Why Go Organic?

I first came across organic food 12 years ago when my wife suggested going on a detox diet. The basic premise of the diet was to remove as many unnatural toxins as possible and focus on ‘clean foods’. Off I went of my local organic shop and met some very nice bohemian types selling an array of organic ingredients I had never heard of like teff and tempeh along with the standards of broccoli and carrots.

Tooled up with brown paper bags of expensive and dirty produce I dutifully spent 3 weeks munching my way through such spirit lifting dishes as ‘vegetable surprise’ the only surprising element being the shocking combination of clashing flavour.

My vision at that time to outweigh the cost and sometimes questionable recipes was the prospect of leaving behind my susceptibility to heartburn and the idea of cleaning out a fair few ‘lifestyle’ toxins from the previous 25 years. Thankfully since then, most supermarkets now stock an organic range and detox recipes have improved.

In order for us to change a habit, job or lifestyle, the vision for what we are going to do must outweigh the cost of getting there 

My vision now is the impact on my health and the environment that organic farming and produce can have. Here are the reasons I have learnt over the last 12 years to switch to organic. After these reasons we will look at the costs involved and see if they are outweighed by the vision. 

Reasons for organic food

Therefore the Vision is...

So all in all the vision for buying organic produce is: an environment of better health and wellbeing for us and animals, better health for our children, reduced global warming, reduced cancer risk, safer and fairer work environments and the icing on the cake is improved nutrition and flavour!

Coming back to Vision > Cost = Change. I have applied this principal to buying organic ingredients.

So what of the cost of this vision?

I have compared ingredients from major supermarkets and priced a weekly shop for two, one for ordinary ingredients and one for all organic ingredients. I discovered that you can buy all organic ingredients for every meal of the week for as little as an additional £7.00 per adult! 

VISION                                                COST                           
Better health
Healthier children
Happier animals
Reduced global warming            £1.00 per day per adult
Reduced cancer risk
Safer and fairer working
More nutrition
Better flavour