I read an article listing the cleanest fruits and vegetables to buy if you don’t want to buy organic, but don’t want a mouthful of chemicals. It explained how you can stay healthy and save a buck. The article missed the point…
Buying organic isn’t about ‘me! me! me!’ Buying organic is about protecting farm workers and their families; it’s about keeping chemicals off the land and out of our water; it’s about protecting wildlife; it’s about saving rivers and oceans; it’s about clean rain and air; it’s about dismantling the giant chemical/gmo companies (like Monsanto and Dow ) that are destroying farmers around the world; it’s about survival of the planet; it’s about the future of food; and it’s about future generations.
Some will complain, “But I can’t afford to buy organic”. Cesar Chavez (founder of United Farm Workers and one of my heroes because he understood social justice as one interconnected movement) never made over $6000 in a year, never owned a home, and still he made organic and vegan choices. I asked his granddaughter Julie Chavez Rodriguez how Cesar would respond to “But I can’t afford it”. Without skipping a beat, she replied, “He’d say, ‘You pay for it now, or you pay for it later.’”
Cesar understood that when you buy something you are supporting it, you are subsidizing it, you are saying, “More of the same, and do it in MY name!”
Buying chemical foods is making the worst food the most available food — and it’s killing people, the planet, and animals. It’s setting up a disastrous future (and present!) where real food will be a thing of the past.
This isn’t about ‘you’ or ‘me’… it is about us. We’re all one.
Can’t afford to buy organic? We can’t afford NOT to.
