Our New Year's Resolution: Making it Easy For You To Eat More Organics
I get a couple of objections from my weight loss patients when I suggest they eat organic foods to lose weight. The first is the cost, the second is the difficulty in finding organic foods.
My answer to the first question about cost goes to the big picture. What's your health worth? Ever see a hospital bill from someone who has had a bout of type two diabetes, cancer, or heart disease that required in-patient treatment? What do all those prescriptions you are taking cost?
The Western diet has cost us as a society and as individuals untold dollars as well as heartache from ill health. So my basic answer to the question of the cost of organic foods is this: if you think this is expensive, wait until you get the bill for a major chronic illness.
The second question, as to the availability of organic foods, is becoming easier to answer. The law of supply and demand is in our favor. As more Americans demand organic foods, the prices come down and the availability goes up.
In fact, you may know a local source for organics that we haven't heard of. To support these local farmers, and cheese makers, and cottage kitchens, write to us and tell us what they sell and where to order. Send us a comment here at Huffington Post. It's the best way to spread the good news.
Check out AmericanFeast.com for a wide variety of whole, small batch American foods you can order. It's a great website with lots of information and ordering instructions.
Supermarkets give over more and more shelf space to organic foods. Think about how easy it is now to buy organic milk products, or the enormous success of an organic company called Stonyfield Farms in providing organic yogurts and other dairy products.
Even Walmart is stocking more and more organic foods. And the produce section of most supermarkets now gives over at least one fifth of its real estate to organic foods. Choose organic dairy and produce.
DiamondOrganics.com, a company in California, has been home delivering organic produce nationwide for more than 20 years.
In the east, PureSprouts.com, and PlanetOrganics.com, also home deliver locally grown produce.
These companies and many others are easily found on the internet. Just type in organic foods and up will jump lots of choices.
I also advise my patients to choose wild caught fish and grass fed meats.
We got out ahead of the lobbyists in the fish department and they passed a law stating that the origins of the fish had to be displayed in the fish counter. This makes it easy to choose wild caught salmon, for example, with its naturally rosy hue which comes from those salmon dining on their favorite hors d' oeuvre, crill. Just remember that farm raised salmon are pink because they have added red dye to the gray color the fish's flesh would be based on their mostly gmo corn diet.
Grass fed, organic meats are shipped nationwide by companies such as LaCenseBeef.com, GreensburyMarket.com, and Blackwing.com. Where I live, I can buy high quality meat in Wegman's Supermarket.
Is it more expensive? Yes it is. Do you need to eat huge steaks that cost you a fortune? No you don't. A serving of red meat for health's sake is three ounces. Think about the Japanese, who buy their beef by the ounce. They expect the meat to be expensive and treat it with great respect. We'd do well to do the same.
If you have a great source for organic produce, dairy including artisan made cheeses, or meat or fish, let me hear from you. We need to get the word out and make America healthy and Slim again.
Health starts at the dinner table. Choose wisely and choose well. It's not that hard. Yours in good health. Dr. John Salerno.