Challenge #4!

For this challenge, I have put together a meal of pork chops, roasted kale, and sweet potatoes. All of these ingredients have organic options at the store. In my opinion, organic pork and kale are probably bought more often than organic potatoes. I know my parents do not choose organic potatoes over regular but green beans and other vegetables are a different story.

However, according to theDailyGreen.com, potatoes are one of twelve foods that should be bought organically. There have apparently been 35 pesticides detected on non-organic potatoes. Sweet potatoes on the other hand are fine to get the non-organic variety. Another food that is not on the top twelve but suggested to get organically is fatty meats, like steaks.

When it comes to meat, there are a variety of health claims available. At the store, I saw grass-fed, organic, lean, USDA Choice and combinations of the four. Grass-fed, organic, and lean are all health claims. The regular chops with no health claims at Cub were 3.99/lb whereas the ones from Trader Joe's, a store that claims to be more natural, were 4.99/lb. One dollar per pound may be worth it in this case for a protein with fewer unnatural chemicals.

I looked through the catalog for Cub foods and found that no organic foods are on sale. So those who are on a budget would have a hard time eating organically. I chose just to go with the regular sweet potatoes because they were cheaper, and they are on the list of "Clean 15" on the Daily Green. For the kale, I would prefer to get organic because they are, along with fatty meats, listed as a "dirty dozen" food. Cutting down on my pesticide intake is something I would like to do and if I have the power to do so, I will most likely go down that route, so long as my budget allows for it!

Mostly what I noticed between different claims is price. Organic was usually about a dollar or so more per pound, depending on the product. Quality may have something to do with it but there's no real way to determine that besides tasting!