What You Need to Know About Organic Food

If I'm looking at organic and nonorganic apples side by side at a store and I can't afford the organic ones, what should I do? A nonorganic apple is better than no apple and better than most other choices. Rinsing conventionally grown produce reduces the pesticide residue and so arguably narrows the difference between organic and not organic. So, yes, get the nonorganic apples and wash them well. It's almost safe to say, “Never pass up an apple.”

What about trying to eat locally? "Locavore” is a relatively new term but an ancient way of eating. Locavores eat — or try to eat — food produced locally, although, of course, the word “local” is pretty vague. Before food was shipped, everyone was a locavore. Now the term has come to have a deeper meaning: that what you eat matters to your health, and the quality and composition of what you eat are in turn determined by how the food is raised, what it's fed and where it's from.

Sue Tallon

Don't Panic, Eat Organic

Since 2004, the Environmental Working Group has been publishing the Dirty Dozen, its annual list of fruits and vegetables most likely to contain pesticide residue, even after being washed. If you're choosing to buy some organic produce, these are the ones to prioritize.

1. Strawberries
2. Spinach
3. Kale
4. Nectarines
5. Apples
6. Grapes
7. Peaches
8. Cherries
9. Pears
10. Tomatoes
11. Celery
12. Potatoes

Why is it worth spending extra time and, usually, money to eat locally? Reducing the carbon footprint, supporting local economies, eating seasonally (and fresh), knowing where your food comes from and how it was raised … all these are inarguably positive attributes, and all are characteristics of local food. No one but a fanatic could eat only local food, but concentrating on these attributes would mean you were eating better, more ethically, more sustainably. If you know your produce is being grown on a local farm where chemicals are not being used, you know that you are avoiding those chemicals. If you know the soil is being nurtured appropriately, you know it's rich in nutrients. If your food has not been in storage and transit for days or weeks, it will have much more of its native nutrient content when you eat it.

So local sourcing means the foods have better nutrient composition? In general, yes; though if you're sourcing industrially produced corn locally, then probably not. It makes sense that agriculture and health are connected — there's no way around it. So the more you know about how and where plants are grown, the more confident you can be about their nutrient quality.

Does soil composition affect animal products, too? Oh yeah. This issue is even more important when you consider animal foods. The nutrient composition of meat is substantially connected with the diet and exercise pattern of the animal. Meat is leaner and has less saturated fat when animals get more exercise, for instance. The composition of meat also varies with what animals eat and the nutrients in those plants, which are in turn influenced by the soil.

Healthy, nutritious soil means healthy, nutritious meat? When animals graze on grass, as opposed to grains, they keep the soil healthy and produce better meat. And pasture-raised animals may have lower risks of industrial foodborne scourges like E. coli O157:H7, a strain that can cause severe infection and even kidney failure. It came from the intestines of cattle, particularly those that were fed grain rather than grass! So if animal rights and environmentalist arguments don't motivate you to eat local, remember that it also matters to your personal health.

Having said that, it is, of course, possible to produce bad or nutritionally deficient food locally. But a main advantage of sourcing locally is that you can see or learn about the production of your food and easily make that judgment. It's also pretty safe to say that a locavore diet does not include nationally distributed food products made in a factory somewhere, which pretty much means it excludes junk food.

Does that mean locavores can eat whatever they want? Grass-fed burgers and locally produced cheese all day! Not exactly. It's still important to have a plant-predominant diet, along with balance and variety.

Adapted from How to Eat: All Your Food and Diet Questions Answered by Mark Bittman and David L. Katz, M.D., published this month by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Used by permission.