Organic = Healthy?

I’ve had patients or clients in the past tell me about food they ate and follow it with, “but it was organic.” I believe that the food industry has led many to believe that just because food at the grocery store is labeled as organic, that it’s automatically stamped with approval for being healthy. So what the heck does organic even mean?

Organic means that the product you are buying is (mainly) free of synthetic pesticides and herbicides. While this is great, the organic chocolate chip cookies or organic potato chips you are buying aren’t automatically healthy because they are free of such chemicals. They are still, nonetheless, chocolate chip cookies and potato chips.

Now when talking about fruits and vegetables, buying organic is great and helps support those farmers that continue to grow organic crops. If buying everything organic isn’t in your budget, then go look up the “Dirty Dozen” list online to find out which fruits/vegetables contain the highest amount of pesticides and herbicides and try and buy these items as organic. Strawberries are usually at the top of the list! Produce that has an outer shell, i.e avocado, watermelon, bananas etc. tend to have lower amounts of pesticides and herbicides.

If you are someone that usually buys everything in your kitchen organic, make sure the product has the “USDA” stamp that indicates it’s organic, as this is the official indicator that the product is in fact organic. Do you automatically get drawn to the organic junk food just because it’s organic? I know I used to!

-Stephany Osorto