Should you Pay More For an Organic Thanksgiving?
It’s tough to decide when choosing foods at your grocery store or market whether you should buy organic or not. You hear about all the great benefits of having less pesticides, better quality and sometimes tastes better, but is it worth the cost?
An article from the Smart Money addressed this issue by comparing the total cost as well as the possible health benefits for buying an completely organic verses not. The final verdict on the price difference was that the organic thanksgiving dinner costs a total of $295.36 as compared to $169.01 for a traditional dinner. The extra cost for the dinner could be deceptive as they may have bought organic ingredients, but at a grocery store instead of a local farm. In a previous article I wrote that you could find a local turkey that could be organic as well as free-range for probably a lot cheaper than what they paid. In the end, the organic dinner will cost you more, regardless of how little you can get the turkey for.
Is this extra price worth it? The article says that you should get organic products that usually contain the most pesticides as compared to those that don’t.
Choose organic foods for those products that typically have high pesticide residues, like apples, bell peppers, celery and strawberries. But for commercially-farmed products that have low pesticide levels, like avocados, onions and pineapples, you can save money by buying nonorganic varieties … One recent United States Department of Agriculture survey found pesticides in about 30 percent of conventional milk samples and low levels in only one organic sample.
The biggest question to ask: is it worth it to you? That’s a tough question that is really up to personal preference. Some people want to ensure that all the meats they eat don’t contain hormones and are free-range and the produce they eat contains little or no pesticides. The cost for these is going to be higher because raising animals and growing produce organically and naturally costs more and thus has a premium. Nutritionally, they usually isn’t any difference, but the quality of the products as well as the taste could be dramatically different. Just try to use common cents when it comes to buying organic, especially on this thanksgiving and you can come away with a quality and healthy dinner.
Are you going to buy all organic ingredients for this year’s Thanksgiving or not?
Comments
I think you asked the key question… “Is it worth it to you?” We’ve been on the organic path for many years, and people ask us all the time what are the most important organic products to choose (that’s why we wrote Dr. Greene’s Organic Prescription). I think you’re right that this is a personal decision, but if we all make it, we really can make a difference in our diets, our lives and our environment.
I am addicted to your blog and love the variety you offer. This post pretty summed up the whole “organic movement” PRICE PRICE PRICE. Unfortunatley with the way the economy is right now I think some some people have really cut back on some things. Organic food may be one of them.
I appreciate it that you enjoy my blog so much. I agree that sometimes organic can be more expensive, but buying local product and meats can sometimes be less expensive than buying organic product at whole foods or other large natural food stores. Local farmers often don’t have the mark ups that they large stores do and they inform you of how they grow their produce and raise their animals. I hope that people still eat a healthy diet regardless of the economic times, whether that be cutting out some meats in our diets or eating out less often.