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Better Choices

I spend an inordinate amount of time learning about the healthiest and newest organic food products available. Through my research at the various trade shows — most notably, Natural Products Expo East and Natural Products Expo West —  talking to industry contacts, roaming supermarket aisles, speaking with as many well-informed food people as I can and reading books, I have come to the following conclusion:

You can take almost any food in the world and some health expert will have something good to say about it while a different health expert will have something bad to say about it.

So, what I do is educate myself as much as I can and then make my own decision about whether I should be eating it or not.

The following five organic foods seem to be the most controversial. While books could be written on all of the foods below and by no means am I covering all of the pros/cons of each, I will try to highlight the most salient points.

Living Maxwell

Better Choices

Aside from the fact that conventionally-raised animals can be pumped with synthetic growth hormones and can be fed genetically-modified grain that has been sprayed with super-toxic pesticides, there is now another scary reason to avoid conventional meat: superbugs.

In results from a just released study, Consumers Reports found that 18 percent of the ground beef samples from conventionally-raised cows contained dangerous superbugs resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics used to treat illness in humans. This is compared with just 9 percent of ground beef from samples that were sustainably produced.

Consumer Reports purchased 300 packages – 458 pounds – of conventionally and sustainably produced ground beef from grocery, big-box, and natural food stores in 26 cities across the country.

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Better Choices

Now that many of my friends have young children, one thing that I hear from all of them is that “My kids won’t eat any green vegetables.”

This doesn’t surprise me in the least because (a) most kids would rather have french fries than spinach or broccoli; and (b) they have to be taught to like greens at a very, very early age. The good news is that there is an easy solution.

Juicing.

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Better Choices

For many people, organic milk is the first organic food product that they will buy.

This is largely because milk serves as an important source of nutrition for kids.  It, therefore, begs the question “what exactly is my child drinking?”

Not all milk is created equal

Hormonal milk contains a genetically engineered hormone called Recombinant Bovine Somatotropin (rBST), which is produced by companies such as Monsanto and Elanco.

rBST is injected into approximately 20% of all U.S. dairy cows in order to increase milk production, and industry studies by consultants report that this hormone is safe for both the cows and consumers.

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Better Choices

In a previous post, I wrote that milk is the most important organic product that a family can buy.

But milk is by no means the only item that people should be concerned about.

The worst offender on the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list are apples.

Forbes magazine recently did an excellent piece talking about five reasons to eat organic apples, and I wanted to share the highlights with you and provide commentary. To read the full article, click here.

Reason #1 – The average conventionally grown apple has more pesticide residue on it than any other fruit or vegetable.

Data from the Environmental Working Group showed that 98% of 700 apples tested had pesticides on them and that 48 different pesticides appeared. WOW!!!!

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Better Choices

When people talk about organic food, we mostly focus on the importance of eating food that is free of synthetic chemicals, genetically-modified ingredients and artificial growth hormones.

Yet, what we also need to be mentioning is that conventionally-grown food means that our soil is getting sprayed with an astronomical amount of toxic pesticides, which ends up polluting our public water supply.

According to the EPA, we use about 1.1 billion pounds of chemicals per year, 80% of which are used for agricultural purposes.

And what impact has this had on the quality of our public water supply?

Living Maxwell

Better Choices

Whether you’re new to organic or have been eating it for decades, here is a very likely scenario when you go to buy eggs.

You stand in the refrigerated section of the market, look at all of options, check out the prices and make a decision largely based on the packaging of each brand.

Some have attractive pictures of rolling farmland, others show actual farmers, some have photos of the animals. Most certainly, the brands are using buzz words such as “cage-free”, “sunlit porches”, “omega 3-s” or “heritage breed”.

Are these brands being falsely deceptive?