Hello and welcome to The Own Your Health podcast,
I'm Cyndi Lynne and I can't wait to
help you step into your health power.
So this week we're talking about how, ask
me how to think about eating organic.
I have people approach me on a fairly regular
basis saying, hey, is it really worth the money?
What is, you know, what's the deal?
Does it really make a difference?
I read things that say organic food is the same
as everything else, that the nutrition is the same.
It's so much more expensive.
I really can't afford it.
So I hear all of these things.
So this is how I think about eating organic.
First of all, it's important to choose the best
types of foods that are best for your body.
So organic or not, start with the foods
in your cart, in your grocery carter, in
your basket that are best for your body.
So if you're the kind of person who doesn't
tolerate breads, then chances are it doesn't matter if
it's going to be organic or not.
Your body's still not going to respond well to bread.
There's a lot in the marketplace, a lot of green
washing, if you will, that has foods labeled organic.
And technically, yes, each of the ingredients is, but
the sum of those ingredients are still junk food.
So organic chips may have organic potatoes, they may have
organic seed oils, but they're still going to be highly
processed foods that aren't best for most bodies.
So start by choosing foods.
If you're looking at your budget, if you're looking
at your shopping for the week, start with foods
that your body really responds well to.
And then once you have those figured out, and
by that, I mean basically what we talk about
is healthy foods, your meats, your vegetables, some fruits.
Then look at those foods, look
at your budget and start upgrading.
Little by little.
Start upgrading
first, if you want, with vegetables and
fruits that we don't peel.
So we know any articles you need, anybody who's
looked at, you know, at the stats or information
about organic fruits and vegetables, know that, you know,
there's the dirty dozen, the fruits, things like strawberries
that notoriously have high amounts of pesticides on them.
We peel strawberries.
They're a soft fruit with a lot of seeds.
It's certainly not something you can scrub.
You can soak them a little bit.
Some people clean their fruits in a soaking of
water with a little bit of vinegar on them.
That's not gonna, that'll remove little bugs and stuff.
That's not gonna remove the pesticides.
So, for example, if strawberries are something that's
on your grocery list for the week.
That would be one of the first items
that I would upgrade to organic if that's
the route that you're trying to go.
Looking at the next kind of things, the vegetables,
what do we peel, what do we eat whole,
what do we cook, what do we eat raw?
And upgrade little to little as you go.
As you move around the outside of the grocery store,
which is where most of the healthy is, most of
the food that our body recognizes as food would be
the meat counter, would be the fish counter, the dairy,
in some cases, the produce, those
all those spaces around the edge of the grocery store.
As you move around, look at what is in your cart,
look at what you're planning to put in your cart, what's
on your list, and then upgrade as you can.
And there are times, there are times that
the organic is maybe $0.10 or $0.15 more
than the standard agricultural produced fruits or vegetables.
And then there's other times of the year where there's
a huge difference and you decide, do I want to
pay difference or would I rather choose a different fruit
or a different vegetable or a different meat?
So that's the way I approach it.
Think about first, what's best for you.
Second, what can I upgrade according to
my budget and according to what's available
at different times of the year?
And then third, strength balance.
And that is doing the best you can with what you have.
So one of the scariest things that
I hear people say is that's it.
I'm going all organic.
I'm sick and tired of all the pesticides.
I'm tired of hearing about all these things on the news.
I'm just getting organic from now on.
And that's really, really hard.
And it places a lot of strain.
It places strain financially, it places strain
on families, on relationships, on social lives.
Anytime we pronounce absolute like that, there's huge ripples
and it may not serve you very well.
Is the price you pay in stress and anxiety
and not being able to eat at your mother's
house or not being able to go to a
friend's house because you don't know all of the
food that they prepare is from organic ingredients.
Is that stress?
Is that compromise important enough to you to make
these huge black and white or these huge pronouncements?
I'm going to eat only organic food in some
parts of the States, some parts of the world.
That's fairly easy to do.
And if you're with a group of people
in your family and everyone does that, then
it's probably not going to be a challenge.
If you're like most of the people that I work with, most
of the people I know, we try to strike that balance.
We pick the, I'll say, riskiest foods for pesticides, go
organic there, and the rest of the time just do
the best we can with what we have.
And I think a lot of that
comes from recognizing this green washing.
You can look at bags of chips that are labeled organic.
You can look at crackers that have lots
and lots of bad ingredients in them, but
just because those ingredients weren't prepared with or
weren't grown with pesticides, they're considered organic.
And get boxes of organic crackers that have seed oils
in, that have rice flour and that have all kinds
of things that you wouldn't necessarily want to eat.
So organic doesn't always make it good.
It doesn't automatically make it good.
And it may not even make it good for you specifically.
And that's where striking that balance, doing
the best we can with what we
have, thinking about and eating with intention.
And if you want to try absolute, go for it.
But it tends not to be a very
healthy person because it tends to cause a
lot of anxiety around eating and shopping experiences.
And this is especially true if you're someone who's
trying to do this for your entire family.
Because unless you have an infant who is under
your supervision all of the time, it can be
really challenging with older kids, teenage kids.
And so it's,
I found it a much more healthy approach and
a much more practical approach to start with
the education. Start looking at
this is why we buy strawberries and other fruits, strawberries
and apples, from the organic section, because these tend to
collect pesticides and we're not able to wash them off
or we may not be able to peel them off.
But we look at the best that's available at any time and
we look at what we can afford and we look at what
we can enjoy and what's going to supply us nutrition.
And then the last point I want to make on this is
to give yourself grace if this is a journey you're starting.
And that's where my clients come to me
and they'll say, all right, I really want
to start eating more organic produce.
Like, great.
Moving in the right direction for your
health is always a good move.
Jumping off the cliff for it,
and that's, you can tell that's where my bias is.
Jumping off the cliff for it and making
these pronouncements usually isn't the healthy thing.
Usually it's a knee jerk reaction, it's
idealistic, and it's not sustainable, ironically enough.
So more important that you have good food, the
best quality you can afford, the food that your
body recognizes as food, and do the best you can
with, what's organic, what's pasture raised, what's grass fed,
what all of these things.
Also keep in mind that the definitions of these, if
there are formal definitions, change and evolve over time.
And that takes us to a very important point
that just about anything can be called organic if
it's set up in the right way.
So if, for example, there's a lot of, a lot
of manufacturers now who have gone to using insect proteins,
and if those insects are raised without pesticides, then insects
in your food can be considered organic.
So always reading the labels, always making
the choices based on what you want.
If you don't want insect protein, then
read that label and find out.
I would, personally, I would take traditionally prepared
or grown products over that had insect protein,
because that's not something I'm choosing for myself
and my family at this point.
But give yourself the grace to move into this, to learn
about it, to make the best choices, and to do the
best you can with what you have at any time.
And it means adjusting to social occasions, because that's
part of our health, our friends, our family, our
support groups, our events that we attend.
All of these things are really important in our lives.
And food is fuel, but food is also pleasure, and
food is shared, and food is part of our relationships.
So making the best choices we can
is always great and not overstressing.
Give yourself grace and congratulations on deciding to go
a little bit more in owning your health.
Talk to you soon.
Until next week, let's go out and own it.
