EATING ORGANIC

[iamaneviltaco]

I've been giving some thought about doing a post about this for a while, and consumer report just kicked me in the ass and gave me the motivation to weigh in on this. So, the question. Since food prices are skyrocketing, why buy organic? What's the difference? What should you buy

Comments

[star_swirl]

I've been given a tip to always soak my veg in sterilised solution, in order to kill the pesticides. I don't know about in the US, but certainly here in the UK you can buy sterilising tablets that dissolve in water.

It really is frightening to think about what happens to food before it reaches the supermarket, let alone before we put it in our stomachs!

[iamaneviltaco]

Lol that's the sad bit. If they exist here, I've yet to see them. That's a good point though, I'll have to remember that. My concern about it though is while it might kill some of the pesticides, it's the scary bits like the salmonella that are freaking impossible to kill. E. coli is nigh invulnerable, as far as I've read. Cooking might not even kill it. I'm sure buying organic for risky foods won't solve everything, but still. lol the safer the better, right?

I don't know how prevalent farmer's markets are over there, if they're near as abundant as they are here, but I swear by them for that very reason. Often times it helps to put a face to the food, in my experience, and good farmers will almost always tell you how far they go to make the food safe.

I'm sure it's probably pretty alarmist to constantly worry about stuff like that, but you're right. It's rather terrifying to think about what's totally legal for them to do to your food while growing it.

[star_swirl]

I think you can use the kind of tablets used to sterilise babies' bottles if you have those?

I get ill off food quite a lot, it's the bane of my life. I've pretty much banned myself from eating out too. I think the only solution is to grow yourself, which I'm planning to get started on!

[iamaneviltaco]

Everyone I know has gotten on that to some extent, for the most part. In between rising food prices and the fact that I'm pretty sure the stuff you get at grocery stores isn't even a third cousin to the stuff you'd naturally grow, I'm actually a bit envious of people who can do that. I'm all the way the hell up north, I don't think anything can grow here but blueberries, asparagus, and potatoes. I'm working on an herb garden, though, because herbs are one of the worst foods as far as mixed contamination, and most of the time they're hydroponic which robs them of 3/4ths of their innate flavors.

Do you have some sort of allergy about food, or are you just sensitive? I grew up allergic to onions, peppers, mushrooms, certain freshwater fish. I couldn't eat *anything*. I eventually shook the allergies, but I feel your pain.

[iamaneviltaco]

You're right about the free range being better, but I do know from living there for a while that beef producers in the mid west tend to only let the cows out into the field a federally mandated 1 hour a day, and that a lot of the time "out in the field" means in a large open stall where they're shoulder to shoulder. Compared to that, the federal mandate of 1/3 acre per cow must seem like luxury. You're right about the 4h thing though, but there's also the caveat to that of finding that kind of food in an urban area is nigh impossible, which is a real shame.