Dariusz ROZYCKI:
>Inorganic foods: Are there raw fooders here that consume mostly inorganic
>fruits/veggies? Any comments or tips for someone who does?  Should I have
>any concerns?  Can raw-foodism exist and work well on inorganic?

>Tom:
>Organic foods are not required to be a successful raw fooder. A post on
>the original veg-raw (1995) claimed that Viktoras reported that
>non-organic fruits and veggies worked just as well as organic.

>There is a lot of misunderstanding about the term organic. All it means
>is that synthetic pesticides were not used on the plants. Many "natural"
>pesticides (some of which are rather toxic) can be used on the plants,
>as well as slaughterhouse byproducts such as fish meal emulsion, bone
>meal (raising the worry of "mad cow disease"), ground feathers (as
>mulch), etc. I know some raw fooders who have elevated organic to the level of
>a sacrament: "there's NO excuse to not eat organic", "your food MUST be
>100% organic", "you can't afford to not eat organic". All the preceding
>statements are nonsense; some organic foods are high quality, others are
>low quality and expensive (the example of celery comes to mind: organic
>celery that is edible seems to be the exception rather than the rule.)

Steve:
Thanks for the above info and comments.  I have been wrestling with the
question of
eating organic food since this past January when I made the decision to
eat only organic whenever possible.  That was when I found out about the
genetic engineering of crops which really scared me.  So far organic food
is free from GE.  Lately, however, I have been eating less organic food
because of

1.  availability (I have to drive 45 minutes each way in order to shop for
decent organic food)
2.  price (organic food is usually much more expensive than nonorganic)
3.  being unsure as to whether GE crops are as bad as I originally thought
that they were.

Tom:
>I consume some organic, some non-organic. I try to buy the freshest,
>highest quality. Sometimes that is organic, sometimes non-organic.

Steve:
That sounds like a good plan to follow.  In addition to freshest highest
quality, I would add level of pesticide residue in my decision.  In the
June 97 issue of the "Nutrition Action Healthletter" (published by the
Center for Science in the Public Interest - CSPI - http://www.cspinet.org/)

there was an article entitled "How to avoid pesticides".  Accompanying
the article was a chart of the pesticide levels in various fruits and
veggies.
Strawberries had by far the highest pesticide residue, while avocados
had the lowest.

I've noticed that organic produce tends to taste better (if it is good
quality)
than its nonorganic counterparts.  In the case of avocados, I have not
found
any nonorganic ones that taste decent yet.  The organic ones are now  $
1.99
each (ouch!)  at Fresh Fields (Natural Food Market) here in Maryland.  I
normally
eat about one a day when I have them.

Thanks Tom for your many informative posts!

Sincerely,
Steve S.  :-)