Breaking with tradition, I am about to write something slightly useful. If you know me, you'll know that I am quite critical of 'organic food'... especially as as brand. You might as well just say organic=gentrified, there are exceptions however and it is the classic confused issue.
For those of you un-initiated, organic food is food grown without the use of pesticides or synthetic fertilisers. How this is defined is very broad and as such I believe it is a fallacy to say it is always a better choice. A very obvious example: Tayside strawberries (conventional) vs organic strawberries from California. You may be faced with this choice at Tesco. Clearly the local berries will taste better and given good managment might also be better for the environment than ones grown under organic husbandry with irrigation in 45 degree heat somewhere in California.
It gets more complicated, I could go on.
Anyway, I found a nice little summary, American, but could likely be applied to the UK and elsewhere.
http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/Dirty-Dozen-Foods
I'll summarise [my notes in square brackets]:
12 Foods You Should Probably Buy Organic
1. Peaches
2. Apples
3. Sweet Peppers
4. Celery
5. Nectarines
6. Strawberries
7. Cherries
8. Kale [umm, who eats this stuff?]
9. Leafy Greens
10. Grapes
11. Carrots [not sure if applies as much in the UK]
12. Pears
[13. Bananas - this should be number 1]
[Having applied many a pesticide myself, I would think most of these are obvious. Fruit and veg that come in to contact with the spray itself and have a porous skin are going to be most likely to absorb the chemical.]
15 Foods You Can Probably Buy Normal
1. Onion
2. Avocado
3. Sweet Corn
4. Pineapple
5. Mango
6. Asparagus
7. Peas
8. Kiwi
9. Cabbage
10. Eggplant [Aubergine]
11. Papaya
12. Watermelon [wow, water in melon form!]
13. Broccoli
14. Tomato [aside from the fact it'll probably taste awful]
15. Sweet Potato
Well, there you go... if you are concered about pesticide residues, that's some good advice. However, I think that you would do far better to just educate yourself and think a bit. A good clue is often place of origin. If they come from a country where bribes form a substantial part of the GDP, you might want to think twice (okay, well we have to exclude Italy, where even the mafia wouldn't accept a bribe to allow bad food). Also, think about where you are getting the food. Really great food often goes bad quickly, so learn how to bottle!
4 comments:
your post's information is not slightly important but its very important for organic veg & fruits as well. But now in days, its very hard to get pour veg & fruit. All are grown with the help of pesticides and many other Herbicide. How can it be possible then??
Kale is good for you. It's full of vitamins and minerals. It's also really good in a stir-fry. Seriously - it's amazing. You should try chopping some Kale into your next stirfry. Mark my words. It adds colour and nutrition.
Also, just because you don't like Tomatoes, it doesn't mean they taste bad. :-P
Glad you're writing again. I need to write more...
You're right. I am going to start canning in the Fall. Thanks for the advice!
Good entry! Due to the reason mentioned below the first list should tomatoes not be part of that list as well? And if not, why not? And how about eggplant?
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