Organic Milk vs Regular? And Fruits/Vegetables?

[wolfotehmoon]

Well, reading some articles and comments from people around teh intarwebs, I'm getting the impression that organic milk is worth the extra few bucks a week... But I just wanted to get the opinion of people on here. :3 Also, I'm home for spring break, and realizing just how horrible my family's diet is again... >_> I need some ideas for what fruits and vegetables to try to get my father to buy when he goes shopping next, and, if possible, some advice on how to get him to shell out for it. >>;; He's literally said that all we need is lettuce, corn, and creamed spinach...

[inflated]

Its worth it for several reasons but the main two are, the milk is healthier, and it actually keeps longer. Stick with green fresh vegetables, asparagus, broccolli, spinach, fresh green beans, fennel root, bok choy, brussel sprouts, these are some of my favorites. Fresh is better than frozen, frozen better than canned, canned is better than nothing, except with tomatoes then canned is often better than fresh when out of season.

[Spooky]

Originally Posted by wolfotehmoon

Well, reading some articles and comments from people around teh intarwebs, I'm getting the impression that organic milk is worth the extra few bucks a week...

Yeah, and if you are someone who is like me, who doesn't drink milk all that often, then organic is amazing. Regular milk will last a week or two without going sour, but organic will last like two months or some other unnatural amount of time. I think they ultra-pasteurize it or something. There's something that they do to it.

[wolfotehmoon]

Hijacking my own thread:

Looking pretty much everywhere I can think of online, it seems that the VAST majority of articles are written towards people who want to lose weight. It seems that the assumption taken in those articles is that people, in general, like to eat, and so the problem is with getting them to cut down and eat healthily. Even with bulking articles, there always seems to be an emphasis on SUPER CLEAN diets because people, otherwise, will pig themselves into a heart attack.

Up until now, pretty much every bulk I've had has failed. Miserably. I really don't think I'm a hard gainer, because I've been "able" to hang on to a bit of stomach flab for a couple years. However, I really, really don't like eating. Eating, to me, is like shitting. It feels good if I REALLY have to do it, but when I don't, it just feels like it's taking up time I could be doing something else.

Consequently, I've gotten pretty good at appetite suppression. If I'm just lounging around, I can get through a day on an 800 cal lunch. And even WHEN I'm trying to gain weight, I have trouble deciding what to eat, how much, etc. (Though this does NOT mean that I don't get in a sizable amount) So...

tl;dr Can I get some tips geared towards people who actually DON'T like to eat?

PS I apologize for that image; it's just the only thing I can think of to convey the way I regard eating to those who seem to be consistently the hungriest group of people on the planet.

PPS Crossposted from T-Nation, because apparently "I have a problem, it's not HARDCORE AS FUCK GRRR but I'm still looking for some help" translates to "I am not a man, please ridicule me rather than answering my question." I never knew that being an asshole was a requirement for being manly. :/ But I digress...

Hey dude what you got to do is eat foods high in calories and nutrition. So go out and buy some macadamia oil and olive oil and maybe some MCT oil and Flax seed oil.

I assume you are eating "light meats" like chicken or tuna....so you need to add to them, 3-6 big tablespoons of macadamia oil and 1 tablespoon of flax seed oil ....thats for the entire day man so dont worry.

Next add nuts to your diet lik almonds, walnut etc...have about 125 g of those or a handful every time you sit in front of your computre (and from what I see on your post number you are on your computer ALOT so keep a bowl of nuts by your computer)

Use starchy carbs like rice and sweet potato to get your carbs up. You may even want to drink your carbs before during and after your training session and get some creatine in you too. Put that in your carb drink or your protein drink.

Dont use meat that is too lean. Use high quality meats with some fat on it. Oh and get some whey protein in full fat milk in you. Finish off the day with cottage cheese before bed , the full fat kind about 250g hmmm lik a big cup.

If you cant eat all this its fine...eat what you can...increase slowly over time. Suck it up and get tough man you can do it!

[jackportd]

Organic is pasteurized but doesn't have some of the chemical regular milk has Organic could last at least two weeks more than regular and its much better for you because as i said before it doesn't have as much chemical and decrease the chances of having cancer.

[mewletter]

Obviously if one is lactose intolerant, it's best to avoid milk, regular OR organic. Still, I had been inching to get some raw milk. I know that the USDA slapped many warnings regarding raw milk, but there's more pros than cons from what I read on research articles these days...

[drew]

Well, it's not necessarily that simple kim. It should be, but unfortunately there are no standardized regulations in most places for what constitutes all this.

In the US the term is organic (which in theory just means made with carbon, which would qualify about 2/3 of all compounds on earth). In the EU it's bio (which just means alive).

The whole thing is whatever the terms and the scheme behind such a classification system, what's the point and what are the qualifications, and are they universally applied.

In the US, for foods to be classified as organic, not only must that animal not be treated with certain hormones, antibiotics and such, but it must also be fed a diet not exposed to certain fertilizers and pesticides. However, in reality the USDA rules for say organic cattle only require that they spend 1 day out of 7 eating grass or hay. That means that a store can still sell beef labelled as organic even though 6/7 of what it eats is identical to that of non-organic cattle.

For plant crops and fruit and such the rules are quite strict. Not only can you not use artificial fertilizers and pesticides, but you have to make sure that the actual soil you're using is free of such chemicals entirely (which can actually stay in the dirt for years naturally).

Over the last few years we've been slowly converting our family plantation into an organic / free range operation. We're only talking about a hundred acres or so of actual farmland so it's not that big of a deal, but even that has been a very long process and is not complete. The vegetables are fully organic now, as are the berry crops and vine fruit, but the orchards still have another few years before they can qualify just because several years ago we sprayed the trees with pesticides to keep worms off (this is a normal thing). The chickens, rabbits, ducks, and other livestock and fowl are all organic and free range and happy as can be now. But, that does make for lower yields (although tastier meat and eggs). So, if this were actually a primary source of family income, I'd dare say the choice to go organic would be a tough one.

Now, that's the US/Canadian/Mexican system which is mostly based on what you use, what you feed the animals, how you treat them, and how you kill them. In Europe though the equivalent, BIO, doesn't have anywhere near as strict rules on that end, but does include other things like how much of a carbon footprint you have. For example, BIO wine grown, vinted, and bottled in Italy may no longer be BIO by the time it's gotten to the supermarket shelves in Germany, and it certainly would not be BIO by the time it makes it to a wine shop in the UK. Why? Because the farmer had to use too much fuel transporting the wine to your local market, so now all of his environmental work has been offset by the amount of diesel fuel burned my the trucks and smutt spewed out by their exhaust. Yet, under those same rules, a crop grown locally that wouldn't qualify as organic in the Americas could be labelled as BIO in Europe because its production, harvesting, and distribution was seen as not harming the environment.