Did you know that there are over fifty varieties of carrots? How many have you tried? Two, maybe three?
There are more than 7,500 varieties of apples worldwide, although only nine are popular in the United States. When it comes to tomatoes, we are talking over 10,000 varieties.
Every variety of a plant is a little different, and the chemical composition of the food that the plant yields is also a little different. One variety may have more of a particular nutrient, such as a vitamin or mineral, than the next variety. Even the same variety of a plant will have a different composition based on what soil it was planted in. Some soil may be richer in organic content, while another one may have more concentration of minerals.
The greater the variety of foods you eat, the more different nutrients you are exposed to. This is a good thing.
Always shopping at the same grocery store limits our exposure to nutrients, while potentially exposing us to the same chemicals.
Avoiding Toxins
If you can avoid or minimize exposure to pesticides and herbicides by consuming only organically grown foods, that is great, but if you are not there yet, consider the following.
Different pesticides and herbicides are used in conventionally grown produce, according to the country, the weather, and the altitude of the place where a crop has been planted.
The human body was designed to deal with a certain amount of toxins. Parts of the body naturally release toxins from the body: urine, feces, hair, sweat.
The body can deal with small amounts of toxins, but if we feed it too much of any given toxin, the body may not be able to expel all of it, leading to accumulation. By eating a wide variety of foods, foods that are different from each other and grown in different places, you minimize the chances of being exposed to the same chemical over and over again.
Choosing Stores
If you always buy the same foods in the same store, you limit the number of nutrients that your family eats, while continuing to consume the same pesticides and herbicides contained in foods, and giving them a chance to accumulate in your tissues and organs.
No matter how much you love a store, it is a good idea to not always but all your foods from that one store.
In the city where we live we are lucky to have a local food coop, where we do a large percentage of our grocery shopping, but we also get organic foods at Costco, Earth Fare, Trader Joe’s. Now there is a Whole Foods in town, so we are going to check it out too.
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How to Eat to Be Healthy in the United States 