Wild Salmon - When selecting salmon always purchase wild salmon. If the labeling states Atlantic or Farm Bred, you are purchasing salmon that was crammed into pens and fed antibiotics, soy, pesticides, poultry feathers, and hydrolyzed chicken feathers. Salmon raised under these conditions also leave you at a higher risk of mercury poisoning and cancer.

Organic Milk – Always check the label to ensure the milk is produced without artificial hormones: it’s usually labeled organic mild. Dairy farmers use recombinant bovine growth hormone to boost milk production.  These hormones (rBGH or rBST) have been banned in most industrialized countries (but not the U.S.) as per Rick North, the project director for the Campaign for Safe Food at Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility.


Organic Potatoes – Always look for the organic potatoes or purchase your potatoes from a supplier whose potatoes actually sprout in the bag before they rot. People don’t really think about this, but potatoes (and all other root vegetables) absorb anything that is sprayed or tilled into the soil. When you feed your family non-organic potatoes you are actually giving them a dose of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides.  If your older potatoes don’t sprout, they have absorbed too many chemicals. 

Grass-Fed Beef – Always hold out for grass-fed beef. Cows aren’t supposed to be nomming on corn and soybeans, they were meant to eat grass. The corn and soybeans are used to fatten them up more quickly. A study recently conducted by Clemson University and the USDA shows grass-fed beef to be higher in beta-carotene, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and omega-3s. It’s also lower in heart disease- inducing saturated fats.

Old Fashioned Popcorn – Go for the old fashioned, pop it in a popper kind of popcorn to save yourself from all sorts of chemicals, including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). It vaporizes from the linings of those special microwave bags directly into your popcorn during the microwave process and is suspected to cause infertility in humans.  You can re-think this in 2016 because DuPont and other manufacturers are under a voluntary EPA agreement to clean this mess up by 2015.

Tomatoes – Purchase the ones processed in glass jars or a box (like at Trader Joe’s) rather than cans; or can them yourself. The linings of cans can contain bisphenol-A, a synthetic estrogen that can leach into those acidic tomatoes and has been linked to reproductive problems, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. 

I used to love going to my grandmother’s house. She was a sweetheart and she often had bananas.  I loved bananas! Sometimes she would hide her bananas because she didn’t have enough to share. To her surprise, I could smell them and would always ask for one anyway. 

Fast forward: I was a mom and, recalling my love for bananas, I started buying them again. I didn't go to Whole Foods - I just went to the normal grocery store as usual. And they tasted kind of flat and bland and I couldn’t smell them anymore. What happened to the smooth, creamy bananas from my childhood? I shrugged it off as a taste enhanced by happy childhood memories and settled for the new banana taste.

One afternoon, my daughter and I headed to the store for groceries. We wanted some bananas but they were out. There were only a few yucky, green ones and one or two nasty brown ones left. As I turned to walk away, I noticed some organic bananas over in the Organic section. I suggested we pick up some organic bananas and my daughter went, well....bananas. I had taught her to eschew anything organic because I believed that food was food and deemed people crazy when they wanted to go out of their way to pay more for organic foods.  Such a good daughter. Against her vehement protestations, I bought my first bunch of organic bananas and we headed home. I explained to her that they hadn’t been gassed to force ripening like the bananas we normally purchased but they should still taste okay. 

One taste of an organic banana brought memories of my grandmother’s bananas flooding back to me.  And I suddenly understood what gassing a banana does to the flavor, texture and smell. And guess who could smell bananas again? That was our first experience with organic food.

We pay a price for expecting year round access to many fruits and vegetables.  Industry meets the demand by doing what is needed to preserve them and keep them blemish (and bug) free. Our food is gassed, sprayed, and waxed to increase sales. For most of the population, it mostly impacts taste (like my bananas). However, some people are sensitive to taste and others, apparently many others, are sensitive to the chemicals. And so they go out of their way to purchase foods minus all the added help. 

FAST FACT: Contrary to common belief, bananas do not grow on trees. They grow from a root structure on a plant that is classified as an arborescent perenniel herb. It is the largest known herbaceous flowering plant and the banana is actually its berry! But everyone still refers to it as a banana tree.