Someday when I have a garden it will be organic. If you get mad at the rest of what I say in this blog, come back and read this first sentence and consider forgiving me.

I cringe every time I get a comment or read a post from someone who is discouraged and thinking about abandoning the BTD because it is too expensive to be organic. You can follow the BTD without being organic. You can follow the BTD without ever going to a health food store.

Take your BTD food lists to any grocery store and buy beneficial meat and produce. Buy beneficial legumes and juices; get rice, rye flour, nuts, and dried fruit. If you maximize beneficials, round out your menus with neutrals, and stay away from avoids your health and weight will improve. Yes even shopping only at the grocery store - without ever worrying about terms like hormone free or certified organic.

I have read the theories about why organic is better. I understand them, and I agree with some of them. However, I have never seen an impartial double blind study that compares long term an organic lifestyle with an equally healthy non-organic life style.

The profit motives are as strong for small sellers of organic goods as they are for agribusiness. The scare tactics used by some nutritionists are as appalling as the slick advertisements run by the big food conglomerates.

I shop once a week at two health food stores, because I can get some items with fewer additives. I can get a greater variety of raw nuts. I can find more wheat free items. But if you want to know the truth I am dismayed at the amount of corn syrup, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and aspartame I find on the labels of health store brands. I have to be as careful when I shop at the health food store as I am at the grocery store.

I buy hormone free meat when it is on sale, and I buy wild caught fish when it is available. But I have frozen cod fillets in my freezer for quick meals, and I buy hamburger from the grocery store on days when time or money are at issue.

I used to buy organic carrots, but often they were woody and dry. Now I look at both, and I buy whichever appears to be fresher and juicier. Several years ago I decided to buy organic fruit. I had to throw out more than half of the apples I sliced because of bugs or rotten cores. I no longer spend my money on organic fruit.

I buy deodorant at the health food store, because I do not like the sticky residue left by grocery store antiperspirants. But I buy shampoo, soap, and laundry detergent at a discount store. I don't use lotions; I use olive and almond oil.

I know I sound like I'm on the fence about organic. As I said at the beginning when I have a garden, it will be organic. But right now my budget and other needs of my family are also realities. Organic will not make as big a difference in my health, my weight and my longevity as the basic BTD principals of beneficial/neutral/avoid.