This series will examine how you and your family can eat healthfully, take control of your food, and take care of the environment.

The Lable

As of October 2002, anyone who is selling a product that is labeled organic myst be certified by a certification agency that is USDA-accredited.   In general, a “certified organic” label is your guarantee that a product was grown, raised, or processed without toxic pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, genetically modified organism’s, irradiation, or sewage-sludge fertilizers (There are more ways that are legal by all conventional standards but if I put them here you may lose your appetite for a long while).

Processed foods such as cookies or soy milk are labeled three ways:

1. 100% Organic - this means that all the individual ingredients in the product are organic.
2. Organic - this means that 95% of the ingredients in the product are organic.
3. Made With Organic Ingredients - means at least 70% of the ingredients are organic.

Buy Local Produce That Is In Season

The fewer miles a radish must travel from harvest to your mouth means the lesser the amounts of resources it consumes and the fewer amount of trash that is generated in the process.  This is also true when you buy a crop in its rightful season.

Try to shop for your food at Farmers’ markets, coops, and CSAs because they allow you to buy the food directly from the farmers who grow or make it.   They are there for you if you have any questions to ask about the produce and the money you give them for the food stays in the community.  Very, very little packaging or fuel has been used to get that food into your hands.

Buy Organic

Try to shop at natural-food stores.  Large chains such as Wild Oats, Whole Foods (which owns Wild Oats),  and Trader Joe’s as well as smaller, local health food stores offer a huge variety of organic products.  These are places you should go to buy produce in winter when nothing is in season in your area.

You can also look for organic labeled foods at conventional supermarkets.  Since organic farming is growing at leaps and bounds most supermarkets are now featuring sections that carry selections of organic produce (and other foods like pasta, soy, milk, and various snacks).