Organic Foods
All About the USDA Organic Label
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s certified organic label, introduced several years ago, affirms that a food comes from a farm that has met standards of organic production and doesn’t use chemicals. A food labeled 100 percent organic must be just that. Similarly, any food labeled made with organic ingredients must consist of at least 70 percent organic contents. You can never be sure that any food is 100 percent chemical-free, because pre-existing environmental pollution could potentially impact even organic farms, but you are minimizing your exposure to the chemicals used in conventional farming if you opt for organic foods. Be aware when you’re shopping for organic foods that phrases such as all-natural and free range are not regulated by the USDA and have not undergone the certification process to be certified as organic foods. That doesn’t mean these products are bad or unhealthy, but they may not be as organic as the marketing people would like you to think.
Buy Locally And In Season, Organic Or Not
Even more important than whether produce is organic is how far it has traveled before it reaches your store. The sooner you eat fruits and vegetables after they are harvested, the higher the nutritional benefit. Research has shown that a week in transit can reduce the nutrients in fresh foods by as much as 50 percent. Buying produce from a local farmers’ market is a great way to promote your healthy diet by eating fresher food, and you’ll support local business, too. So if you have a choice between organic apples imported from Washington state or locally grown apples from a farmers’ market on a crisp fall day, act (and eat) locally. The number of farmers’ markets in the U.S. has increased in recent years.
Chefs Diet Advantage
Eat Organically On A Budget
Organic food doesn’t have to break the bank. Several tips to help you enjoy organic foods on a budget: -Be your own chef. While prepared foods are great, you are paying for convenience. Rather than buying an organic prepared meal, by organic pasta or rice, veggies, and sauce and do it yourself. -Stock up on sale days. When your favorite organic foods go on sale, stock up when possible. -Shop around. You may not have to go to the chic health food store to find organic foods. The 365 brand at Whole Foods or Safeway’s O brand are closer to the cost of non-organic items at these stores. - Many co-ops have organic foods available in bulk, such as beans, rice, flour, nuts, and even organic chocolate chips. If you don’t have room to store the surplus, consider getting together with a friend or two to place a bulk order to save money and space.
Frozen Foods Can Save Time And Help Your Health
If you find that you don’t tend to use up a whole bunch of spinach before it goes bad, don’t be mislead by the idea that frozen foods are less healthy. Many frozen food companies harvest their produce at its nutritional peak and freeze it immediately, so the maximum nutritional value is preserved. In fact, frozen vegetables and fruits, whether or not they are labeled organic, often have more nutrients than non-local fresh produce. Similarly, canned foods are sometimes healthier than fresh; tomatoes are a key example. Canned tomato pastes and sauces have higher concentrations of lycopene, a powerful antioxidant, than tomatoes off the vine. That doesn’t mean that vine-fresh tomatoes aren’t wonderful; it means that when they aren’t in season you may do better to get your lycopene via spaghetti sauce than from an out-of-season tomato. Caveat: Companies that process canned foods cook them at high temperatures, which eliminate bacteria but also destroy some nutrients, specifically vitamin C. However, the majority of the food’s vitamins and minerals remain intact.
Organic Foods Are Environmentally-Friendly And Tasty, Too
When you choose to purchase organic foods, you are not only reducing your exposure to the chemicals used in conventional farming and helping your personal diet, you are helping the health of the environment itself. Organic farms promote a healthy environment in several ways, including the following: -Protecting and conserving water and air by not using polluting chemicals -Building healthy soil by rotating crops and retaining surrounding natural areas, such as wetlands as much as possible. -Researching natural alternatives to chemical pesticides. Contrary to a common myth, organic food doesn’t taste like cardboard. Products that are certified USDA organic are grown according to strict toxin-free standards, and healthy, balanced soil promotes the growth of healthy, tasty produce so the environment wins and so do your taste buds.
Organic Recipe Make-Overs Make Your Favorites Even Healthier
If you want to eat more organic food, you can revise your favorite recipes by replacing some or all of the ingredients with organic products. Some things can be substituted directly, such as using eggs from an organic farm instead of standard eggs, or choosing organic rice or pasta. If you’re a baker, you can even buy organic flour instead of regular flour. Other substitutions are trickier, but they can be done. One way to substitute an organic ingredient for a processed one is to use honey in recipes instead of sugar in baked goods, such as muffins. Three points to remember when substituting honey for sugar: -Reduce the total liquid in the recipe by ¼ cup for each cup of honey used + -Add ½ teaspoon of baking soda for each cup of honey used. -Reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees to prevent over-browning.
Take Organic Beyond The Kitchen
If you are serious about eating organic foods and supporting organic food production, you can continue to practice this philosophy when dining out. Many major cities, and even smaller cities, have organic restaurants whose owners and chefs make an effort to work with small farmers and buy organic and local food. Check restaurant guides or ask around when you travel. For example, a pair of Washington, D.C. restaurants, Nora and Asia Nora, offer exclusively organic cuisine, in keeping with the philosophy of owner/chef Nora Pouillon, who makes the effort to buy only local, organic foods.
The Dirty Dozen And Cleanest Twelve: Fruits And Veggies
The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization, has developed a list of fruits and vegetables that are highest and lowest in pesticide content. While this list isn’t universally true of all foods from all places, it can serve as a grocery store guide to how best budget your food dollars. The dirty dozen are the following: Peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, pears, imported grapes, spinach, lettuce,and potatoes. When you can, look for organic versions of these items because conventional farms that grow these products use the highest amounts of pesticides. By contrast, the cleanest 12 fruits and vegetables, which you can feel comfortable buying in non-organic varieties, are the following: Onions, avocado, frozen sweet corn, pineapples, mangoes, asparagus, sweet peas, kiwifruit, bananas, cabbage, broccoli,and papayas. These foods are not usually grown with lots of pesticides, so you don’t really need to spend the extra money for organic versions for health reasons. Bear in mind that these lists apply to standard fare at a grocery store, not local produce from a farmers’ market. Any local produce from a small farm may have been exposed to very few if any pesticides. If you’re uncertain, ask the person selling the produce.
America’s Most Convenient Diet Delivery by Chefs Diet
You Don’t Have To Eat Only Organic Foods To Be Healthy
If you are trying to eat a healthy, balanced diet, you can do so without buying exclusively organic foods. The key to a healthy diet is to try to minimize the amount of processed foods that you eat, since many processed foods are high in trans fats or saturated fats. Keep it simple and buy real, fresh vegetables and fruit rather than processed products packed in salt or syrup, and you are on your way to improving your health. Organic foods have been exposed to fewer or no pesticides, but that doesn’t mean that other fruits and vegetables are unhealthy. The most important thing is to include plenty of fruits and veggies in your diet. Whether or not your fresh produce is organic, wash it thoroughly before eating. Even if food was grown without pesticides, it may have traveled across the country to get to your store, and the items have been handled by many people along the way. The best way to wash: Scrub produce gently with a vegetable brush under running water.
original :Chefs Diet
Tags: Organic Foods, organic label
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