A Dose of Health

As I watched the Oprah show and saw 85 year old billionaire, David Murdoch, go to Costco to purchase his fruits and vegetables for juicing, it brought to mind the question,”Should he be juicing non organic vegetables?”  By the way, I can’t be sure but it sure looks like he uses the Jack LaLanne Juicer to me.

Now, I didn’t know if the Costco trip was for the benefit of us ‘everyday’ folk or whether or not he always buys his fruits and veggies at Costco.  I’m not a Costco shopper, but I didn’t think he was placing organic fruit in his shopping cart.

Organic or Non Organic Juicing

It’s been my practice to juice organic fruits and vegetables if I am going to go through the trouble of juicing.  However, if my funds are low and I purchase non organic produce which are not juiced but are relegated to normal eating and cooking.  Juicing to me is like ‘mainlining’ vegetables, where as eating and cooking them is not.  If I’m going to mainline, I’d prefer to have the purest most nutritional dose of my veggie of choice.

Non Organic Juicing Hesitation

The major reason for my hesitation to juice non organic produce is that I don’t want to mainline toxic pesticides directly into my system.  The fact that non organic vegetables are usually grown in less nutrient rich soil is another factor, but the presence of toxins is my primary reason for using organic rather non organic.

Getting rid of the Toxin Concern

I read on one site that removing the outer skin of non organic vegetables severely cuts down on the presence of toxins.  The only problem it also severely cuts down on the presence of nutrients too.

Other sites recommend washing the fruits and vegetables in a solution of water and hydrogen peroxide , followed by a washing with vinegar and water and rinse.  This process purportedly removes  most of the bacteria and toxins.

My Thought Process

As I write this there are pears, apples and oranges sitting in my fruit bowl, that will go bad over the next few days if not eaten (my family loves fruit when it first comes in the house, but after day 2 or 3 the fruit becomes invisible and they no longer see it in the fruit bowl).  So, to prevent the fruit from going bad, I’d prefer to juice it.

After combing the internet I think I’m going to use a combination of both organic and non organic produce for juicing.  The organic greenery (that I like to juice to mask the taste of wheatgrass) will be 100% organic.  The other fruits and veggies that I usually cook or nibble on throughout the day, will be organic when money permits, and non organic otherwise. I’ll apply the pesticide removal methods a outlined above and juice the produce if I find that they’re about to hang around too long (juice them before they go bad).

When I stop to think about it, no one is ever really 100% sure of what’s on store bought produce (organic or not).  After all, some organic vegetables have traces of pesticides and bacteria.  I guess the only way to be sure is to grow it myself (not going to happen anytime soon). Oh, and as for David Murdoch from the Oprah show…he’s 85 years old and going strong.  If he’s using non organic fruit, I guess it can’t be all that bad.

How do you tackle the organic vs non organic produce quandary?