Buying green
I’m in a bit of a work crunch, so photos and food thoughts are backing up. I’ll get to them eventually (I hope).
Today I stole a bit of time to answer a nagging question though. My housemate and I keep debating “eat local” versus “eat organic” in our food choices. Neither of us wants food covered in pesticides, but we also question the environmental cost of eating food that’s travelled more than both of us put together. So how can we balance environmental concerns with health concerns?
The answer I came up with is this [PDF] — a list of the top twelve ‘cleanest’ and ‘dirtiest’ fruits and vegetables. (You can also see the full list of 45 rated items here.) I figure I’ll use these lists as decision makers. Anything on the ‘dirty’ list I’ll buy organic, always, even if that means well-travelled produce. Anything on the ‘clean’ list will be a local purchase whenever possible. (In truth I may do a bit more research and make my own dirty dozen list, specific to the fruits and veggies we buy most often.)
It’s not a perfect solution. Ideally everything we buy would be both local and organic. But when it’s a case of either/or, at least now I have a way of choosing.
