Ever since I was growing up, my parents have pushed for a strong healthy lifestyle. To this day, my parents like to make it habitat to hike Griffith Park every weekend. Part of a healthy lifestyle includes a healthy diet. My parents have always had a fascination with organic food and by extension so have I. I acknowledge my privilege when I say that most of my life I have eaten organic; this isn’t something that many families in American inner-cities can afford when you consider that organic food tends to be more expensive and many of these areas suffer from food deserts. The social justice behind organic food got me thinking, is organic food really worth it?
So here’s the first thing we have to realize; organic doesn’t necessarily need mean locally grown; that the carbon footprint you’re trying to reduce might actually not be getting that much smaller. By law, USDA organic foods cannot contain GMOs, synthetic fertilizers, industrial pesticides, antibiotics, growth hormones or artificial food ingredients. All this stuff that non-organic food contains can be bad, but even then you can still sometimes get away with eating certain non-organic food. The USDA publishes yearly “dirty dozen” and “clean 15” cheat sheets which essentially show which fruits and veggies are okay to eat non-organic and which should be organic.
The decision to eat 100% organic should be your own personal choice and before you make decisions try to get educated. Buying organic is more than what just ends up in your body. The social justice issues behind food should keep us motivated to keep our eating habbits in check. There are environmental impacts from the pesticides that are used—pesticides have led to the endangerment of bees. Not to mention that pesticides used also have health impacts on the people harvesting our food.