A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a great piece to update consumers on when it makes sense to spend the extra money to buy organic, and when it doesn't. Their goal was to offer sound advice to shoppers who want to buy organic, but want to watch their wallets, as well. After all, with grocery stores stocking everything from organic oranges to organic beers, it is difficult to tell just from the label what is worth buying for the advantages that organics offer, namely environmentally friendly production and a lower level of pesticides in the final product.
Basically, they found that it is worth buying the foods that you eat a lot of and probably not worth buying things you only eat very occasionally. The "to buy" list includes: apples, peaches, bell peppers, strawberries, imported grapes, spinach, lettuce, potatoes, carrots, milk and other dairy products, meat, poultry and baby food. The "not to buy" list includes: broccoli, bananas, frozen sweet peas, frozen corn, asparagus, avocados, onions, processed foods that contain both organic and non-organic ingredients and seafood.
The vegetables were divided up by the Environmental Working Group's data from pesticide residue tests, though growers emphatically state that conventional products are safe. Seafood makes the "not to buy" list because there is still no standard for the production of organic fish, unlike the production of beef and chicken.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-24-2007 @ 1:28PM
scottgendel said...
This seems to me to be the wrong approach, unless your only concern is the pesticides. Some things taste radically better if they're organic, and some things don't. Carrots? Huge difference. Bananas? Amazingly way better when organic, or at least a much better chance of them being sweet and not mealy. Spinach? Can't really tell the difference, personally, unless it's really fresh and local.
I'd love to see someone really do the taste tests on that kind of thing... see which veggies and meats and dairy stuff really have a big difference in taste, and which ones are just about the pesticides. I'd also love to see a little price analysis in this WSJ article. To me, I get organic bananas because they're still super-cheap: 99 cents a pound instead of 49 cents, but still, that's a whole lot of bananas for only a buck. I don't get the organic red peppers because they're something like 3 bucks a pepper.
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1-24-2007 @ 3:36PM
chuck said...
This article also does not take in to account the fact that many people buy organic for environmental and political reasons.
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1-24-2007 @ 5:33PM
Kyle said...
@chuck
I think the article doesn't address those folks because they've already made up their minds. This is more for people who might buy organic on occasion, or are still contemplating making the switch
For my wife and I, it's less about whether it's organic or not and more about knowing where our food comes from. We are a part of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) for produce. By default, most of the CSA foods are organically produced. It's a great program, we get tons of awesome produce inexpensively. Produce-based CSAs are pretty common, but there are even CSAs for meat and dairy. Also got us to try a few things we probably would have never purchased on our own. But $13 for a filled paper bag of produce, you can't go wrong.
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1-27-2007 @ 4:32PM
MJ said...
I for one will never buy bagged veggies, organic or not!
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