Laurel on Health Food

The New York Times Health blog came up with “five easy ways to go organic“. The article talks about the fact that it can be expensive and stressful to make the switch to organic foods. The following list is their top five choices of foods that are easy and/or beneficial to switch to organic.

1. Milk - as one of the foods we consume the most, organic milk is a smart choice to avoid antibiotics, artificial hormones, and pesticides. A study from the USDA “found certain pesticides in about 30 percent of conventional milk samples and low levels in only one organic sample.” Organic milk may be slightly more expensive, but many are ultra-pasteurized which means they stay fresh longer, unopened. You can actually save money by not wasting milk that goes bad before you drink it. My favorite milk is Stonyfield Farms’s Organic Fat Free Milk.

2. Potatoes - a USDA test “found 81 percent of potatoes tested still contained pesticides after being washed and peeled, and the potato has one of the the highest pesticide contents of 43 fruits and vegetables tested.” Potatoes are a staple in most diets, so switching to organic could have a huge impact.

3. Peanut butter - over 99% of peanut farms use the convential farming practices which include using fungicide to treat common cases of mold in peanut crops. Organic brands of peanut butter are now offered in the regular grocery store.

4. Ketchup - ketchup is another diet staple for many families and some recent research found that organic ketchup has approximately twice as many antioxidants as conventional ketchup.

5. Apples - apples are unfortunately one of the most pesticide-contaminated fruits, but the organic variety are readily available in the regular grocery store.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Organic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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