{"id":1265,"date":"2009-03-24T02:26:49","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T00:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=1265"},"modified":"2015-02-12T21:27:31","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T02:27:31","slug":"should-you-buy-organic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/should-you-buy-organic\/","title":{"rendered":"Should You Buy Organic?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a question I get asked periodically…and people are often surprised by my answer.\u00a0 As I put it to one such person on the “Bodybuilding Revealed” forum:<\/p>\n

“As a “nutritional expert” (your term, not mine), I am vastly more concerned\u00a0about whether people eat the damn fruits and veggies at all. Organic food is often considerably more expensive than conventionally grown\/produced items, and I am not about to advise people to break their budgets by pushing the idea that they’re wasting their time nutritionally or endangering their health if they can’t buy organic.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mind you, I do support organic farming, for environmental and economic reasons, but – in my humble opinion –\u00a0making good food choices\u00a0is\u00a0the more important issue, regardless of\u00a0their source (i.e., conventional or organic).\u00a0 If you can afford organic food – great.\u00a0 If not,\u00a0the nutritional differences aren’t\u00a0worth breaking your budget over.<\/p>\n

Along those lines, I came across a thought provoking article in the New York Times yesterday: “Eating Food That’s Better For You, Organic or Not<\/a>.”\u00a0 The author makes some very salient points…<\/p>\n

People don\u2019t understand that, nor do they realize \u201corganic\u201d doesn\u2019t mean \u201clocal.\u201d \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s from the farm down the road or from Chile,\u201d Ms. Shaffer said. \u201cAs long as it meets the standards it\u2019s organic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hence, the organic status of salmon flown in from Chile, or of frozen vegetables grown in China and sold in the United States \u2014 no matter the size of the carbon footprint left behind by getting from there to here.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Local has always been a big issue for me, too – not just in terms of the carbon footprint involved in hauling stuff around, but also because of freshness – especially in the case of veggies and fruits.\u00a0 I’d just as soon buy a crisp, fresh bunch of conventionally-grown broccoli at the farmer’s market,\u00a0vs. an organically-grown bunch at the health food store,\u00a0that’s limp with age…nutrients are lost with prolonged storage.<\/p>\n

In addition, “organic” doesn’t necessarily mean “healthy”…<\/p>\n

…But the questions remain over how we eat in general. It may feel better to eat an organic Oreo than a conventional Oreo, but, says Marion Nestle, a professor at New York University\u2019s department of nutrition, food studies and public health, \u201cOrganic junk food is still junk food.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bottom line, is that you should pay attention to food choices first.\u00a0 Worry about “organic” vs. “conventional” once you have\u00a0your diet\u00a0straightened out AND can afford it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a question I get asked periodically…and people are often surprised by my answer.\u00a0 As I put it to one such person on the “Bodybuilding Revealed” forum: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,28],"tags":[426,808,1177,1862,1230],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8353,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265\/revisions\/8353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}