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Over the last 8 years I have met so many people trying to save money and a good majority of those folks are also trying to eat healthier. Many end up frustrated that they can’t save on organic products the way they can on traditional items and give up on coupons and deals all together. I’m left scratching my head trying to figure out why they are buying organic in the first place if money is super tight.
Can you eat healthier and save money? YES. To eat healthier do you need to switch to only organic items? NO. I would encourage you to do a little homework on organics and hear from both sides. You’ll find that organic doesn’t mean that pesticides weren’t used, and in fact odds are more were used because they are less effective versions. You’ll also find other things (like eggs for instance – that’s a whole bunch of interesting advertising). Everything in life is driving by marketing, and the organic industry isn’t any different. Most of the organic marketing campaigns are built on fear and they work really well.
If you are a Mama trying to feed your kids you are given massive guilt from the world that you aren’t doing things right unless you shop exclusively in health food stores and buy 100% organic everything. You’ll even have kind and caring friends help add to this guilt with posts and comments they share on social media. You could buy all the organic produce in the world, it’s still not going to stop your two year old from licking their shoes and eating dirt.
PLEASE don’t buy into all of the hype. If you want to eat healthier foods and save money you can. Buy more fruit and vegetables, do more cooking at home from scratch, even go hunting and catch your own meat (can you get more organic). It’s not the organic fruit that will save your kids, it’s cutting down on the oreo cookies and soda. Even eating to many organic oreo cookies is still bad for you… Reduce the extra items you grab on the snack aisles. For us cutting out snacks and juices meant saving over $50 a month! Want to save even more and get healthier… also try cutting the cable.
I’m not saying that organic produce isn’t good or that caring about better farming techniques isn’t good for the environment. I just want people to feel free to open their own eyes and make decisions for themselves on their purchases. When you see things on facebook like this:
Don’t beat yourself up and decide to throw all the food out and start fresh. Instead spend a second googling “cause of death in 1900” you’ll find that 115 years ago you would have been good to live to the ripe old age of 47 and odds are you would die from the flu, pneumonia and tuberculosis. You can go even further and realize that X-rays were just being invented in 1895 and even Thomas Edison gave up his work on them in 1903 because they were killing the scientists. We can detect so much more now than we ever could have then.
Does that mean that we don’t have issues now? No.
Are there things you should avoid for health? Yes.
What should you avoid? That’s your call. You have to do your own education, not let advertisements and very vocal friends steer your decisions. For now, go eat an apple (wash it first at least) and realize that if you eat a non-organic apple you would need to have over 400 of them a day to reach toxic levels of pesticides! You’re probably good…
Just eat the apple folks. And buy the way, if my soap box greatly upsets you that’s okay. We are allowed to have our own opinions on everything, I just urge you to not make a sweet mama trying her best to stay in budget and make healthy choices feel bad. Encourage her to make the best choices she can inside the budget she has!
