Top 9 Most Important Foods To Buy Organic

by Mark Sisson
Mark’s Daily Apple

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In a perfect world, we’d all be shopping at farmers markets for our produce, tending to bug-eating, orange yolk-producing chickens in our backyards, pooling our resources with other folks to divvy up grass-fed and/or pastured animals, having the farmers who produce our food over for dinner, milking the A2-casein grass-fed teats with our bare hands into BPA-free containers, culling the geese down at the local pond and roasting the dead, foraging for seagull eggs, going mushroom hunting in the forest, ensnaring chubby winter squirrels fattened on acorns and small birds, raising kale-fed crickets for alternative protein sources, and, well, you get the idea. But that isn’t realistic for most people. And heck, who would want to go to all the trouble. What with how easy it is to just swing by the grocery store on the way home from work, especially with a filthy kid in the backseat who’s just out of soccer practice (on a muddy field, no less) and starving.

However, we still want to make the right choices. We want to buy the organic foods that provide the most bang for their buck, that make the most sense. You’ve probably heard of the Dirty Dozen – that annually-updated list of the twelve fruits and vegetables that contain the highest levels of pesticide residues. Let’s go beyond that, though, because unless you’re a vegan or a fruitarian who lives on produce alone, you’ll want to hear about other foods too. Particularly animal products, which you’re probably eating on a fairly regular basis.

The following list assumes you’re hitting up the regular, everyday grocery store – your Safeways, your Krogers, your Aldis – for most of your food. It’s roughly ordered from most important to least, though after baby food, dairy, and beef, the lines blur. I’d be hard pressed to choose between eggs and leafy greens, particularly given the amount of greens I eat. Luckily, this is just a thought exercise rather than a real dilemma for most. So let’s get to it. If there was one food item that I’d recommend you paying extra for, it would be…

1. Baby foods.

The human infant is a helpless sack of flesh and poop and pee. They’re cute and lovable, sure, but they can’t be relied upon to make good food choices. And because of their ridiculously long development time, babies are far more susceptible to pesticides, especially the endocrine disruptors. An adult can probably get away with a little xenoestrogenic activity from consumed pesticides, since the systems are all but established, but a young baby who’s still developing those systems? Pesticides can disrupt both fetal and childhood development. If your kid has moved on to baby food, make sure it’s organic – whether you make it from scratch or buy it at the store. That goes for the “traditional” pureed goop people give their kids, as well as the foods Primal parents are likely to offer, like liver, egg yolks, and pureed moose thyroid glands (what, you’re not giving your baby moose thyroid?).

2. Full-fat dairy.

Dairy isn’t universally lauded in the Primal community, but I’d guess a plurality of Mark’s Daily Apple readers eat some kind of dairy, whether it’s butter, yogurt, cream, or milk. If for whatever reason you’re unable to procure dairy from grass-fed cows (no, not everyone lives near a Trader Joe’s with affordable and ample stocks of Kerrygold grass-fed butter, sadly), make sure the full-fat dairy you do eat is organic. Organic dairy ensures a few things, assuming the producers follow the required guidelines. First, the latest rules stipulate that organic dairy cows must graze on pasture for the full length of the local grazing season, during which time they must obtain at least 30% of their calories from grazing. Local grazing seasons last at least 120 days, but often much longer, so your organic dairy will be coming from cows who eat at least a decent amount of fresh, actual grass. Second, conventional dairy cows eat conventional, pesticide-laden corn and soy, and those pesticides show up in the full-fat dairy. Most samples of regular butter, for example, contain pesticide residues, while organic butter does not.

3. Beef.

Organic meat cows must meet the same guidelines as organic dairy cows – pasture access during grazing season, 30% of calories from said pasture, etc. – so their meat is going to have at least a portion of the same benefits as full-on grass-fed meat, like improved CLA content, greater micronutrient status, and better flavor (if you like the actual taste of beef, that is). They’re far from fully grass-fed, true, but far better than conventional meat. Although organic meat from grocery stores will likely be raised on soy and corn, the feed will be neither genetically modified nor rich in pesticides. And organic animals aren’t allowed to receive antibiotics, nor are they pumped full of hormones. Most pesticides and contaminants preferentially accumulate in the adipose tissue, too, so especially make sure the fatty meat you eat is organic.

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November 29, 2012

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