What are your organic piorities?
If you incorporate organic stuff in your life what are your essentials and what are optional extras?
Looking into what is available, it would cost an aboslute fortune if we were to try and be organic down to our mattresses and underpants, but I really would like to eat well and be careful about what we put on our bodies in terms of cosmetics and cleaning stuff.
It's all soooo confusing!!! and being on a budget makes it doubly so...
Thanks for any help/advice
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what I did when I "went green"
All natural cleaning products was first. Stay at home moms are at higher risk of developing cancer because of close proximity to conventional cleansers. Vinegar, baking soda, and ammonia are your friends. We use baking powder and borax for dishwasher soap, baking soda for cleaning countertops, microfiber mop for floors (don't need any pinesol or other floor cleaner), Bac-Out for all grody messes, Dr. Bronner's castile soap for all the bathroom soap dispensers (refill the foaming ones), Crystal White for dishwashing liquid, all natural glass cleaner (DH didn't think vinegar and water worked, though that's what i used growing up) and all natural toilet bowl cleaners, Currently using the Meyer brand. If all natural products are not available in your area, there are books and websites out there for all natural cleaning with stuff you can buy at any store.
As for organic, there's a Dirty Dozen list that tells you the MOST pesticide-laden foods that are well above the safe levels, those are the ones I buy organic, go conventional with the rest, because, like you, I cannot afford to go completely organic with every thing.
I buy only fair trade coffee and tea, our denomination has a partnership with Equal Exchange and we sell the coffee, tea, cocoa, and candy bars right at our church for less than you pay at the store. I save $3.00 a bag on coffee this way, support farmers earning a living wage, and raise a little bit of money for our congregation (though not much).
The one paper product I buy, paper towels, I only get the 100 percent recycled brand. I don't use paper napkins or paper plates.
I also recycle everything I can. Our city makes that easy, it's mandatory recycling, they give you the containers and everything, it's all curbside. But before we moved here, I stored all the recyclables in the garage to take to the recycling center once a month or so.
Where we shop--farmer's markets, Grower's Outlets (produce from local farmers) local grocery chains--can have as much impact as whether it's "organic" or not. What we buy has an impact, too. I don't buy grapes from Chile. If they're not from my garden or California, I don't eat them. Too much pesticides and too much fossil fuel used to get them across an entire hemisphere.
There's even more to it than this, as you'll discover as you continue this journey. My recommendations, don't change everything at once, pick one thing per shopping trip to change, or you could easily drive yourself crazy. I almost drove DH crazy when I switched to all natural cleaning products. Took him months to get over it.
Good luck!
Baby steps...
...I guess you're right, are the way to go!
Thanks for the dirty dozen list, a good starting point. We do get some stuff already, but it's difficult sometimes when stuff is MUCH more expensive to see whether I can really justify it, but hopefully heading in the right direction.
What I really struggle with is with some stuff deciding whether I should go for local, organic or fair trade when none of the above seem to coincide
Local vs. organic vs. fair trade...that takes time to figure out
There are dividing lines that can be easy, or very subjective, depending on your values, this is my general way of thinking on it:
Some things you can't buy local, like coffee or tea, unless you live in an equatorial country or in the "tea lands". There, I go "fair trade", even if it's not "orgainc" because being fair trade means, among other things, that it was farmed and harvested sustainably, which is just as good as organic in some ways. If it's organic AND fair trade, you're cookin' with gas. I use fair trade for sugar, coffee, and tea. We use so little sugar (kids get maple syrup, agave syrup, or honey instead of sugar) that it's affordable.
If it's local but heavily sprayed, like here, that'd be apples, IMO, it's not worth it. If it's from far, far away, but organic, it's not worth it, like organic grapes from Chile. Burning that much fossil fuel to get it here way overshot the benefits of organic. Grapes grown in the U.S. tend to have very little pesticides on them anyway, those I get as local as possible, which for me us usually, California, one state south.
Something that's helpful is to ask. A friend was looking for some organic peaches in bulk for putting up and started calling around to the farms and orchards that are U-Pick or similar and found a local orchard that does not spray once the fruit has set, which was good enough for her. Local, almost organic, fresh picked, she was happy.
But "conventional" (not organic) local fruits and veggies on the "good" section of the dirty dozen list are perfectly fine, to my way of thinking.
I use a sliding scale of how far away was it made/transported vs. packaging (if I feel it's excessive I don't get it) vs. sustainability (recycled, organic, fair trade, etc.). You have to just get gradually more educated and familiar, there's a learning curve!
For instance, if I have to buy bottled water for a trip or something I don't get the Figi water, Perrier, or anything that's been shipped overseas. Shipping water across the ocean seems too decadent and just wrong, somehow. I buy as local as I can. There are some bottled water from our own state that I can often get, if not, I can get some from California.
It IS a struggle at first, the longer you walk the walk and the more you learn, the easier it gets!
Good luck!
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