15 Ways to Save Money Buying Natural Foods
Share This
Source: dugspr — in Osaka
Let’s face it, you can’t help but notice that organic and natural foods cost a lot more…or do they? It really all depends on where you shop, what you buy, and how savvy you are when it comes to food. Here are 15 ways to help you eat more whole, natural foods for less $$.
Natural Food Rules to Shop By:
1. Discover Trader Joe’s. Although their food is not all organic, it is mostly natural and made with whole food. They are very inexpensive and carry a small, but wide variety of items. If you are looking to buy foods made without trans fats, HFCS, or artificial ingredients, but don’t want to spend a lot, look no further than the nearest Trader Joe’s.
2. Learn how to shop Whole Foods effectively. If you visit a place like Whole Foods, you’ll notice all kinds of gourmet foods, but you will also notice the arm-and-a-leg prices. You can shop smart in Whole Foods if you know some tricks.
a. Only buy their store brand, 365. It will cost you about the same as the conventional versions found in your typical grocery store.
b. Their chicken and turkey is fairly reasonably priced (equivalent to Perdue), but their fish and beef is expensive. Instead, look at your local grocery store for seafood, but check to make sure that it is wild and not farm raised, and you will save a lot of money and still get good fish. In MA there’s Big Y and they carry frozen, wild caught fish (their natural brand is called Full Circle) in vacuum packed bags which are great. As for beef, it’s best to limit eating it to only a few times a month, anyway. It’s up to you whether or not you think the organic is better. Again, Big Y also carries Full Circle beef as well as natural deli meats. Check your local grocery store to see if they carry a Natural/Organic Line of meats.
c. Don’t do major grocery shopping in a place like Whole Foods, stick to a few items that are exclusive to the store that you really want. For example, if you have young children you might buy a lot of cereal there. The cereal is kid-approved, but without anything artificial. And the natural, kid-friendly cereals are much cheaper at Whole Foods than at the regular grocery store.
3. When shopping for deli meats, choose the store-baked meats (and don’t buy these from a place like Whole Foods; way too expensive). They typically have the least amount of preservatives and taste the best. No need to buy organic. Also get your deli meats fresh cut and not in prepackaged containers. You will save at least 50% by waiting in line with your little paper ticket.
4. Don’t buy organic boxed items from a regular grocery store – (unless it is a store-brand). Get them from Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods (or equivalent). They will actually be cheaper as it is their specialty.
5. Remember, if you give your fruits and veggies a thorough washing in soap and water, you can wash away most chemical residue. If you are still concerned, a good rule of thumb is to buy organic if you will be eating the exterior, but if you eat only what is inside, you can get away with conventional.
6. Remember, natural food means natural. So think of simple ingredients and you can’t go wrong. Usually what makes groceries so expensive is when you pay for boxing, packaging and processing (or pre-making). If you make more foods at home, it will be cheaper and healthier.
7. Except for milk, a little juice, and maybe some seltzer, don’t waste money on too many bottled beverages. You can make iced tea or iced coffee at home and drink more water. Save your money (& your calories) for food.
8. There are many non-organic foods that are very nutritious. Don’t think you need to buy organic, you don’t. Fruits, vegetables and whole grains are always just as nutritious, organic does NOT make any food more nutritious, it just usually means it has less chemicals. There is a difference. In other words, a conventional orange and an organic orange have about the same amount of vitamins & minerals. There are also many non-organic products such as Raisin Bran, Chex, or Shredded Wheat which are full of nutrition and can be bought at low prices as they usually come in store brand. As for crackers, I like Trisquits. They have three ingredients; whole wheat, oil, and salt. Goldfish crackers are actually pretty good, too, just stay away from the ones with food coloring (just in case…)
9. A chip is a chip and a cookie is a cookie. Whether or not it is organic, a chip is still a chip; a fried potato with seasoning. Don’t waste your money on any “high-fat” food such as these that come in an organic version. It’s just not worth it. These are foods that should be eaten sparingly, anyway, so a small amount won’t make a difference.
10. You don’t need to buy organic frozen meals. All frozen meals are high in salt and that is typically the big offender for frozen meals. Regardless of whether or not they are organic, they will still have a high salt content. Limit your frozen meals, they aren’t really healthy.
11. Many regular grocery stores are now offering a store-brand line of natural products. These are usually cheaper than if you bought a similar product at a place like Whole Foods and are essentially the same products.
12. Don’t buy more than you need. Plan out your meals for the week and make up a grocery list. Keep a running list of what you need on a dry erase board in your kitchen. Separate each food group so you don’t miss anything. I bring a list with me that is broken down into dairy, frozen, canned, produce, meat, and non-food. It helps!
13. See what you can find at Costco/Sam’s Club/BJ’s. Costco now sells whole grain pasta and other healthy food products. As long as the food isn’t perishable, there is no harm in buying ahead to save some money.
14. Don’t feel you need to shop at three different stores every week to save money. Try to go to your specialty stores (Costco, Trader Joe’s, etc…) once a month and stock up (that’s what freezers are for). The less often you shop…the less you spend.
15. If you can, join a local food coop. You will get fresh fruits and vegetables (sometimes meats), from local farmers at a great rate.
Kimberly Bither, M.S., CPFT is a Nutritionist, Fitness Trainer, and
Writer at KimberlyFitness.com.
Related Videos
Popular Articles
54 Comments so far
leave a commentAgreed, I don’t buy organic fruits/veggies unless they’re the same price, but I do use a fruit & veggie wash (Environne).
Great article — I just recently finished reading Tim Sanders book “Saving the World at Work” and throughout it couldn’t help myself from wondering if the current economic woes were hurting organic farmers and other green initiatives. It’s great to show how you can do the right thing AND save money.
I wish I understood why you are suggesting that individuals purchase wild fish over farm raised. The two are usually similarly priced and farm raised fish are often the more environmentally sustainable choice. Would you mind providing some more background on why you make this suggestion. Thank you.
Trader Joe’s is one of my favorite places to shop. Also check out Fresh & Easy if you have one close by. Good prices on a lot of things, and lots of natural/organic products to choose from. For organic produce, Henry’s is a good choice. Check your area for local farmer’s markets too.
I know of Trader Joe’s..
And I want one in my town!!!!
Right now I have to drive a minimum of 2 hours to my parents town or the in-laws to even be near a trader Joe’s
Nice article. Don’t know if I agree on the just washing fruits and vegetables. The pesticides not only get on the plant but also on the ground and are absorbed into the plant. Also farms play tricks with the plants to get them to grow larger by spreading salt on the ground to make the plant absorb more water. Organic foods are substantially more nutritious and do not have the chemicals absorbed into them. Ever notice that regular fruits and vegetables are usually larger than organic? Larger does not mean better or more nutritious.
Jack, organic foods are NOT more nutritious. They are simply free of the pesticides and growth-promoting chemicals used by non-organic growers. It is important to not overstate the benefits of organic foods, as untrue claims become fodder for people who are anti-organic. I prefer organic foods and grow my own fruits, herbs and vegetables using organic methods, but I am under no illusion that my carrots have more nutrition than the non-organic ones at the local farmer’s market.
This post is confused at best. It seems like you’ve confused the case for buying “whole” foods with the case for buying organic foods (although they are both worthy goals). Statements like the following indicate that you miss the point of buying organic:
“When shopping for deli meats, choose the store-baked meats (and don’t buy these from a place like Whole Foods; way too expensive). They typically have the least amount of preservatives and taste the best. No need to buy organic.”
As you point out, “organic does NOT make any food more nutritious”. If you’re buying organic food because you believe it is more nutritious, tastes beter, or is “better” for you, you’re mistaken. The evidence for these two claims is minimal, at best. However, organic food is a much better ecological and environmental choice.
If you’re interested in making good environmental choices, but don’t necessarily want to buy organic, farmer’s markets or community sustained agriculture (CSA) are great options. The farms involved involved in these programs are often environmentally responsible, even if not certified organic – and you can ask the farmer in person if this really is the case.
Kate,
I was into this site for the first time. Interesting article though some of your comments are worthwhile and meaningful.. thanks.
The article makes the odd assumption that people only eat organic foods for personal health reasons, e.g., to minimize pesticide exposure or eat more ‘nutritious’ versions of common foods. Most people I know don’t purchase organic foods for this reason; they’re more motivated by a desire not to harm other people. (Avoidance can be mediated indirectly by minimizing foods’ environmental effects or directly by limiting farmers’ exposure to pesticides, especially in developing countries.)
Also, many of Trader Joe’s frozen entrées are low in sodium. Exceptions would be the quiches.
Finally, many people can save money and increase their purchase of organic foods at the same time simply by consuming less meat.
Ben,
Regardless of fish being wild-caught or farm-raised, the most important thing is for people to be eating enough fish (2-3 servings a week is recommended). However, here are some differences among the two:
1. Farm-raised fish are fed foods that are not natural for them to consume, such as corn feed.
2. Farm-raised can be higher in PCBs
3. Farm-raised typically come from either China or Chile. (obviously China imported food has been making a lot of headlines lately due to contamination issues).
4. Because of the “cramped” living conditions of farm-raised, they are more likely to absorb more contaminants.
5. As for environment, there are arguments both ways that either method has some damage to the environment.
6. Farmed fish rely heavily on antibiotics, pesticides, and other chemicals to control disease. Wild-caught do not have this.
Hope I answered some of your questions.
Jack,
Actually, organics can also have chemicals used, just not as much as conventional.
Realistically, if no chemicals were ever used, as a society we would run the risk of the cost of food being too high and supply would not be able to meet the demands of consumers.
AS for nutritional value, in face, organics are not more nutritious. They contain the same nutrient values.
Thanks for your inquiry and hope I answered some of your questions.
Use a Shopping List application on your iPhone to keep track of what you need to buy, and limit yourself mostly to what is on your list. I find this helps me save money. This is a great Shopping List application for the iPhone and iPod touch:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284974018&mt=8
This information is incorrect. Organics have been shown to have higher nutrient and antioxidant levels.
http://www.grinningplanet.com/2005/12-27/health-benefits-of-organic-food-article.htm
Not only that, but with non-organic foods you can be sure you’re getting a heaping serving of genetically modified ingretients, in addition to pesticides.
Poorly researched article here.
For some reason I was thinking this was a health/fitness site. Was wondering why some of your information was off base. Organics are tremendously more nutritious than regular produce. It’s sad that there are sites like this around that totally misinform the public in order to get their own propaganda out to the public. What’s even more sad is that people will believe whatever they are told because a food company tells them something is healthy. This seems to me to be more of the same. Sad times we are living in.
This article is so terribly confused… I’ll work on a real reply with good tips on reducing your food costs and eating healthier food (the implicit meaning of “natural” in this article) over the weekend.
This writer should check his facts regarding non-organic foods. Studies have confirmed that organically grown foods ARE more nutritious than conventionally grown foods. Vegetables and grains that are grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides lose the ability to produce natural defenses against pests (think of built-in pesticides/herbicides/insecticides). It’s precisely these natural chemical defenses that are nutritious for the person/animal consuming the plant. And, you can’t just “wash off” chemical residues. If a plant has been grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the plant contains the chemicals- inside and out. Organic is healthier and more nutritious, period.
One thing that many people don’t realize is that there are more and more natural food and organic good coupons available if you know where to look for them — this often means contacting the the manufacturer directly.
http://www.grocerycouponguide.com/organic-coupons/
By using coupons you can often bring the price of natural and organic foods to the same or lower than comparable non organics.
I think many are misunderstanding the point of the article. It is not to debate organics vs. conventional. There are obviously many benefits to buying organic foods.
The point of this article is to help people out who need to save money on groceries, but feel pressured to buy all organic when they can’t afford to. This list provides some suggestions that one could follow to spend within a tight budget, but still feel good about their food choices.
That’s all. If you want to debate organics vs. non, try another venue that is more suiting to that discussion.
I certainly agree that if you can afford to, buy organics. But with most people’s financial situations, they simply can’t afford it 100%.
This information is great…if you live anywhere near a Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, or Costco. Seeing as how no stores even similar to that exist in Northeast Pennsylvania, this information is useless to me.
Thanks for being so narrow minded in your recommendations! Not every American has these fantastic stores available to them though!
These are pretty general tips, that can ofcourse be applied to non natural food shopping at the general super market.
“Don’t think you need to buy organic, you don’t. Fruits, vegetables and whole grains are always just as nutritious, organic does NOT make any food more nutritious, it just usually means it has less chemicals.”
This is just flat out wrong. There have been numerous studies that show that organic foods contain more nutrients than non-organic food. Organic also means that the food is non-GMO, among other regulations specific to that particular food. If it was possible to just “wash off” the chemicals used in the production of non-organic foods, then it wouldn’t be such an issue.
Please correct your article. You have been wrongly informed.
Regarding point five, I’d heard differently about being able to wash off pesticide residue. It’s my understanding that for many thin-skinned fruits and vegetables, organic is the only way to go.
The non-profit Environmental Working Group has a great general guide to which fruits and vegetables are most- and least-contaminated (and the samples they took were all from thoroughly washed food):
http://www.ewg.org/node/22569
but what about flavour?
the writer of this article obviously hasn’t eaten much organic produce – the key being that organics have a WAY more flavour
and how can there not be more nutrition in something that was grown in its own time and picked when ripe as opposed to forced to grow bigger faster and picked before it ripens
MAJOR mis-information going on in this article
buy an organic orange (any fruit or veg really) and a non-organic – peel them together and taste test each one – i guarantee you’ll be more keen on buying organic from then on
Ah yes, the old manmade chemicals are toxic, only natural is safe. All one needs to do is at measurements such as LD50 which make is possible to compare toxicities. If one did, you’d find the LD50 on pyrethroids is generally much higher(the higher the ld50 the lower the toxicity) than organic pesticides such as garlic oil and rotenone. Everything has some level of toxicity. In fact, in the industry I now work items we consume such as coffee, sugar and salt have lower ld50s (more toxic) than any of the pesticides we utilize. You also consume far greater amounts of carcinogens in the food itself than you would encounter in an entire year from pesticides. I would suggest reading from the writings of Dr Bruce Ames, the scientist who created the Ames test which allowed the testing of chemicals by scientists to determine mutagenic potentials.
I certainly have no clue to what practice Jack Miller is referring to where growers apply salt to stimulate water uptake. If you applied salt to the soil, it would actually inhibit growth by most plants and eventually build up to levels toxic to growth. Salt build up is something that is avoided. In fact, the greater the salt content of the soil, the more difficult it is for the plant to draw water from the soil structure.
I disagree with number 10… have you tried Amy’s?
Number 11 is very wrong. I have eaten natural foods and been involved in/worked in the natural food business almost all my life – Almost universally, natural/organic foods at conventional grocery stores cost exorbitantly more. If you have a natural food store (whole foods, Trader Joes, or even better, a local co-op) go there for things you want to get natural/organic. Mostly this is because at the natural food store you’ll have, for example, four different brands of organic/free range eggs, and you can buy the cheaper one if you like – rather than having only one non-factory farmed option, which they can jack up the price of.
@Jack Miller: Do you have any sources to back your claim that organic foods are “tremendously” more nutritious than conventional foods? I have been unable to find anything to support your claim, and indeed a 2008 study in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture directly contradicts this assertion.
You are very misinformed and mistaken.
1. By definition, organic food does not contain any artificial chemical herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers. Naturally occuring fertilizers such as cow manure may be used.
2. There are a number of health reasons that people purchase organic food. For one, organic food has been proven to be more nutritious then conventional produce. Moreover, you are not eating pesticides. Pesticides are neurotoxins (which is why they can kill pests) and may do damage to the human body and human DNA. Organic meat is not given any synthetic growth hormones and organic milk does not contain rBGH which may be linked to a number of health phenomenon in humans such as little girls going through puberty so early.
3. People buy organic food not only for health reasons but also because it is environmentally and morally superior. At Whole Foods, all of their meat is raised and slaughtered humanely. In conventional meat farming, animals are kept in very cramped torturous conditions and the methods of slaughter are not always quick and painless. Moreover, organic produce cannot be genetically modified and organic farming of both produce and animal products must not negatively impact the environment. Whole Foods also offers fish certified by the Marine Stewardship Council which provides certification to sustainable fisheries.
It is completely wrong and a fallacy that we could not feed everyone with 100% organic farming. Organic farming was all there was 50 years ago – there was not all of these synthetic pesticides and factory farming and other garbage. It is all a question of supply and demand. Organic grapes used to cost $9.99/lb – now they cost ne $2.99 a pound today at Whole Foods. More people bought them so more farmers got into the business driving the price down. Organic farming is only about 5% of the total agriculture of the US. Imagine how low prices would be if it was 50%.
The REAL way to shop naturally and organically on a budget:
1. Buy things in bulk. Whole Foods has a bulk aisle where things are very inexpensive. Since you aren’t paying for packaging and the advertising/branding of whatever product, the prices are very low. Rice, pasta, grains are much cheaper on this aisle than even their store brand.
2. Avoid prepared and processed food items. These are for convenience but are pricey. Instead, make your own items.
3. Buy the store 365 brand. These items are very competitively priced.
4. Buy things that are on sale. Often things on sale will be even less than store brand prices. You can compare by looking at the shelf tag which will tell you how much a product costs per unit.
5. Keep an eye on sale fliers. Whole Foods has a online email newsletter you can sign up for called Flavors. (Go to their website.) They send it out every two weeks and have a privacy policy that does not sell your e-mail to anyone. It will tell you what products are on sale at your store.
6. Coupon booklets. I think they are called Whole Deal. The fliers have coupons in it and often double up with sales. I got 2 boxes of Nature’s Path organic cereal today for $1.50 off plus they were on sale 2/$7.00. Today price was $2.75/box. This is less than a lot of generic crappy cereal. They come out about every month and coupons have long expiration dates.
7. Shop every Wednesday. This is when they change the sales so twice as much will be on sale – the sales that are coming and the sales that are going.
I do all of these things and I spend maybe $100 a week on groceries for 2 people. This is including all meals – breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. No, I don’t cook a lot either. I am in college and work full time. I spent maybe 20-25 minutes today throughout the day preparing food – 5 minutes to make breakfast, 5 to make lunch and 10-15 for dinner. There are a lot of cheap easy meals such as burritos/tacos, pasta, etc.
Your #5 could use work – read the food guide at EWG.org to find out the most toxified fruits and veges, which you should buy organic. If you have an iPhone “there’s an app for that” FDA tests showed the washing fruits and veges did not remove the majority of detected pesticides, etc.
This article has some useful tips but regarding point #5, genuinely organic foods are not genetically modified, so it does matter if it’s organic on the inside also.
Anyone really interested in eating healthy, local, food should read “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan.
People must think about the non-monetary cost of foods they consume. Foods produced via industrial agriculture carry a greater cost for our environment, waistlines and future. Shop local and sustainable whenever possible. And the comments above regarding the nutritional value of organic foods are correct. Plants that are forced to “fend for themselves” (i.e., aren’t coated with pesticides and fertilizers) are shown to have higher levels of polyphenals. It’s like sheltering a kid from germs his whole youth – his immunity is weaker and he can’t deal in the real world as well as someone who was exposed and built up a natural defense. This article is fairly horrible.
It seems like a lot of people commenting about this article are very pro organic, believing them to have magical antioxident properties. There has never been any scientific proof (animal studies, human trials, reproducable results) that antioxidents increase health or life span in any animal. There have been a lot of medical theories that they are a benefit, but no absolute proof. The animal studies performed using pesticides used amounts that would never be found in the supermarket in an effort to find the upper limit of the chemical deathrate. The side effects of these massive amounts of chemicals are what get the attention, not the applicable amounts. You are not eating your bodyweight in pesticides each year. The best way to save money is to buy at the regular supermarket, wash the fruits and veggies, and stop buying into the eco-hysteria.
This article, intentionally or not, ignores facts and misrepresents.
1) “Natural” is a marketing buzzword that means nothing.
2) Organic food is more nutritious – and it has been proven. You can start here with your research: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_18156.cfm
3) Why the misleading information: Why this? http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/letter/?letter_KEY=1152
4) Perhaps here is our answer as to why: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_18182.cfm
In any case, good luck writing an article actually based on facts next time.
Ben, Kim,
Sometimes farm-raised is the best option and sometimes it is not. The Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program keeps an updated list of what kinds of fish are safe/environmentally responsible. In some cases, farm-raised is the best bet (eg Abalone) and in other cases they strongly discourage farm-raised vs wild-caught fish (eg salmon). Their website is extremely informative and you can even print up a wallet-sized guide specific to your region of the country:
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx
Taylor, to make a statement that this article is poorly researched and in the same breath point to an incredibly obnoxious piece of propaganda while saying “organics have been shown” is very misguided. The author of the piece you pointed to claims to have done a literature review and then says 72% of the studies arguing against his point are invalid. As a scientist (this whole debate is outside my field and I won’t claim to have read any of the literature), I get really irritated when someone claims to do something scientifically and then provides precisely 0 citations related to that claim. If that authors wants to do a review article, great, but then do a proper review article or at least cite a single source. This article isn’t research-based, but it makes no claims that it is. The one you pointed to is just irritating. (I’m not saying organic foods aren’t necessarily good; I’m just annoyed at the pseudo-scientific claim of science.)
Its hard to start a comment with an apology, specially when the comment is about an article that wasnt even writen by yourself.
However, I am sorry for whoever reads this article and swallows it hook, line and sinker. Its poorly researched and is mostly a mashups of what appears to be copy and pasted sections of multiple other articles.
Kim – Please cite some sources when you reply, as other commentors have done. When two people disagree thats ok. But the best way to solve the disagreement can be some facts, not just opinions.
My 2 cents… organic is healthy because it contains no pesticides, herbicides, or other “not to be consumed by a human”-cide. Washing MIGHT remove those chemicals from an ordinary fruit or veggie, but it still is in inside from the chemicals leached from the soil. Plus, what about beans and grains in breads and salads? Do you wash your organic whole grain bread? Also, organic and non-geneticly modified food tends to be smaller and more nutrient dense because they are not breed to be larger. Consumers can be tricked into buying larger foods just for value when in reality the value is far less.
Conventional vs. organic foods might have the same nutrition, if all else were equal. However, the concept of where the plants get their food is completely different in the two types of farming.
Conventional methods kill all pests chemically, which also kills 80% or more of the microbes, worms, etc. in the soil. Soil nutrients (AKA plant food) are created or made bio available by those soil microbes and worms. So, they add processed nutrients back into the soil–which aren’t necessarily bio available or in the right proportions for the plants. Over time, soil quality declines, and the food is found to have less nutrients.
Organic methods, on the other hand, are about fostering the correct soil microbes and critters, and also remineralizing the soil using rock dust, diluted sea water, sea minerals, etc.–which is a more natural, balanced form of the nutrients the soil needs.
According to Dr. Gabriel Cousens, MD in his book “Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine”:
“…on a fresh-weight basis…organic foods have about twice the vitamin and mineral content as conventional foods. On a dry-weight basis, this difference in nutritional quality is less obvious, so scientists like to use the dry-weight comparison in order to claim that foods produced by chemical-based farming are not statistically different from organic.” (pg. 63)
Also: “According to a study at Tufts University, organic produce has a nutrient content approximately 88% higher than commercially grown produce.” (pg. 85)
By the way, the MOST nutritious food is actually free. The edible wild plants that we consider weeds have a far superior vitamin and mineral content to agriculturally produced ones. So, if you want the highest nutritional content, learn to forage for ramps, violets, nettles, wood sorrel, lambs quarters, miners lettuce, etc.
I just wanted to note that Trader Joe’s is NOT necessarily high fructose corn syrup or trans fat free. I think their website explains that their store brand is free of those things, but they carry other brands, and sometimes I’m surprised by what I bring home–recently, raspberry preserves with HFCS and a while ago, Halvah with trans fat. Anyway, that is not to say that I don’t love Trader Joes, their milk and egg products are cheaper than my local organic food co op, so I purchase them there.
Buy local when possible. It benefits your local economy, benefits your local farmers, and benefits the environment (with regards to reduced energy for shipping). It generally also benefits your wallet.
I try to buy organic not because of the potential benefits to myself, but because chemical runoff from conventional farms–pesticides, fungicides, nitrates, etc–have had tremendous negative effects on ecosystems. Look at the Chesapeake Bay. When people try to save money in the short term, they are costing everyone a lot more in the long run. Bad environmental policy is always bad economics.
thank you to the person above who wrote: “Studies have confirmed that organically grown foods ARE more nutritious than conventionally grown foods.” I was shocked to read in the article above and in the respones that the prevailing notion seems to be that organic foods have the same nutritional value as nonorganic!
Here is some additional research to the contrary: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/25/HOG3BHSDPG1.DTL
I appreciated many of the tips in the article, espcially the reminder to shop at Trader Joes b/c of the econmies of scale they have. You stil have to look at the ingredient list very carefully there, though, adn the produce is horrible.
Unfortunately there is no agreement about whether organic foods are more or less nutritious than non-organically grown foods. Below is a link to a Mayo Clinic article saying there is no conclusive evidence that organic foods are more nutritious. it’s hard to know who to believe, as people on both sides of this debate have agendas that can play into their views. If I could lab-test these vegetables myself, I would!
I have decided to buy organic vegetables when I can afford it so that I can avoid the pesticides and growth chemicals. For higher nutrition levels, I buy locally grown, fresh-picked produce at farmer’s markets when I can, as fresh produce is more nutritious than the older stuff in the grocery store.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/organic-food/NU00255/NSECTIONGROUP=2
I personally like the chemicals. Nom nom nom!
Nice to have dialogue on this topic.
Just purchased organic ground beef and butter at COSTCO at very good prices but you have to buy the ground beef 3lbs in 1 lb packages for $11.89 and 2 lbs of butter in 2 packages $6.89.
Also use a CSA, Trader Joe’s, farmer’s market and grow tomatoes, herbs and squash. Have 3 growing kids so am concerned about what they eat.
Loved Michael Pollan’s books.
Just trying to do what we can. We are omnivore’s and think it generally helps to eat lower on the food chain, in season, and enjoy.
We could actually lower our grocery bill more by reducing the food we waste. I am guilty of letting too much produce spoil.
Well i have no insight on how to save money on organic foods but i did however change my wireless plan to a prepaid phone service and i have saved over 100$ last year of which i have spent much on organic foods.
heh yeah where can i get some genetically modified superior foods. my son will never grow as tall as me (6’6″) as he’ll never be able to get the superior foods i grew up on
Like the idea of going to your local markets to buy fruits and vegetables. Good from the point of view of buying fresh produce and also helps you save money.
http://www.saving-money.net
You missed one of the biggest tips of all: Rice. Can save so much money on groceries if you cook a few days’ supply of rice in one go – even good quality organic rice!
More on this tip here:
http://www.money-while-you-sleep.biz/50-ways-to-save-money.html
I agree that the payback may or may not result in a “payback” eventually. But everyone of these 15 suggestions mean buying some device or food that costs more than the one to be replaced. This supports the economy, more than an impulse to be frugal and within income.
You’re entirely wrong that 1) you can just wash the pesticides off produce, and 2) that organic isn’t more nutritious. There are studies that have definitely shown certain organic foods to have more nutrition, not to mention you can taste a difference.
You’re kidding yourself if you think the pesticides don’t do any harm. Your article is pretty anti-organic, which is really unnecessary.