Better Late than Never: Organic vs. Local Produce Edition

Yes, I’ve decided I need to make an actual name for posts that arrive a month (or two) behind schedule. Because I can’t promise that it won’t happen often. But once given an assignment, I ALWAYS deliver! As my most loyal readers will recall, back in February I set us off on a quest to find out “the truth” behind many pieces of environmental conventional wisdom. In March we discovered that conventional cotton sucks. In April I started to get overwhelmed and totally dropped the ball. So here is APRIL’s wonk-fix. (And just because I went MIA in May does NOT mean you won’t get a May topic. I’ll crank that out next week, and then we’ll be back on schedule for June. See tomorrow’s post for my first-ever reader-poll in which YOU get to decide May’s topic! (Who says you can’t rewrite history?))

So, produce. I’ll be straightforward. It’s complicated. It seems that when considering what kind of fresh food to buy from where, there are at least SIX major and often competing factors that matter:

1. Your family’s health (i.e. how pesticide-laden is this?)
2. The Earth’s health (i.e. how many ecosystems are pesticide-laden and how much carbon was burned so that I could eat this?)
3. The health of the people who did the work to bring this to you (i.e. how many migrant farm workers will get cancer in twenty years because of their cumulative direct-pesticide exposure and in any case can’t feed their own families right now because they aren’t being paid a living wage?)
4. Your community’s health (i.e. am I supporting the growth of my local economy?)
5. Our overall food system’s health (i.e. is this purchase enabling the worst of agribusiness–see numbers 1-4?)
6. The food’s taste (i.e. something picked this morning is bound to be more delicious than something picked last week, dipped in preservatives, and shipped across an ocean.)

All of these factors are important and the questions related to them worthy. Every person will probably choose a slightly different ranking based on what is most important to them. (By the way, I listed them in no particular order–but then went back and tried to re-rank them in order of importance to me and found it was REALLY difficult, so just left them in their no particular order for now.)

I’m going to start with the obvious: The BEST choice is locally and sustainably-grown organic (maybe from your own backyard or maybe from a small, worker-owned/co-operative farm–oh, if only!!).

But of course we’re having this discussion because that is not realistic for most people (especially here on the east coast–where apparently the humidity makes it extra hard to grow organically and keep off bacteria and fungi).

So what’s the next best choice?

Well, it all depends on what is important to you…and that decision can be maddeningly complex–so much so that I can’t even begin to lay it all out in clear step-by-step terms that would apply to everyone equally. Let’s walk through my own train of thought on all this and see where I end up.

1) Local AND sustainable is better than organic BUT from 3,000 miles away and/or a giant factory farm.

I belong to a CSA (that pic up top is the bounty of last week’s harvest). Every other week for the spring/summer/fall and once a month through the winter I get to go pick up extremely fresh, locally-grown produce and dairy products. In this instance, it’s nice to let other responsible, like-minded people make the where-to-buy decision for me. Their farm is not technically organic and neither is the food they source from local farms, but I believe them when they say they seek out sustainable, responsible partners. I guess it’s kind of a “semi-organic-in-spirit” if not “in-certified-USDA” kinda thing. Which frankly, gives me a lot more reassurance than, say, this kind of certification. In the end, I know that I’m supporting the types of businesses we need more of in this world, and lending momentum to a movement that is of vital importance to the health of my community and the local environment.

When it’s not my week to pick up the CSA share, I can always hit up one of many farmers’ markets around the city to the same effect.

2) Local (from a responsible farm) AND (by definition) in season is better than organic BUT shipped from down south so that you can have your tomatoes year-round.

This is one I’d like to get better at. But because we have come to expect (nay, demand!) that we can get ANYTHING at the grocery at ANY time of year, it is going to require a lifestyle shift on my part that will slowly evolve over the next ten years or so. In some ways I actually look forward to the journey, because I do think it will add to that feeling we all love in temperate climates that “every season is unique and special” (and hey, in 20 years when winter here amounts to like, a month of semi-chilly drizzle, we can probably use all the added ambiance we can get–oh, but wait, when that’s the case I’ll be able to get my tomatoes year-round here, too. SNAP!). In any case, right now you can pry Li’l Miss’s bananas out of her cold, dead hands–thus, it will be a work-in-progress for all of us.

3) If it’s on the dirty-dozen list, organic might very well be better than local, especially if you eat it a lot.

When I think about how many strawberries and blueberries my child eats per day, and how many apples I eat in a week, it just seems to make sense to go with organic when it comes to these guys. Especially when I see that glaring “80% reduction in exposure to pesticides” statistic–feels like a no-brainer when presented in terms that stark. And maybe for the items on the dirty dozen list where organic is hard to find or too expensive or only grown in New Zealand, I need to think about simply skipping them most of the time.

And hmm…I might have just sort of covered most of my bases there! My main rules of thumb then would be:

• Go local (and ideally sustainable) whenever possible (and think about skipping it if it’s not in season near you). Support the small farms/farmers’ markets in your neighborhood over the big chains.

• Go organic when you’re dealing frequently with a member of the dirty dozen.

• If it’s something you’re not willing to give up, but will never be available locally (for us that would include bananas and avocados at the moment), might as well go organic when price allows.

After all that is it really so simple? C’mon guys, time to add your ifs, ands, or buts to the mix!

Truckloads of tampons.

Those without ladyparts might not find this topic interesting. I warned you!

Switching to reusable feminine products (that’s as dainty as I can make it sound, I guess? feminine products?) has long been on my to-do list. For, like, years. It’s one of those simple, environmentally- and human-friendly switches that should be easy to make. Well, I kept putting it off and never got around to it and just always seemed to have a huge stockpile of the other stuff.

BUT. I’m doing it, people! And you might want to think about it too. Why?

Trash. The sheer volume of really icky, really non-biodegradable trash created by disposable products is highly disturbing. I’m having a hard time finding solid sources to link back to with estimates on the number and volume of stuff, but regardless, we’re clearly talking many billions of individual “products” being tossed every year.

Ick Factor = Not so Icky. It’s not really any more icky than the handling involved with using disposable products, in my opinion.

Toxins’n'Stuff. There are toxins’n'stuff in regular bleached tampons and pads. Rayon, conventional cotton, bleached wood pulp. Sure, there might not be a LOT in them, but something like 10,000 – 15,000 tampons over the course of your lifetime is kind of a lot. Organic products are expensive and, well, still disposable.

Inexpensive! No more running-out! Hey, one more thing to not have to pay for every month or look for coupons and sales on!

I won’t report in a whole bunch of detail on how all these different things can work, but the basics are reusable cups of various materials (silicone, latex) and sizes (for those of us who have had the joy of childbirth), and/or cloth pantiliners and pads. Here are some great links to explore:

Lunapads & Diva Cup (helpful info too)

A video on the basics of using cups

Gladrags (also sells several different cups and has helpful info)

Various Etsy Stores!

Enjoy! And if you’re already doing this, feel free to share rants or raves in the comments!

Update: Olivemom is on board!!

Where’s the coupon for that can of organic store brand beans?

I will delve deeper than most of you ever cared for me to go into the topic of organic produce later this month, but today I wanted to touch on it briefly, in a gut-feeling, not-yet-completely-edumacated kind of way, for our ongoing “To Coupon…or Not to Coupon?” series.

Largely driven by having a new, relatively unsullied and ever-eager mouth to feed in the family, I have over the past few months placed an increasingly high priority on the intangible “savings” of feeding that mouth, and the mouths of her parents, food that has not been sprayed with tons of pesticides and preservatives. After all, what is more important to me? Doing my best to ensure that all three of us live long and healthy lives or ensuring that I can go on an annual cruise in my retirement (that would then no doubt be cut tragically short by colon cancer)?

(Quick requisite disclaimer: I acknowledge that having a choice between options such as these is a privilege many cannot imagine, and I in no way believe that families who are struggling to make ends meet should be worrying about whether or not their lettuce comes from a family-owned organic farm (unless they want to, of course). By the same token, I think we would ALL be a lot better off if the families who CAN afford to think about such things do, as those families have the power to drive the market for everyone else into healthier, more affordable directions. (Wal-Mart’s numerous and insidious societal sins aside, their recent move toward supporting organic and local produce comes to mind here as a result of the mainstreaming of organics. (Let’s not take time right now to ponder whether they’re price-gouging those small farmers, k?)))

While I like to get as much organic stuff as I can, I also don’t want said organic products to send my grocery bill skyrocketing. I like to find the right balance between reasonable prices and a grocery cart with as few toxins as possible.

(Just one other aside before I continue: I am also lucky to live near a Whole Foods as well as a Superfresh (A&P) that has recently launched their own totally decent organic store brand (Green Way). Larms will probably have a few choice words for me and all of us at some point about how tough it is to even FIND varied options like these out where she lives.)

Here are a couple rules of thumb (in no official order of priority–I’m still working out the hierarchies myself–any advice on that welcome!) that make me feel pretty comfortable:

1) If the organic version is no more than 10% over the conventional price, go organic. So if the organic can of beans is $1.09 and the coventional is $.99, I’ll choose the former–10 cents on the dollar seems like a worthwhile tradeoff for my health.

2) If it’s an everyday staple of our diet, go organic. For instance, I eat oatmeal every single morning, so whatever toxins are in conventional, I’d be getting a huge dose over time if I didn’t mostly stick to the organic version.

3) If it’s primarily for the kiddo, go organic. Now that she drinks milk, we buy the organic stuff for her, even though it’s ungodly expensive in comparison. Here is a case for me where the price difference is so much that it doesn’t seem quite worth it for the adult milk in the house, given how little of it we actually drink, even though it makes the dreaded list in Rule #4 below.

4) If it’s on this top 12 list of foods that retain pesticides, go organic (unless otherwise decided due to another rule taking priority–although looking at the original article and seeing the list of known side-effects associated with the pesticides in these foods, I might be changing my mind on that soon). It’s not all bad news. These are the top 10 foods where organic doesn’t matter so much. (If you’re trying to make a tropical fruit salad, you’re GOLDEN.)

5) If it really seems important to go organic (like with the meats) but organic is wicked expensive, just don’t buy it very often. We have meat with our meals only once or twice a week. This saves a good deal of money and means that when I do buy it, I can splurge to get the good stuff like grass-fed beef or free-range pork, or whatever seems less shady than steroid-infused chicken parts packaged in China. Or if it’s not the good stuff, at least it’s not going into my body every single day. (On that note, my husband is SUPER-psyched about the advent of the Elevation Burger fast-food chain and wants to let Corporate know that they BETTER be bringing their Philly franchise to a block near us).

I’m sorry, did you say 25% of the world’s insecticide use?

As promised, and just under the wire for my end-of-March deadline, this morning I spent a bit of time looking carefully into the world of organic vs. conventional cotton. I discovered that this world is not terribly complicated (I guess I expected to find lots of pros and cons in both directions which would necessarily result in a post packed with nuance as we worked to fully grasp both sides of such a complex issue. I mean, nothing is straightforward in this world, right?).

Well, my findings can pretty much be summed up thusly:

Organic cotton = good.

Conventional cotton = very, very bad.

Deep stuff, I know.

Truly, the only strike I could find against organic cotton is that it would fail in the thought-experiment of converting all the world’s cotton production to organic. It’s not sustainable in that sense–you couldn’t actually meet the current global demand for it with the time and labor needed to make it happen. I think it’s safe to say, however, that no one is considering stopping all current production of cotton and exchanging it for organic.

Meanwhile, conventional cotton production is riddled with environmental sins, most of which I learned about here and here: 1) it requires far more water than organic, 2) it accounts for 25% of the world’s insecticide-use and 10% of its pesticide use, 3) these chemicals kill everything else in the soil, meaning the nutrients to make it grow then have to be added in the form of artificial fertilizers, 4) it exposes its human harvesters to dangerous and carcinogenic chemicals, and 5) these same chemicals remain on the cotton even after many washings, so that you get the fun of wearing them around on your body for years.

The practice of growing cotton organically is basically the exact opposite. No chemicals, no fertilizers, less water, healthier soil, incorporates beneficial plants and insects to protect the cotton, and so on and so forth. At the same time, it can probably be assumed in most places that the labor practices used to harvest organic cotton are better. At the very least the workers are not breathing in toxic chemicals day in and day out, and at best they are also working on a small, family-owned farm where they might have a shot at earning at living wage. (Additionally, many of the makers of cotton clothing are worker-owned co-ops, etc.)

The verdict? If you really want to make the green choice when buying cotton products, you’ll go organic every time.

My suggestion on making such a choice economically viable (since organic cotton is more expensive in most cases)? Buy fewer new things, and try to get the rest secondhand, since the environmental impact of secondhand clothes is arguably zero, too. (You can also keep your fingers crossed that the former owner washed the item enough times to remove at least some of the chemical residue!)

If you have further information about organic cotton, please share with us. And if you have a favorite organic store/supplier, please post that too! I have used KidBean and Natural Clothing Company (whose customer service and personal touch are awesome!).

Next month: Local vs. organic produce: If you can only buy one or the other, which should it be?