Off the [pesticide] grid? To organic or not to organic

This sugar-free thing is going pretty well. I can even report that I survived a child’s birthday party this week without eating anything sweet. The Allens Party Mix was calling to me- oh those honey bears- but I didn’t heed its call. So with that mostly under control for now, I wanted to turn my attention to other ways of being healthier in what my family and I eat.

So, time to face the organic question- should I start to buy organic food wherever possible? I already buy it in dribs and drabs. But I’ll be honest and say up front that I’m organically clueless. I’ve got very little idea about what it means in terms of the way food is grown or processed (beyond not including pesticides), let alone the potential added-value of organic in terms of health and nutrition. But I do know that it’s more expensive- and my husband and I have just had our mortgage approved on our first home, so our pockets are not exactly going to be lined with cash. So, cost and value for money are the two things I have to be convinced on.

When I started this post I thought I would be able to work this out and come up with a simple answer in a single post, but alas it turns out to be more complicated, and I turn out to be more long-winded in summarising it, than I would like. So it will be a mini-series instead. I’m starting with the costs today, and I’ll also look at the claims about organic food which I’ll then break down in more detail in future posts. Sound like a good plan? Ok then.

To costs. I know organic is more expensive, but how much are we talking about if I were to switch most of my normal shopping over to organic? I’ve done a direct cost comparison using things that I would normally buy. I’m using online prices, which should give me a reasonable estimate of the costs (and more importantly, the cost differences) to be going on with.

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So here's a trolley's worth in terms of organic and non-organic (unorganic?) costs. I’ve tried to make these fair comparisons by shopping at the same store (mostly Coles online) for the organic vs the nonorganic item (so that price differences don't just reflect a difference across stores). I know there are other places to buy organic meat and veges but it's hard then to compare fairly to non-organic. For things like bread, yoghurt, cheese etc where there are lots of non organic brands available (with different prices), I’ve used the brand I usually buy as the non organic comparison, so that I get a good idea of the difference compared to my normal shopping.

	Organic price	Non organic price	Difference if I buy organic
Apples Royal Gala 1kg	$5.98	$4.48	+ 1.50
Avocado 1 whole	$2.98	$2.28	+ 0.70
Broccoli 500g	$5.98	$1.99	+ 3.99
Carrots- 1kg	$3.48	$2.28	+ 1.20
Potatoes- 2kg brushed	$5.98	$4.66	+ 1.32
Zucchini 500g	$4.98	$1.49	+ 3.49
Pumpkin 1kg	$2.98	$0.78	+ 2.20
Tomatoes- 400g tin	$1.57	$0.8	+ 0.77
Chickpeas  400g tin	$1.70	$1.07	+ 0.63
Lentils 400g tin	$1.87	$1.07	+ 0.80
Milk 2L	$5.19	$2.99	+ 2.20
Yogurt natural 1kg	$5.61	$5.07	+ 0.54
Cheese 250g	$8.01	$5.08	+ 2.93
Weetbix 750g	$5.07	$4.5	+ 0.57
Olive oil 500ml	$7.66	$6.15	+ 1.51
Bread 1 loaf	$5.49	$4.48	+ 1.01
Penne pasta 500g	$2.45	$1.00	+ 1.45
Instant coffee 250g	$20.72	$21.8	-1.08
Chicken breast fillets 500g	$15.00	$8.37	+ 6.63
Sausages 450g	$5.99	$5.99	0
Lamb loin chops 460g	$12.19	$11.49	+ 0.70
Beef mince 540g	$8.99	$6.96	+ 2.03
Rice cakes 1 pack	$1.81	$1.66	+ 0.15
Baby fruit jar 110g	$1.45	$1.24	+ 0.21
Total trolley cost	$143.13	$107.67	+ $35.45

So there you go. As expected, organic goods are nearly always more expensive. Except in the case of coffee where I must be buying an expensive brand of non organic. Anyway, the total cost is just over $35 more for this trolley’s worth, which doesn’t sound too horrendous. Although if I look at it another way, I’m actually paying about 33% more for my organic trolley. Hmm...Well, added cost is one thing, but it might be well worth it if it’s 33% healthier for me. I guess.

Here’s the low down for those (like me) who are not particularly au fait with what organic means. The three major claims about organic food that I want to investigate:

1. That foods that are sold as ‘organic’ are produced sans artificial pesticides (crops), and growth hormones or antibiotics (meats). 

2. That the pesticides et al used in producing non organic food can cause untold harm to our health because they remain in the food that we eat. 

3. That, because of the above and because of the more traditional and less mass produced way of making them, organic foods are more nutritious. Specifically that they contain more vitamins and minerals, and better flavour. For example, these guys specifically claim that:

The benefits of organic food are now well recognized with research findings that confirm that organic foods have far higher nutrient, vitamin and mineral content, as well as not having harmful pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and artificial fertilizer chemicals that are present in non-organic products. Organic food is especially higher in vitamin C, antioxidants, iron, phosphorus, calcium, and magnesium.

There are also a bunch of claims about organic food being better for the environment, and although I don’t want to be dismissive of these which are very important, in the interests of keeping this blog focussed, I’m primarily concerned about the health and nutrition benefits. But stay tuned for my second blog ‘Off the griddle’ where I not only drop sugar but anything produced or cooked using electricity. Just kidding. (Although that does sound an intriguing idea. Feel free to use it.)

To round off this first part of the miniseries, let’s take just the first claim. There isn’t much that I can quibble about there, really. If organic means no pesticides, then by golly organic food won’t have pesticides in it. Whether this leads to any benefit for our bodies comes down to claims 2 and 3. 

But since I do love to quibble (and also the word quibble) I will point out that several countries, including Australia, have had organic scandals, with organic foods turning out to be just plain vanilla, or worse. For example in the USA in 2007 a not-so-organic milk was defrocked, similarly in the UK in 2009 a man was jailed for repackaging ordinary foods and selling them as organic. Then in Germany in 2002, organic chicken products were found to be laced with a cancer-causing pesticide after the chickens ate contaminated grain. So with both criminal falsification and accidental contamination to deal with, you may not always be getting what you paid 33% more for.

In Australia there is a national standard for organic certification, meaning that strict tests are applied to goods in order for them to earn the tick of organic approval shown on the product. But the certification process is voluntary meaning that you technically can sell something as organic when it is anything but- if it's not certified, then no one is checking. And companies that are certified obviously have to pay for the certification, meaning that you probably pay even more for certified organic goods. So you can either risk it with uncertified organic, or pay for certified, your choice.

It feels wrong to end here without any conclusion on the organic question but trust me, breaking down claims 2 and 3 is a mega-post all of it's own. So, here endeth part 1, and part 2 will be coming soon to a computer screen near you.