I guess I’m about as environmentally conscious as the next person, but I just can’t bring myself to spend the extra money on organic foods. Yes, I know it’s healthier for you, but a girl has bills to pay, ya know?
ConsumerReports.org has a neat little list of five ways to save when shopping for organic food. For example, they say to “buy lots of fresh fruits and vegetables in season. That’s when prices are lowest.” Who’d have thunk it?
This article appears in Apr 21-28, 2009.
You’re not alone in thinking that you don’t want to spend more money on organic, but a couple of things spur me to do it. First of all, we in the U.S. have gotten so spoiled by cheap “food.” (And much of it, really is not food anyway, LOL). Compared to people in most of the world, we pay the smallest percentage of our income for food, about 7% I believe, compared to developing countries, people who really NEED food, where they pay as much as 90%. So for me, that issue raises the thought of priorities. Other things have become priority over feeding ourselves in the best way possible. The other thing I’ve come to realize is how the pesticides etc. used in conventional farming are harmful not only to us in the end, but to farmers, their families, those who pick the crops and of course, the environment. We pay a high price for cheap food. These ideas have made me take a harder look at how I spend my money. If I pay a bit more for organic (and often it’s not all that much more), I also buy less food than I did before. I’ve pretty much stopped buying packaged food–though of course I there are things I haven’t given up altogether, I’m not a purist, but rather moving in a healthier direction for myself as well as others. Even though I’m buying much more organic now, I’m actually spending less money. It’s interesting how, once I started to look at this whole issue differently, I realized that it’s just not that much of a sacrifice to buy organic whenever possible.