It is a little more expensive but if you keep your eye open, there are occassionally sales. As for taste, I haven’t really noticed a difference.  Mainly I notice a taste difference if I buy the gallon plastic jugs versus the half-gallon paper cartons.

I haven’t tried potatoes yet, but it makes sense. They’re a root and like carrots, spinach, or celery (all of which actually taste different if organic) you buy them covered with dirt. If they aren’t organic, who knows what’s in the dirt?

Peanut Butter. So far, organic peanut butter has been a disappointment. I already pay a premium for Adams and to have to pay even more for peanut butter that tastes off, funky, *not good* makes little sense to me. Adams organic was the best of a bad bunch, but I haven’t tried anywhere near all of the brands available. I will endeavor to try again.

Ketchup. We don’t eat very much ketchup. We’ve got half a bottle of Heintz that is probaby left over from last year’s July 4th party.  We also have a bottle of organic agave ketchup that hasn’t even been opened yet.  For us, since we use it so infrequently, it just makes sense to spend a little more for the organic.

Apples. I’ve been eating pesticide-riddled apples for years, and other than this growth on my stomach…oh, sources tell me its a “beer” gut, not an “apple” gut…I’ve got no ill effects. But since I would rather not suddenly find myself staring at a hospital ceiling, I will buy only organic apples from now on. Although frankly, about 80 percent of the apples I’ve purchased in the last year have been organic.  I grab the first apples I see and where I shop, they’re organic.

If you’re strapped for cash, I doubt any of these options makes much sense because in each case you pay a sometimes substantial premium for the organic version. Still, in the grand scheme of things, over the course of a year my wild-ass estimate is that buying only the organic versions of the above, assuming I wasn’t buying any organics already, would be about an extra $300 a year, and that’s mostly because we eat about a pound of apples and a gallon and a half of milk a week (small child, you know).  I could easily save that much just by changing some eating habits. Since I’m already buying organic apples and milk, it’s really about $100 a year.

But I would argue that this list isn’t the best way to start going organic. Most of the time, I tell people if you buy just one organic item in the produce aisle, make it celery. Organic celery will remind you why it is considered an “aromatic” vegetable. It is more pungent and has a stronger flavor. If you use celery in your soups, for example, you will almost certainly tell the difference between the organic and the non-organic.

Second, I recommend spinach. Organic spinach doesn’t have the nice, uniform, big leaves, (unless you buy the pre-packaged crap in the plastic cases) and it’s usually more dirty, but again, better flavor. Spinach is also a leaf. That’s a lot of surface area to catch and soak up pesticides if you aren’t buying organic.

But no matter what you decide to buy, vote with your dollars. Stores feel compelled to stock organics because there’s demand, and if there’s enough demand, there will be competition, and at the risk of sounding like a raging conservative, competition is good for the consumer.