A pet peeve of mine is hearing “but eating organic is so expensive” as if it’s an acceptable justification for a poor diet, so why bother trying. It’s actually quite possible to have a poor diet that is also organic as the term “organic” does not equal “healthy.” Though of course the term is often found on food packaging as if it is. Marketing at its finest.
Now, I’m not going to spend the time writing this article telling you about why you should eat organic. There’s a kazillion articles and resources for that. You either believe there’s benefits or you don’t. If you think it’s a scam, fine, but part of this article can still be helpful for you so read on.
A healthy diet, or lifestyle, does not occur over night and it is not the reflection of one good decision. For the purpose of this article, I’m focusing on diet and the steps one needs to implement to start moving in the right direction.
The reason for this, is while I hear the above statement/complaint/excuse often – I mean seriously, if I only had a nickel…- I think it’s a ridiculous jump from where the person is currently. As a wellness chiropractor that truly focuses on wellness – oppose to a bunch of supplements and/or fads – I spend a significant amount of time discussing lifestyle with people. I have in my files an overwhelming amount of data – reported directly from my patients – that suggests an incredibly large percentage of people are not even close to consuming 5 servings of fruits and vegetables DAILY. Like 1-2 servings oppose to 5+. And this is from people who care enough about their health to even step foot in my office. I imagine if those who don’t step foot were answering they’d be counting potato chips as a vegetable.
As a wellness chiropractor, my focus is in helping people understand their own self-healing and self-regulating capabilities. In every moment you can either grow a little stronger or a little weaker and if you want to grow stronger there are just three things you need:
- A positive focus
- A healthy lifestyle that includes a pure diet and sufficient movement
- A clear connection between your brain and all of your body
My focus on nutrition is teaching my patients the Innate Diet. That is a diet that as closely as possibly reflects that of which our much healthier ancestors consumed, the diet that we as a human species consumed as our genome was shaped, and the diet that we can observe in modern day hunter/gatherer populations that do not suffer with the rates of chronic disease that we do in industrialized societies. This should be the gold standard diet, oppose to one created by government organizations heavily influence by political interests (read Food Politics by Marion Nestle
Sufficiency Before Purity
So there is a big difference between a Insufficient and Toxic diet and a Sufficient and Pure diet. The first rule of the Innate Diet is to focus on Sufficiency before Purity. What’s that mean? It means you need to get all of your essential nutrients before you worry about avoiding the toxins that may or may not come with those nutrients. Your body is designed to be healthy – that is, if all of its parts are working properly and if it has everything it needs, then you will function as a whole as you were designed and you will be healthy. This includes your body’s detoxification methods. Without getting all essential nutrients, it’s just a matter of time before your body breaks down and displays obvious signs of sickness. Period.
So your first step is to start adding fruits and vegetables to your diet so that you start eating 5+ servings every day, even if they are not organic.
Eating a non-organic fruit/veggies is better than not eating fruits/veggies. Unwashed-pesticide-laden-apple versus Snickers. Apple wins.
Every. Single. Time.
It’s not until you’ve managed eating sufficient amounts of fruits and vegetables that you should begin to worry about organic. And the really great thing about this is your diet doesn’t have to be 100% organic over night! Whoa! Making lasting lifestyle changes is about taking small changes and making them stick before moving on to the next. Too many people overhaul everything on Monday morning and by Tuesday morning they’ve decided to start again next week.
When you are ready to start choosing organic…
There are these lists called The Dirty Dozen and The Clean Fifteen. These lists are put together by the Environmental Working Group. They’ve tested over 3000 produce samples in the form most likely to be eaten – for example, they didn’t test banana and orange peels cause no one eats those. They’ve even considered if the produce is likely to be washed. Based on the level of pesticide residue remaining under those circumstances, they determined the 12 produce items that contain the highest amounts of pesticide residue (Dirty Dozen) and the 15 that contain the lowest amount of pesticide residue (Clean 15).
I won’t argue that you’ll pull out more cash to pay for organic than you will for conventional. You’ll have to read some of those kazillion articles I mentioned earlier to determine if this is a cost or an investment. But, if you’ve determined that you really don’t want to be putting all these pesticides into your body or your children’s bodies, yet you’ve got concerns when it comes to your grocery budget, the Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 lists can ease your anxiety.
The foods on the Dirty Dozen list are the foods you most want to buy organic. Those that are listed on the Clean 15 you can rest a little easier knowing that there are less pesticides going into your child’s body and more money staying in your bank account. For example, avocado’s contain the least amount of pesticide, so spending your dollars on organic here doesn’t really pay off.
When applying these rules, think about how often you or your child eat the food. If you very rarely eat kale, then it may not be necessary to spend the extra dollars on organic when you do eat it. On the other hand, if you eat a lot of kale, then you’re definitely going to want to make sure you skip out on the nervous system damaging insecticides.
A word of caution here with regards to peanut butter. I won’t be yours or your child’s best friend in saying this, but peanuts contain aflotoxin, which is not a good thing. If you buy organic peanut butter, you may actually be getting MORE aflotoxin than you would with regular jiffy because it’s not even sprayed in attempt to kill it. For that reason, I recommend avoiding peanut butter all together. If you shop in the same stores as I do, it’s likely you’ve heard my 6 year old and I argue over this frequently. But guess who wins? I do. His mother. The adult.
Additionally, you’ll notice that sweet corn is listed on the Clean 15, but please keep in mind that the Clean 15 is only taking into account pesticide residue. It’s not taking into account Genetic Modification. Corn is commonly genetically modified. So if you want to avoid GMOs, then you’ll want to purchase organic corn. Plus, corn is not a vegetable, it’s a grain and I’ll write another article on that later. Actually, I probably gave some details in my Oh-M-Ga 3 article.
See how confusing this gets so quickly? This is why I recommend just getting the nutrients in first before worrying about how clean they are. Most people struggle with just eating 5 servings a day. Once their mind is polluted with pesticides and GMOs they’ll hesitate even more when purchasing and choosing produce.
Lastly, DO NOT FORGET THAT ORGANIC DOES NOT EQUAL HEALTHY. Unfortunately, you can purchase products that contain organic high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup is terrible for your body, organic or not. So, just because “ORGANIC” is splashed across the front of the package does not give it a pass into your shopping cart. You’re still going to have to read the labels. An organic poptart is still a poptart, full of simple carbohydrates and sugars and low nutritional value.
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