15 Sep The Cost of Going Organic

Quite surprisingly, I still hear people make the excuse that they cannot afford to buy organic products. If health and wellbeing or even value for money are priorities, then this does not make sense to me at all.

Perhaps there still exists the perception that organic is elitist, expensive or posh, but is it really elitist to maintain that everyone should have the right to safe skincare and food? And in terms of expense, not withstanding that these days you can find organic alternatives at the same price as most of your favourite products, I do believe that it is easy, or convenient at times, to forget the true cost of buying cheap products, simply because they have a lower monetary price tag.

Take for instance, the case of organic deodorants which are mostly more expensive than conventional synthetic deodorants. Is the R20 or R30 price difference though really worth putting you and your family (your future family too) at risk of cancer and poor health?

And even if one could get a supply of free synthetic deodorants for the rest of your life, you are fooling yourself if you believe there is no cost to these products. It is well documented the harm the aluminum and paraben based deodorants can cause, and surely there is no price tag big enough for this.

As can be expected we mostly decide on the value of a product by comparing it to another, but let me put it to you this way. You cannot compare an organic body lotion for instance that costs R50 against a synthetic body lotion that costs R35. The organic body lotion is moisturising your skin with oils that it recognises and it is enhancing your body’s ability to nourish itself. On the other hand the synthetic body lotion, gives you the appearance of having nourished your skin, but in the long term it is causing premature aging with its pore blocking mineral oils and harsh emollients and preservatives. This is not even to mention, the chemicals that your skin drinks in every time you apply the product. You see, these two products are entirely different. It would be like comparing apples to strawberries.

So when I hear someone saying that a natural soap for instance is expensive, I wonder what they mean? Do they know how much a natural soap should cost or do they expect that it should cost the same as the synthetically produced soap? That would be like expecting that motor oil should cost the same as cooking oil. And do they know why the synthetically produced soap costs so little and that although one may be used to paying that, that one does need to recognize what it is actually that they are paying for.

Lastly, I want to reiterate that even with the points made above, that organic is not always more costly in terms of rands spent per product. Perhaps the overall cost per month might be R100 which can easily be spent on all those unnecessary articles that creep into your basket each time you stop at a convenience store… we really do believe of course that you are getting much better value by spending that extra R100 on safe products that don’t cause damage to you, your family, your environment or your pets.