Dirty Dozen
Peaches
Apples
Sweet Bell Peppers
Celery
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Lettuce
Grapes (Imported)
Pears
Spinach
Potatoes

http://www.foodnews.org/pdf/EWG_pesticide.pdf

[...] was excited to read what Get Rich Slowly had to say about An Easy Way to Go Organic. J.D. referenced a New York Times article that suggested switching to the organic version of five [...]

@Scott B
1) Do you realize that every time you drink milk you “ingest” bovine growth hormone whether it is organic or not? No milk is “free” because all dairy cattle release this hormone naturally to produce milk. What some farmers do is supplement this hormone to maintain or increase production.
2) As far as antibiotics go, we have very sensitive tests for this. Each tank of milk is tested before it leaves the farm and all cows that have received antibiotic treatment(they are kept separate) have to pass a test before they are put back into the main herd. If the milk tests positive(very rare, if at all) the entire tank literally goes down the drain.

@womanwithmanyhats
I work on a 500 cow dairy in central NY and we milk the cows 3 times per day. 6000 teats are individually dipped with a solution to clean and prepare the teat for milking. Then each teat is is wiped with a clean towel(1 towel/cow) I don’t know how bigger farms do it but that is how we do it every day.

Also, since you pay your CSA in the winter for the next season’s food (I just made my payment the other day) you are hedging against rising food costs. It’s a good deal all around.

In dealing with raw milk, you’ve can’t go to just any dairy farmer. Cows that are pasture-fed can’t support e-coli in their gut if they aren’t getting any grain at all. Grain changes their intestinal flora. The typical dairy farmer feeding on grain and doing things the Big Dairy way isn’t going to be very clean or careful, so no wonder they wouldn’t give it to their own families. That’s not the case for those doing it a different way.

Obviously, big dairy farmers aren’t going to be pasture-feeding, because it makes the milk supply isn’t as prolific or steady on grass. They also aren’t going to carefully wipe down each cow’s teats by hand: they’ll hose them down if they clean them at all.

Courtney, you’ve “heard of outbreaks caused by raw milk”. If you look at the real facts, there haven’t been any in many decades–but there have been MANY caused by pasteurized milk, because all the antibodies present in milk are also killed by pasteurization. So if the milk gets contaminated after pasteurization, it’s dead and can’t kill the pathogens.

Many years ago, like over 100 years ago, big-city dairies were feeding cows on the spent hops from nearby breweries. These were downer cows–very sick, and their unpasteurized milk caused all kinds of outbreaks. The kind of cows whose meat was just recalled in the biggest-ever recall.

The obvious answer was to stop raising animals like that, and raise them in a healthy way. A group of physicians proposed just that, and made the standard for Doctor’s Certified Milk. It was not pasteurized and would be prescribed for many different conditions, right up to WWII.

But big dairies didn’t want to have to undertake all the testing and cleaning that certification would require. So they started pushing for pasteurization. Pasteur himself said he never intended it for use on milk! It reduces the nutrient content and destroys milk’s self-protective qualities.

Most small dairy farms and most doctors were against the efforts for mass pasteurization, but the big dairy concerns had better lobbyists. It’s a matter of record; links at the website below.

Plus its taste is great–complex, sweet–kind of like melted ice cream. We once had a couple of gallons where the cow had eaten some mint. Then it tasted faintly like mint ice cream. I added some chocolate syrup. Mmmmm.

Real information with links to good studies is at http://www.realmilk.com .

Ian

In the winter, we eat seasonal produce, like apples, pears, citrus (not local, but not from S. America, either), broccoli, squash, cauliflower, etc. We have a couple of fun cookbooks that are organized around the seasons.

If you’re goal is to eat as cheaply as possible, then organics probably won’t appeal to you. However, I find that the less convenience food we eat, the more money we have for organics/local produce at the local coop. Local food just tastes better, because it’s a day or two old when you get it — not a week or more from thousands of miles away. JMHO, though.

Are you really attributing your $0 spent on health care sick visits in a year to the raw milk you drink? That would be a very silly correlation to make.

Moreover, I have seen no studies that really show definitive proof that the hormones or antibiotics in meat are causing me problems either.

I am not saying that Organic is bad for those who want peace of mind, but I am just skeptical that it is as much better as some people want you to believe.

I would focus more on ridding processeed foods from your life before focusing on organics.

Calder Dairy from Milan, Michigan treats their cows a LOT better than the organic farmers do. Organic farmers, if the cow gets sick, they have limited ways of treating it, so they just keep milking the cow until it dies because it costs less to buy a new cow than to treat it within the organics standards. There are MANY dairy farmers who will pull the cow from milk production, treat the illness with antibiotics if appropriate, and wait the specified period of time for the antibiotics to be out of their system, which is longer than the USDA organics standards. Organic milk is rarely antibiotic-free.

Buying from a farmer’s market can be expensive, especially for those who may buy their food with government assistance. However, many farmers practice organic farming methods, but refuse to go thru the hassle and cost of being certified. Do your research.

For those who prefer local produce, consider spending one weekend a month over the summer canning. I have friends who have a canning party every Saturday from April to November, and each week is a different food, depending on what’s in season and what’s available in large quantities. They go thru the local food co-op for their deliveries (because it’s easier than buying from a bunch of the same farmers that the co-op orders from), everyone who shows chips in or brings their own, plus a dish to pass! This would be a GREAT project for those who attend churches with huge commercial kitchens that go unused.

It’s also easy to find non-organic beef and chicken that has been treated better than organic ones. But it requires you to do your own research into the companies whose products you buy. If you have a farm locally the raises and butchers animals for food, see if you can visit their facilities–take the kids! Great free field trip. If you like what you see, find out how to buy their meat, even if it’s not organic. If there isn’t anything in your area, then research the ones readily available in your usual grocery store.

PS: Organic doesn’t mean the animals weren’t abused. Read the USDA guidelines on what qualifies as organic. Make your own judgments, but think very hard about what is completely ignored about those guidelines.

Raw milk is one of our budget splurges. We live very frugally… but we spend $36 on milk every week. BUT, we spend $0 on health care sick visits in a typical year and we are extremely healthy.

For us, it makes sense financially and physically.

PS I have a couple posts about raw milk on my blog.

We grow a bunch of our own food in summer and we do that organically, saves us a lot of money at the store and the kids love to nibble right off the vine.

But teaching them about organics has bitten me once or twice in the pocketbook. Organic strawberries were so expenisve one day, I said let’s buy regular, but right in the store they recited right back to me what I’ve been teaching them. No pesticides, better for the earth, no one wants to eat/drink chemicals (we have a well so we’re real careful about our groundwater), they taste better…oh well, at least they listen to me! It cost me a few bucks to learn that lesson!

I’m not going into the discussion if organic is okay or not, this was about switching to organic and budgeting.

We used the following ‘strategy’. We cut drastically on meat consumption, you could say that we became ‘parttime-vegetarians’. That saved us a lot of money. We also reduced our dairy consumption. 1 Pack (1.5 liters) of milk and yoghurt each, for the entire week. That saved money too.

All that saved money could now be spend on fresh organic/local food. Eggs and cheese still brings us B12 vitamins, and more green vegetables gives us enough calcium. So that compensates the previous steps a bit.

And of course, the meat and milk that we do eat are also organic!
I realize it can be quite a big step for people to give up meat and such. But try to eat less meat, and use the saved money for organic food. That’s my advice then. Thanks!

Yes, less dangerous if you grind it yourself, but with out the spraying its a health risk. That organic stuff that sits on the shelves growing its evil brew.

For example, some organic milk is only a small step up from the regular milk. Still better than regular milk but for pennies more (between organics that is) you may be able to get something from cows that go out to pasture instead of cows that are close to factory farmed in tight quarters and fed organic feed.

Here’s a good resource for comparing the quality of major brands:
http://www.cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/index.html

I usually just use the “dirty dozen” produce list and buy those items organic, the rest conventional.

I live in Missouri, and I love avocados. Should I never eat an avocado, because they can’t be grown locally?

I always get a kick out of hearing people I know who proudly claim that they shop at the big open market in town and therefore buy locally and better quality produce. In actuality, the produce at the open market is EXACTLY the same produce at the grocery store (they all buy from the same distributors). It is certainly cheaper at the open market, but they are still bananas from Ecuador or tomatoes from Chile, etc.

I’m all for buying locally grown veggies in the summer and especially growing my own, but let’s not kid ourselves – our winter diet would look much different if we only ate local produce!

I read a lot about food and nutrition and feel comfortable in accepting the consensus that organic is truly better. I grew up on a farm and watched the older generations who poo-poohed the idea that good food couldn’t be grown without industrial fertilizers and pesticides.

I also watched MANY family members and close family friends who were also farmers develop and die from a multitude of different cancers including primary liver, prostate, metastatic bone cancers, thyroid cancer and more. My life experiences, observations and my scientific education have led me to believe that this organic movement is one that is well worth the expense and effort of joining. Besides, in my case, since I don’t buy meat, I’ve more than enough to buy the more expensive organic veggie alternatives.

I have also read several articles discussing the fact that organic veggies are more nutrient dense than their conventional counterparts. This is because unlike the artificially grown stuff, organics grow the way nature intended and at the rate nature intended – that is they aren’t forced to grow to enormous size in half the normal time. They themselves are more healthy because they fight off disease and parasites themselves rather than having chemicals doing it for them.

As for milk – regardless of it’s type – it’s not something meant to be consumed by humans regardless. The fact that it was ever in the “Food Pyramid” is more a matter of the powerful dairy lobby than it’s actual nutritional benefit. On the contrary, a study done as a German university in the past couple years implicated cows milk consumption by humans early in life as being a causative factor in Type-I diabetes. It seems the foreign (to humans) protein in milk in some instances may be initiating some sort of autoimmune reaction. Many other maladies are also attributable to milk as well.

There are books such as “Don’t Drink Your Milk” as well as writings by the late Dr. Spock and Dr. Neal Barnard of PCRM discussing how “milk is for cows”.

But back to organic, I certainly believe the pros far outweigh the cons. The health, environmental and ethical benefits are certainly worthy of consideration.