Organic vs Conventional Fruit & Veggies

Organic vs Non-Organic

Did you know that every year a list called the “dirty dozen” gets released that tells you which fruits and veggies you should eat organic? Most people don’t and they only have a vague idea of why some foods are considered organic or “more expensive.”

So what does organic mean? It means that the food is grown or farmed without the use of artificial chemicals, hormones, antibiotics or  gmo’s (genetically modified organisms). It is also important to note that organic farming reduces pollution and is better for the environment as well as contains more nutrients and vitamins. Basically organic means natural minus any chemicals or substances.

This all sounds great until you start thinking and realize this means non-organic foods (probably majority of what we eat) are then grown with chemicals! Non-organic farming or conventional consists of using synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides and gmo’s to name a few. Now that doesn’t sounds too appealing does it?

Most people honestly don’t want to spend the extra dollar on organic produce which I would say I understand except that we spend so much money on skincare and makeup (the beauty industry in America was valued at 84 billion in 2016) to make ourselves look good and don’t realize that it all starts from within our bodies. You can apply all the face cream in the world but if you eat bad and put chemicals in your body, they will show on your skin (your biggest organ). Just some food for thought (pun intended).

So let’s get educated! It can be very hard to eat organic all the time and PureWow came out with an article that tells you which ones you should always eat organic vs which ones you can skip out on (usually they have thicker outer skins to block out the pesticides) which can be found here. What blew my mind from this article is that some of the chemicals used in America are actually banned in Europe!! (No wonder I always break out and bloat up after I come back from Europe and eat our food!)

If you can’t find organic foods easily then at least try to wash the non-organic ones correctly to try and get rid of as much of those chemicals as possible!

What you do is fill a bowl with 4 parts water and 1 part vinegar, soak your food for 20 min and then rinse with water (this reduces the pesticides but doesn’t necessarily get rid of them completely). Another way to eat better is to choose “local” produce which means it came from a farm with a 100 mile radius and then at least you know where your food is coming from!

I hope I was able to help educate you guys a little on organic vs non-organic and hopefully you will make the choice best for a long healthy life!