Organic grocery shopping - yes or no?

For me it's somewhere in the middle. I did not bother about organic products at all even when i started cooking daily after i moved to the netherlands in 2008. I have a few friends who ONLY buy organic products and i never really understood why they would want to pay extra for their groceries.

BUT, somehow after Lennox was born and was starting solids, i started reading more about organic products and in general about what we put into our bodies. Especially when that body is a small baby's body! Read this TIME article which succinctly puts it:

"Organic food is a healthy choice for all of us but especially for kids. Infants and children are particularly vulnerable to chemicals, in part because their immune systems are still developing and in part because, pound for pound, they’re exposed to more chemical residues than adults. Another reason is that children and babies tend to eat a lot more of certain foods than adults — think bananas or apples."

I won't go into detail why organic is better; For me it's boils down to amount of pesticides and additives (antibiotics etc) in the products, and the fact that organic is better for the environment and is more sustainable.

Adding organic produce to our weekly shopping haul


What I have started to do is to shop organic products for the 'Dirty Dozen' items. In simple terms the Dirty Dozen are produce that have the most amount of pesticides found in them when they were tested. Here's the complete list. What shocked me the most was that out of the 12 items we ate almost all of the items weekly: strawberries, apples, spinach, grapes, tomatoes... These things are staples in our home!

These couple of items increases our grocery budget by a little, but i think in the end it goes a long way. By the way, if you're interested in seeing what groceries we get for the week, follow me on Snapchat (username sitijaffar)! I always loving knowing what other people buy when they do grocery shopping and every couple of days you get a sneak peek on our grocery haul ;)

I follow some awesome blogs and Instagrammers who cook organic, some of my favourites are mama.of4, organicfoodforkids and the_organickitchen.

Having Lennox eat with us the last months has changed the way i cook and feed the family in some ways. For his meals I add no salt and sugar, which has actually led to myself and Jürgen also to eat less refined sugar and salt. That's a plus for all of us striving to be healthier and stronger!

Having a kid really makes you think about what kind of future you want for him. And whether the world would even exist in 50 years. While i'm still discovering a lot about nutrition and clean eating, there's still a lot to learn!!