Stock a Green, Organic Pantry: 10 Essential Items for Living Green

Essential food items are those foods that all cooks, whether professional or not, want to have in their kitchen. But if you ask different people what those staples are, do you get the same answers?

A nonscientific poll conducted by marketing students from Bismarck State College in North Dakota found that four items were on every shopper's list: bread, eggs, butter or margarine, and ground beef. The next five most common items were milk, flour, sugar, potatoes and salt, while peanut butter came in at the No. 10 spot. When shoppers were asked if they bought any of these items as organic foods, they all responded in the negative. Although some said that they'd buy fresh organic fruits and vegetables if they weren't too much more expensive than the traditional variety, none had even considered that there might be organic substitutes for the food staples on their lists.

Among the costs these shoppers didn't consider was the total environmental costs of producing the foods they were buying, including the carbon footprint of raising the food, processing it and getting it to market.

Meat

The Daily Green lists meat as having the highest environmental cost on their "dirty dozen" list of non-organic foods. Consider the pesticides and chemical fertilizers used on grains and hay grown to feed animals, growth hormones to promote faster growth in them, antibiotics fed to animals in feedlots, the amount of fossil fuel used to move cattle to slaughterhouses and then to ship the meat to markets. Meat really is a "dirty" food.

If you buy meat, buy certified organic meat from animals fed an organic diet and not treated with hormones or antibiotics. There are a number of organic meat producers; some of the better ones are Pacific Gourmet and Organic Prairie Co-op. Both Web sites offer features to find their products at a store near you.

Milk, Flour and Breads

Milk is second on the Daily Green list. The costs of raising non-organic dairy herds are almost as great as beef herds, and residues from pesticides, fertilizers and growth hormones can be found in non-organic milk. The worst problem is that milk is a staple of our smallest consumers: children. Buying them organic dairy products including milk, butter and cheese, or replacing dairy with soy milk, can keep them healthier.

While neither bread nor flour are on Daily Green's "dirty dozen," organic flours from a variety of grains, as well as a variety of different kinds of organic breads, are available at health food stores and a growing number of supermarkets as well as online. Their costs are comparable to non-organic products.

Potatoes

Another food just off of the "dirty dozen" list is the potato, long a staple of the American diet. Besides pesticides and fertilizers, most potato growers use fungicides; all of these chemicals can make it through the potato skin. If you can't find organic potatoes in your area, try substituting (non-organic) eggplant, whose thick skin keeps contaminants from its edible parts, or sweet potatoes, which are hardy enough that farmers rarely use fertilizers and pesticides in their cultivation.

Sugar is often imported from countries with fewer or less stringent environmental laws than those in the U.S.; regardless, it's essentially an unhealthy food. That said, you can buy organic crystal sugar for use in baking. The "crystal" sugar from Purcell Mountain Farms is from a first crystallization of certified organic sugar cane, after the cane has been harvested and the juice extracted. Less processing is done than in more traditional crystal sugar, so the sugar is not white and has more flavor. For use in coffee, tea or cereal, consider substituting raw organic honey, which has less environmental impact and also contains some nutrients, and can act as a natural antibiotic.

Some of the Daily Green's other "dirty" foods that you should only buy as certified organic include coffee, peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, grapes, kale, leafy greens, carrots, pears and tomatoes. If you can't find these as organic, or grow them organically yourself, substitute less contaminated fruits such as blueberries, raspberries, kiwis, melons and papaya, and hardier greens such as cabbage, asparagus, broccoli and brussels sprouts, and substitute sweet corn, broccoli or sweet peas for carrots.

Stock your pantry with these organic foods or their non-organic substitutes, and you'll not only improve your own health, but also you'll improve the health of the land, the farm workers and the environment.

Sources:

Bismarck State College "Food Staples" survey, unpublished

www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/Dirty-Dozen-Foods,

www.newenglandnatural.com/Vermont-Food/honey.html?gclid=CLPnrfWuzJ0CFQjyDAodGDWnsw

www.dakota-prairie.com

www.organicvalley.coop

www.foodforlife.com

www.diamondorganics.com/prod_detail_list/organic_bread

www.organicpacificgourmet.com/certified_organic_ground_beef.htm

www.organicprairie.coop/faqs/grass-fed-ground-beef/

www.purcellmountainfarms.com/Organic%20Sugar.htm

www.sunorganicfarm.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?

www.onceagainnutbutter.com