Top Foods You Should Buy Organic

If you’re new to the world of real food and throwing around terms like “grass fed”, “cage free”, “GMO”, and “gut health”, you may feel overwhelmed at times. You might still be trying this whole fermenting thing or laboring to get your family on board. We bet your grocery cart is starting to look a lot different and the total may shock you as you adjust to and learn about eating real food on a tight budget. The last thing you probably have time to worry about is which foods are the most important to buy organic. There are some foods in which you can get away with eating non-organic, but which ones? This post outlines the top foods you should buy organic and why.

“With the holiday season just around the corner, chances are you’re already thinking of the sumptuous home cooked feast that you’re going to serve to your loved ones. But before you buying baskets of produce from the grocery store, here’s something to think about: are you 100 percent sure the ones you’re buying are safe – and not loaded with pesticides and toxins?

The Problem with Conventional Foods

Over one billion pounds of pesticides are used in the US every year – an amount that has increased by five-fold since 1945. This includes 20,000 products made from varying formulations of more than 1,000 chemicals.

Some of the man-made chemicals used in pesticides are neurotoxic, and can predispose you to a wide range of health problems. They also bioaccumulate in your body. In other words, they do not break down and are instead stored in your fat, where they remain for long periods of time. This makes it difficult for you to get rid of them once they enter your body.

If the thought of loading your body with potentially damaging chemicals is unbearable, then you should select your foods very carefully. Only choose those that are fresh, wholesome, and certified organic.

Avoid These 7 Pesticide-Laden Foods

It can be expensive to buy organic food. Here’s a simple list to help you choose which ones you should buy organic to reduce your pesticide load as much as possible:

Apples – According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), apples can contain more pesticides than any other fruit or vegetable – a total of 36.

CAFO meats and eggs – Animals that are grown in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are often given pesticide-laced feed, as well as antibiotics and other growth-promoting drugs. Like in humans, these chemicals can bioaccumulate in the animals’ tissues and fat. However, unlike fruits and vegetables, you cannot peel or wash away the pesticides in meat and eggs.

Milk and other dairy products (like yogurt and butter) – Same as CAFO meats and eggs, conventional dairy also come from cows that are given pesticide-laced feed. Milk is also pasteurized, a process that transforms the physical structure of its proteins, such as casein, and changes the shape of the amino acid configuration into something that your body is not equipped to handle. Most pasteurized dairy is also tainted with Monsanto’s genetically engineered recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH).”