Remember when going to the grocery store to buy tomatoes involved this: Go to store, pick up tomatoes, pay for them?

Now, it’s: Do I want the organic ones or the conventional ones? What’s the price? Are these tomatoes perhaps genetically-modified? Do I want that? What will that do to me? Am I sure? Oh, geez, do I need to go back and get a fruit degree just so I can shop? ARRRRGGHHHHH!!!

Yeah, I know; it’s like navigating a minefield, huh?

Here’s my first tip. It’s a good one. It’s an important one. It is: Whatever you decide, don’t stress about it. Make the choice; relax. Perhaps you’ll get some other info later, and you’ll make a different choice then. It’s okay. This constant stressing about our food is not any healthier for you than buying fruit with pesticides. Pesticides are dangerous. But so is stress. Go nice on yourself.

If you’d like to get organic but can’t afford it, then you can’t. You’re doing the best you can. Breathe; pat yourself on the back. If you can afford a couple things organic but not the rest, it’s okay. You’re doing what you can right now.

The most important part is giving yourself some peace of mind. Becoming informed is a good thing, but, if you’re overwhelmed and stressed out about it, that’s harming you.

So, here’s my brief, personal overview/choices on the three categories. Take what you want; leave the rest … just like your produce choices. If you need help identifying which produce is which, here’s a handy chart: Produce codes.

Conventional/regular produce:

This is what the regular, for lack of a better word, produce is. It can be laden with a lot of pesticides used to protect the crops, help them survive, chase away bugs, etc. I buy some of this. The dangers? Those chemicals used. They kill off invading bugs. Unfortunately, they may well make you suffer from a disease one day after enough exposure. I look at buying items that I’m not going to eat the outside of as safer. I’m not all that sure the pesticides don’t penetrate, but I figure at least it knocks it down.

Organic produce:

Organic produce does not use the chemical pesticides used in conventional produce. They may be protected by some sort of “natural” item, but it tends to be truly safe for your health. The dirt they are grown in also is deemed as safe, and organic farms are banned from using synthetic pesticides, bioengineered genes (GMOs), petroleum-based fertilizers and sewage sludge-based fertilizers. I buy some of this as well. In an ideal world, I would choose all organic, but, one, I can’t find everything organic locally, and, two, some items just do seem very high-priced. I do understand, though, the higher price since more of the crop is probably lost due to not as much chemical protection.

By the way, if you happened to catch the “news” that organic is not safer or more nutritious, don’t trust that info. The “study” was done by a section of Stanford University that supports those researchers. Huge companies and foundations who have ties to agribusiness and biotech firms donate millions to this research support, which has to taint their objectivity. In addition, others are claiming the research, looked at properly, does indeed show organic to be both safer for your health and more nutritious, and that there were flaws in the research methods and errors in the conclusions drawn. I use my logic – if it isn’t grown with cancer-causing chemicals, it has to be safer for me. I don’t need a study for that.

Genetically modified (GMO) produce:

These are the items that have been genetically modified to make them bigger, better, more resistant to disease and who-knows-what. I won’t touch a bit of this. As much as I human guinea pig myself on natural remedies, I absolutely refuse to be a guinea pig to see what GMO does to the human body after years of ingesting. When I look at the overall picture and the past, it seems to me that we rarely benefit from tinkering with what Mother Nature produces in the way she intended it to be produced.

Thankfully, so far, there isn’t a lot of genetically-modifed produce out there. (That story isn’t so true for processed/packaged food, however.)

Finally, to help you get those lovely fruits and veggies clean, here’s the best way that also – yes! – costs you less: How best to clean your produce.