This one is so complicated but I think at its most basic level it is being healthy. I can deal with just about anything when my body feels good. That being said, staying healthy seems inseparably intertwined with eating well. That seems to involves money - which means maybe happiness is having money. I always feel happier the more money I have. Man, that seems so shallow but I think it might be true.
On the flip side, I could see being happy on a farm in warm place near the ocean where my life consisted of gathering food and eating it. It might not require as much money that way.
So seeing as I am talking about food, my bowl of yuminess tonight involved a new dessert I make. Its sliced organic bananas covered in organic peanut butter and organic coconut oil.
NEW FAVORITE: Put 1 cup cooked half brown/half white rice still warm in a bowl. Mash in a ripe banana, 1/2-1 tbsp coconut oil, 1tbsp peanut butter. Stir it up and enjoy.
I love peanut butter and bananas together. I eat a lot of toasted bread with natural PB and sliced bananas. Eating it without bread and with the addition of coconut oil sounds yummy. I'd slice it up and dip into the PB/Oil combo. That would be a nice snack.
Hmm, now I am thinking. I'm curious how good a baked sliced plantain "chip" (when it is at the banana-ish stage of taste) with a peanut butter "dip" would be.
Yes, I agree. It's a significantly bigger problem with meat because of its assimilatory position in the food chain. I think the dirty-15 list is pretty accurate. I avoid buying non-organic stuff from that list. But there is a limit to organic produce obsession. For example, why would anyone buy organic onions 3x costlier than regular onions if they are almost at the bottom of the dirty-15 list? Hardier and seasonal veggies are usually organic because they just survive more efficiently without a pesticide boost.
The wax bothers me too, but there are FDA guidelines in place about what wax can be used: :::link:::
Vegetable-based and beeswax are really pretty harmless. They are very similar to hydrogenated fats. It is a problem when things are coated with petroleum based wax though..
On the whole, I don't know if I disagree with you at all... I often wish I could buy the picture perfect awesome produce prices 10x higher but the impracticality of it (budget-wise and really, taste-wise) prevents me from spending too much money on any single grocery item. That being said, I spend as much 3/4 of my rent money on groceries every month. I don't clip too many coupons. I do shop at pricerite but steer away from the dirty-15. It limits my choices, but its just as important to me to be financially sound as it is for me to eat as healthfully as possible. I try and avoid wasting any food and even that small step saves me unneccessary grocery trips and costs.
Tiny, I agree with you possibly in the case of a totally vegetarian diet. Like how bad is non organic rice? But lots of other things like strawberries, celery, blueberries and all drenched in nasty chemicals. It is america after all. A lot of cheap non organic produce has this waxy unwashable film on it. It was not always that way but it is now. It is some chemical that keeps them fresher longer. I know it exists because the organic stuff does not have it. Its even on string beans a lot. Those ones will last forever, which creeps me out. It can't be that nutritious after such a long time.
The other thing is travel time. I am totally guilt of buying exotic stuff but all summer long I try and eat local. There is a huge difference in the quality of local conventional food and the food flown in from Chili and China. Frankly, I don't trust anything from china.
With meat I definitely feel that there is a difference. The meat itself is often such a different consistency and flavor. During my vegan years I read enough propaganda against the meat industry to make me vegan for 5 years. I am over that now but I still am kind of grossed out by factory farming. Free-range (better for the animal), organic meat (better for you) is definitely better but it is far more expensive than the vegetable normal to organic cost spread. At the same time I think that cost difference encourages reasonable portions.
Having nothing to do with being organic, more expensive produce generally does taste and appear better. Its just a matter of supply and demand. As an example, my pear tree makes about 500 pears. Of those, only like 30 are perfectly ripe, tasty, unblemished. Those ones would be the expensive ones if I was to sell them. Now you could totally survive on the ones that are all half eaten by bees and squirrels or have fungus on the skin... but they wouldn't be as awesome.
I would VERY strongly disagree with you, (e:metalpeter). The best healthiest food always tastes awesome. Sometimes, people just are awful cooks and have no clue how to retain the crunch in veggies or make them sharp and wonderful - while retaining all their inherent flavours and unifying them with spices instead of overpowering them. I could go on and on. Sometimes I feel the primary problem with bad eating habits everywhere is a lack of a knack and feel for cooking.
Healthy Food is fresh food in some forms and that is more costly then frozen and processed but it also goes bad quicker so in that sense if it isn't used it costs more.... But there is a hidden savings that by eating better it keeps you healthy so that keeps the cost down... But the issue that No One is mentioning is taste.... I say this cause a lot of things that are healthy don't taste good... So to make them healthy we do things like add butter and salt or fry them or use heavy oil on them.... The other thing a lot of people do is they cook things.... Yes Beef and chicken and things like that are good to cook but with many vegetables they get cooked and lose a lot of what is good in them... Remember though this is a taste thing. Some people love to do all kinds of crazy things to veggies just saw green giant makes some with cheese those look great but guessing the cheese is both good and bad for you at the same time..... Somethings have to be raw for me Like Carrots they are supposed to crunch..... Also Bad food can be costly to I love my fast food well some of it.....
And I haven't made the fluoride post yet. So many things to do. I need to go home now. Have salsa class today after 2 weeks.
Hmmm.. I want to disagree with you and say that eating healthfully does not necessarily mean eating expensively. I need to make a detailed post someday about how I don't believe in the organic-is-healthier concept for the most part...
However, eating to be happier does get a bit expensive at times.