Day 77 - Organic, When You Can

Tonight I finished the book, Harvest for Hope by Jane Goodall

It was an eye-opening book and I highly recommend it. I do not normally list a finished book as a ‘first’ as a matter of fact, I think this is the only first time I have done it and this was not by chance, but with good reason. The message in this book really touched me. It’s actually very ironic, because I was looking for another book at the library and this one caught my eye, so I checked it out – mainly because we had just been talking with my brother-in-law a couple of days earlier about Jane Goodall . . . little did I know just how much I was going to learn.

Q and I buy organic once in a while and we always get free-range eggs, when we want to splurge on milk we buy from a local farm, Shatto (and it is so yummy) basically what I am saying is even before this book we did a few things here and there, but now we will be making a much greater effort.

There are so many topics covered – some we see daily and some that really made me think. One example, that I had never thought of before is that although the price of organic meat is higher than something that is factory-farm raised the price on the factory-farm raised label does not take into account the cost (tax dollars) to treat the diseases that are inevitable in many of these environments.

The book talked in detail about GMO’s – Genetically Modified Organisms and I was applaud. Basically every country BUT the US bans GMO’s but here in the US most corn, canola and soy has been genetically modified so here is a link to the web site True Food Now that provides a shopping guide to avoid GMO’s. Harvest for Hope gives an example that rats who were fed GMO potato’s when compared to rats fed regular potato’s died at double the rate.

There was also a section at the end that discussed Nebraska, which made me feel even more connected to everything I had learned since this is my home-state. I felt pretty special since Nebraska was the only state that had it's own section dedicated to it :)

I know buying only organic, free range, GMO-free foods can add up quickly, and I am not making any promises that I will only buy these types of food from this day forward, but I am glad to be more aware of the issues that exist and will do my-best-effort to support farms & grocery stores that go to the extra effort to provide us with fresh, healthy, REAL food.

(*photo credit: found at http://www.motherearthnews.com/)

One idea to start shopping-smarter is to buy any produce you peel away the outer skin of at the regular store (try to buy local) and thing you just wash organically.

If you read this far – thanks! I also want to add that I am by no means claiming to be an expert on this topic and just wanted to share with you some of the highlights of this interesting book. I am going to get off my soap box now and enjoy the almost-weekend ;)