There are so many reasons people eat organic food. Some eat it because they think it’s healthier for them, others feel that it’s better for the earth; some want to support small farmers, others just think the food tastes better. And of course, many people eat organic for all these reasons. I am one of them.
I choose to eat as much organic as I can. I’ve been eating organics (meat, veggies, fruits, prepared foods) for twenty years. I thought it was time to write about my experience with organic foods. Writing will help me process all the changes both organic foods and I have been going through, all these years.
When I was a kid, I was a picky eater and I had a mom who rarely cooked. All of us kids had to shift for ourselves on a regular basis. That meant Kraft’s macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, frozen pizza, English muffins, canned cream-style corn.
When my mom did cook, it was a frozen chunk of ground beef in the electric frying pan: slap it in, cook one side, turn it over, scrape off the cooked meat, turn it over again, scrape off the meat, repeat until frozen beef is all cooked, add baked beans, serve. Or better yet, the cream of mushroom soup recipe: add canned peas, canned tuna, and pour mixture over bread toasted in a muffin tin—a little modern-day trencher.
Let’s put it this way—I did not grow up with any semblance of a healthy diet, nor any knowledge of organic foods. As a teenager, I even worked for two years at the local McDonald’s. Of course, I ate there. The closest I came to eating organic foods was tasting the blackberries running riot in the backyard. Then I went to college and my life changed.
After high school, I moved in with a family that ate organics, shopped at one of the few health food stores in the state, and purchased half a lamb from Jamestown every year. I started learning a lot about eating healthy and well, and cooking healthy and well. In fact, I think this was where I really learned to cook, at the same time I was starting to think about the foods I put into my body every day.
I joined a small food cooperative in the basement of one of the buildings on the University of Rhode Island campus. I worked there every week. I found that being around bins of brown rice, organic potatoes, locally grown baby lettuce, and natural shampoo made me really happy.
That old saying, “You are what you eat,” seems like something corny your grandparents might say. But it’s true. YOU…ARE…WHAT…YOU…EAT. What goes into my mouth—what I masticate and swallow, what rumbles in my stomach and is digested within my intestines, until all of the particles, vitamins, minerals, calories, proteins, are incorporated—all this becomes my body. My body’s functions, my body’s organs, my body’s brain, my body’s thoughts. Why would I want mass-produced, chemical-laden, pent-up, hormone-filled, pesticide-covered, been-shipped-over-one-thousand-miles food to become me?
I think there is a great disjunction in how we perceive ourselves. We separate our minds and our bodies. We tend to favor our minds—and that includes our immediate desires and superficial wants. That’s why we eat Ring Dings, canned cream-style corn, McDonald’s burgers. I really think we need to see the mind and body as one. What I eat affects all of me, in every way.
Bottom line, I feel better when I’m eating organics. I feel better about myself, and I feel better about my footprint on the planet. Organic food tastes better, too.
There is the expense to consider. I’ve never had a lot of money. I went straight from being a college student to being a New York City public school teacher. We all know that organic food is more expensive than nonorganic, sometimes substantially so. Is organic food only for the well-heeled? Wouldn’t that be a shame?
