CHAPTER FIVE:
O IS FOR ORGANIC

Knowing what organic food represents for your health is an amazing tool that can dramatically lower your exposure to toxins, and can help improve your life and that of those around you.

If you don’t know what this is all about, it’s okay. We will fix that right away.

Here’s the spiel.

THE POISONS IN OUR FOOD

If you’ve ever had a garden, you will know that sneaky little bugs are always trying to lounge on all kinds of plants, feast on them, and, when they’re done, leave them in a less-than-perfect state. This is if some contagious disease doesn’t spread from plant to plant first, making them unwelcoming even for insects. To avoid this, you can use chemical substances that will keep all kinds of invaders away, and ensure that you have a beautiful garden.

The same is true when it comes to farming. Conventional agriculture is very efficient at growing humongous amounts of food. To ensure a good crop each time, these big companies make sure their farmers add all kinds of artificial fertilizers, enhancers, and pesticides to the soil and directly to the plants. This is great for them, because it means a bigger and more uniform crop, and, hence, more profit. But when you eat the food that has grown under these conditions you also end up eating all the poisons originally directed at the bugs and diseases, and at creating perfect little fruits and veggies (at least, perfect on the outside) that all look the same.

It always bewilders me to see pictures of farmers spraying their crops in huge astronaut suits to protect them from those poisons. Yet, they consider it okay to put those same poisons that were so harmful for them to breathe, or to put in touch with their skins, inside our bodies. It doesn’t make any sense at all, does it?

And this is only half the story.

Where Did the Nutrients Go?

What happens to plants showered with chemical substances at a cellular level is the plant equivalent of us being fed antibiotics. By now you may probably know that antibiotics prescribed to kill bad bacteria in the body also kill the healthy bacteria that keep disease at bay. In the long run, this cure is actually the beginning of new problems, as it taxes our immune system and makes us weaker and more prone to falling sick.

Plants too become weaker when sprayed with chemicals that are meant to protect them. When these plants realize they don’t need their own defense mechanisms anymore, they start developing weaker ones. This “immune system” is what contains a lot of the nutrients that we get from plants when we eat them. If the plants don’t develop these strengthening nutrients that help keep them healthy, because artificial substances do this for them, we also get less nutrition out of them when we eat them.

In short, plants + chemicals = less nutrition + toxins.

ORGANIC SOUNDS GREAT, BUT NOT EVERYONE CAN AFFORD IT

Organic produce tends to be more expensive than its conventional counterpart, and perhaps you don’t think it’s worth the extra penny or you plainly cannot afford it. What to do in that case? First of all, don’t worry too much. Remember that negative emotions create . . . You guessed it . . . Toxins! There are some simple ways to make organic foods more accessible to you, which is great if you want to eat poison-free foods.

Here’s how:

1.     Look for seasonal produce. Seasonal foods are more abundant and superior in taste and nutrients. They are also better for your overall health, as your body needs those specific nutrients at the specific time of year when they’re available. Organic seasonal produce also tends to be on sale. To plan your juices, check out which fruits and vegetables are in season at any given moment, and then look for the recipes in this book that contain those ingredients (we’ve done this for you in the detox programs in Chapter Seven). You can find seasonal produce charts all over the Internet, such as here: http://www.fieldtoplate.com/guide.php.

2.     Buy local. Visiting your organic farmers’ market is fun, will get you out in the sun, guarantees better nutrition, as less time passes between the farm and your table, and, most importantly, it’s easy on your wallet. You can usually get better prices from local farmers than from organic produce that has had to travel from a different continent to your neighborhood’s supermarket. Makes sense, right?

3.     Be curious and talk to your farmer. Sometimes foods are not labeled as organic because labeling them entails a long and expensive bureaucratic process that farmers cannot always afford. You can talk to your local farmers and find out if they spray their products with chemicals or not. You may be pleasantly surprised, and you may gain a few new friends too.

4.     Join a co-op. You may have to pay to join a food cooperative, but once you’re a part of it you can start getting great-quality food at discounted prices. As a member, you may need to work a few hours a month in exchange for the benefits you get, but you will end up saving so much on food that doing it will be worth every minute of your time.

5.     Pay attention to the Dirty Dozen, and chill out when it comes to the Clean Fifteen.

The Dirty Dozen

Although we recommend you try to get organic whenever possible, if it’s unavailable to you for whatever reason, there are a couple lists that will take you a long way in cleaning up your food act. There are twelve crops you should be suspicious about, as they are the most heavily sprayed and hence the most toxic to your system. Some people avoid them altogether unless they’re organic, yet others believe the health benefits of eating them will override the negative effects of the pesticides that have been used to grow them. All we can say is try your very best to get these in their organic variety. And at the very least, clean them particularly well and peel them if they have skin.

These include:

   Apples

   Celery

   Cherry tomatoes

   Cucumbers

   Grapes

   Hot peppers

   Nectarines (imported)

   Peaches

   Potatoes

   Spinach

   Strawberries

   Bell peppers

The Environmental Working Group, which tailors this list, also calls attention to kale, collard greens, summer squash, and zucchini, as they test positive for two highly toxic pesticides.

The Clean Fifteen

Luckily, there’s a happier list of foods that are considered safe (or safer) even if they are not organic. This is usually the case with fruits and veggies that have thick skins to protect their pulp from any outside contamination, or that don’t need to be heavily sprayed.

This list includes:

   Sweet potatoes

   Sweet peas

   Pineapples

   Papayas

   Onions

   Mushrooms

   Mangoes

   Kiwis

   Grapefruit

   Eggplants

   Sweet corn

   Cantaloupe

   Avocados

   Cabbage

   Asparagus

If you can afford to buy only some organic produce, you can focus on being paranoid about the Dirty Dozen. Your diet won’t be perfectly clean and 100 percent the way nature intended it to be, but hey, let’s not let perfect get in the way of pretty good.

CLEANING YOUR VEGGIES

Whether you buy organic fruits and veggies or not, all your produce should be cleaned before eating to remove toxins, which include chemicals, dirt, and bacteria. Your body needs to work extra hard to clean out all of these freeloaders if you don’t make time for this before you put the food in your mouth. Why give your body that extra load instead of letting it focus on cleaning what’s already stored in there from too much fun in the past? All it will take is a few minutes, some salt, and half a lemon.

Jay Kordich, known as “the father of juicing,” has been juicing away for the past sixty-something years, and his amazing health and stamina at the age of ninety is a testament to the power of these drinks. In their blog, Jay and his wife Linda recommend you clean all your fruits and veggies by filling your kitchen sink with cold water, adding four tablespoons of salt and the juice of half a lemon, and soaking the fruits and vegetables for five to ten minutes; two to three minutes for leafy greens, and one to two minutes for berries. When the time is up, rinse well under cold running water, and go about your juicing business.

Since we are trying to get you the least exposure to toxins as possible during your cleanse, we would like to take their washing instructions one step further, and recommend that you use filtered water whenever possible when washing your veggies. This way your juicing ingredients won’t end up covered in heavy metals, pesticides, and other substances added to tap water, such as chlorine, which kills harmful bugs but also your intestinal flora. It’s as easy as buying a water filter, and making sure you change the filter as recommended in the package. If this is too time consuming, however, don’t worry too much about it, as the benefits of juicing will outweigh the negative effects of consuming a little bit of unfiltered tap water.