This post comes from my friend, Sarah, who is constantly challenging me to think differently. Better yet – she is going to be my accountability partner for PX90.
I ran to the local grocery store the other night because I realized I didn’t have butter to make congo bars. My husband asked me to buy bananas so he could make banana wheat bread in the bread maker.
Standing by the produce, I notice regular bananas are 59 cents/lb. and organic bananas are 99 cents/lb. My initial thought was to buy the cheaper option. I’ve always thought that organic bananas were optional because you peel them.
The weekend before, my friend told me about what she had read in a book about growing bananas.
Bananas are generally grown in Costa Rica. The crops are dusted almost daily with fungicide that is known carcinogen. People live near these plantations. The fungicide gets into their water supply.
What if this was my children’s only water supply and our house was right next door to these fields?
So in grocery store, I paused to ask myself if I’m saving money only for the preservation of my family or to be a generous and loving person to others. I have moments like this where I’m convicted to make a change, not out of guilt, but because it makes sense.
These little decisions that we make every day have a greater impact than just us.
When we’re able to cut our grocery bills in so many ways, is it possible that we could spend just a little extra to positively impact the life of someone we don’t even know?
What is the “Real” Cost of Bananas?
At Give Me Neither, Sarah finds joy in discovering and passing along the best deals, showing that there’s a place for quality even on a budget. She is a wife and mom to 2 little boys moving toward a green, healthier way of life, waiting to bring home a child from South Africa, and learning what it means to live richly and generously even without being “rich”.
Great thoughts… thanks Sarah!
Kelly – welcome home – things were fine all week.
Some ‘environmentalist’ somewhere undoubtedly has reasons for banning every food on the planet. Remember the bogus alar scare for apples? The ban on DDT that has resulted in the deaths of over 50 million Africans over the decades due to malaria from the mosquitoes they could no longer control (and no, Rachel Carson was wrong in “Silent Spring”). PETA doesn’t want ANY animals to be used for meat and actually wants both hunting AND fishing banned. Some nuts in NJ over a decade ago wanted to ban mowing because it would hurt the grass (I’m not kidding!). Activists want all fast food banned.
I could go on but I just want to make the point that not everything you hear is correct from environmentalists – they actually make things up to achieve what their particular goal is, and they scare you to do it. Another massive hoax – that ‘organic’ food is better than the alternative – totally false. It IS much more expensive, but there is no nutritional difference between organic and ‘inorganic’ foods (if you prefer the taste, then that’s different). Another current scare – the eco-crazies want genetically-engineered crops outlawed. Result if they get their wish – new types of seed that produce far more crops and are more resistant to disease will get withdrawn from the poorest countries that most need them, the availability of food will decrease and food prices in those countries will skyrocket, all because of an irrational fear without merit.
Finally, wouldn’t you love to get raw hamburger and chicken you KNOW doesn’t have any bacterial contamination? You could, except that activists have blocked the widespread use of irradiation, playing on people’s misunderstanding about the process. Irradiation eliminates 100% of bacteria and other organisms and would dramatically decrease the incidence of food poisoning around the world, but you don’t get to choose because some activists are blocking it.
Please, eat your bananas in peace.
Interesting article. I shop at Whole Foods so in that case the non-organic bananas are grown in a way that actually helps sustain the environment and give jobs to Costa Ricans.
I always buy organic fruit. The ironic part is this weekend was the one time I broke down and bought non organic bananas. My mom had kept bothering me that articles said that bananas pesticide residue was very low on non organic bananas. Looks like I need to do some more research. Thanks for writing this article!