Buying Organic Foods

So you have decided to buy organic. Here are a few things to do to make sure you are getting the best organic foods you can and make it as cost effective as possible.

Comparison shop. Do a price check among local grocery stores for often purchased organic items and shop where you find the lowest prices. In the New York City area, for example, organic baby food can be found for as little as 69 cents and as much as $1.29 for the same brand. When it comes to fresh produce, remember that you’ll save by buying it in season.

Go local. You can find organic growers at most farmer’s markets, anda USDA study in 2002 found that about 40 percent of those farmers don’t charge a premium.

Join the farm team. Buy a share in a community-supported organic farm and you’ll get a weekly supply of produce from spring until fall. The cost to feed a family of four generally ranges from $300 to $500 for the season. You can view a list of community ran farms here: http://www.sare.org

Look Closely at the Supermarket. Make sure you get what you pay for by watching where produce sits on shelves. All grocers are legally required to stack organic fruits and vegetables where they won’t be exposed to water runoff from the misting of conventional produce, which could contaminate organic items with pesticide residue. If a store is not following that rule, you may be wasting your money by buying organic produce there.

What are the Requirements to be Certified Organic

So what can you count on when you buy organic? No animals, except dairy cows prior to being moved to organic farms, can be given antibiotics, growth hormones, or feed made from animal byproducts, which can transmit mad cow disease. To certify a cow organic it must be free of these things for at least a year. No genetic modification or irradiation is permitted, nor is fertilizer made with sewage sludge or synthetic ingredients, all of which are allowed in most conventional food production.

Organically raised animals must also have access to the outdoors, though it might simply mean that cattle are cooped up in outdoor pens. The rules governing poultry are even less stringent than for other livestock. Some “organic” chickens, for example, spend their short lives confined in coops with screen windows.

Organic fruits and vegetables are farmed with botanical or primarily nonsynthetic pest controls quickly broken down by sunlight and oxygen, instead of long-lasting synthetic chemicals. Organic produce sometimes carries chemical residues because of pesticides that are now pervasive in groundwater and rain, but their chemical load is much lower.

According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a research and advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables exposes you to about 20 pesticides a day on average. If you eat the 12 least contaminated, you’re exposed to about two pesticides a day.

Organic Isn't What it Used to Be

If the organic label conjures up images of cackling chickens running free in a field and pristine vegetables without a trace of pesticides, keep reading. While the organic label indicates that a product meets certain government standards, those standards are coming under pressure as big companies cash in on the growing demand for organic foods. H. Lee Scott Jr., chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores, has described organic as “one of the fastest-growing categories in all of food and in Wal-Mart.”

"Consumer spending on organic has grown so much that we’ve attracted big players who want to bend the rules so that they can brand their products as organic without incurring the expenses involved in truly living up to organic standards,” says Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, an advocacy group based in Finland, Minn. Lobbying by large food companies to weaken organic rules started when the U.S. Department of Agriculture fully implemented organic labeling standards in October 2002. Food producers immediately fought the new rules. The amendment stated that if the price of organic feed was more than twice the cost of regular feed--which can contain heavy metals, pesticides, and animal byproducts--then livestock producers could feed their animals less costly, nonorganic feed but still label their products organic.

That bizarre change in standards was repealed in April 2003 after consumers and organic producers protested, but the fight to maintain the integrity of organic labeling continues. In October 2005, Congress weakened the organic-labeling law despite protests from more than 325,000 consumers and 250 organic-food companies. The law overturns a recent court ruling that barred the use of synthetic ingredients in “organic” foods. It mostly affects processed products such as canned soups and frozen pizza.

Organic produce still exposes consumers to far less pesticides and harmful chemicals, but it pays to be aware of the fight for organics.