Recently I had a friend contact me on Facebook asking me for advise on buying and cooking organic, whole foods. Her husband just finished his doctorate work and is looking for employment – so their budget is tight. She’s a part-time working mom with time constraints and heath issues that leave her tired but needing optimal nutrients and minimal pesticides.

She wants to convert to a more organic eating style , but was overwhelmed by the thought of it and sought me out for advise on eating more organic foods, with little preparation and buying on a budget.

I rambled off a few quick things from the top of my head. And then it got me thinking about more tips on the matter. And I thought it would be a fun dialogue to start here. All moms find little tricks and ways that work for them. So lets share some of our ideas on how you save money when you buy organic, and save time preparing them in the kitchen too.

I’ll start with mine, and what I told my Facebook friend.

Read the Environmental Working Group’s 2011 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce.  If you are on a budget and have to choose what to buy organic, study this site. It has short and long versions of the lists of foods that have the most pesticides and the least. For example, I’d always go for the organic apples and strawberries. But you can skip the $6.99 organic pineapple because its pesticide residue is minimal.

I’m a vegetarian, but a few years ago I did start buying small amounts of meat for my husband to have at home.  And now, my two youngest daughters eat small amounts of meat too. The oldest girl however, won’t have anything to do with meat. When it comes to meat or dairy products and genetically-engineered growth hormones, called rBGH, I pay to avoid them.

In fact, if I can’t pay for it or if it’s not available, then we skip them all together. This philosophy is how I became a vegetarian in the first place, back when I was 20 years-old, a college student 15 years ago and when natural alternatives were expensive and difficult to come by. It’s just a natural instinct in me that freaks me out. It’s hard to explain. And now that I have girls, the risk of them developing breasts at age 10 really freaks me out. So yeah, I’d put my money in organic meat and dairy before produce.

This site, Sustainable table, is a good introduction for reading on growth hormones, how the ones used in the US are banned in Europe and the possible roll they play in breast cancer as well as the early onset of puberty in girls. It’s also an informative site regarding why buying local is best.

To check out conversations with other moms buying organic for their families, this loop over at Motherting.com is a good active one titled Reasons to go organic and tips to make it affordable. 

My biggest advise on buying organic is to go to your local farmer’s market and start talking to farmers about their practices. Ask them questions for things you are looking for. You can even inquire about things like going in on a cow share, where you buy a portion of a grass fed cow with other people. Then together, with the farmer’s help, you have it slaughtered and processed the way you want and you know exactly where it came from. Having a deep freezers is recommended for long-term freezing like this.

Local farmers are a great resource, no mater how you look at or what you chose to eat.

I have found when I ask around, I can always find what I need, from buying local homemade butter in bulk, fresh farm eggs or getting a good deal on 25 pounds of strawberries to can jam. Or, better yet – I’m a member of Community Supported Agriculture and on occasion I can ask my farmer for something and she’ll actually grow it for me. For eight months out of the year I get all my veggies grown organically and delivered to my door weekly for a total of $450.

For a good cookbook on this philosophy of slow food, organic eating and the lifestyle that comes along with it, I recommend reading Nourishing Traditions. It’s heavy on the meat recipes and pretty anti-vegitarian. The Weston A Price Foundation, that backs the Nourishing Traditions movement, is also very vocal against soy – which I actually like. As a vegetarian, I don’t eat much soy and my girls don’t eat any vegetarian, based soy products. But I like the Nourishing Traditions message of eating things that you know how they are made and where they came from.

When you boil it down, it really can be that simply.  A basic rule for me is not to buy things with ingredients that I can’t pronounce or don’t understand how it it ended up on the grocery shelf.

This kind of shopping list usually keeps me to the outer areas of the grocery store, where the fresh stuff is kept – from bread to hummus. And the end caps that feature the good sale items.

When it comes to cooking things without a lot of hassle and energy – I’m a master of it being 6:00 and just getting around to looking in fridge to think about what I’ll make for dinner – and then coming up with something.

For time saving cooking tips, because that’s what my friend was asking about – I use my panini maker a lot – it’s like my best friend in the kitchen! I use it to grill onions, peppers, veggies, quesadillas, grilled cheese sandwiches, veggie burgers, veggie hotdogs and more. It heats up quick, cooks quick, the food goes right onto the plate and it’s easy to clean.

And as a whole, you can’t go wrong with keeping a stocked drawer of  veggies that can be tossed in the oven and roasted in a hurry.  Pasta, beans and rice are staples for quick meals too. Having some good cheeses on hand, like goat, feta and fresh grated parmesan, can also really make a quickly thrown together meal. And as I told my friend, we do a lot of salads with field greens, raw spinach with nuts, cheeses or boiled eggs for protein. Also, I cut up a lot of potatoes, tossing them into the oven to bake for the kids. They could eat their weight in fried okra and peas, and the new favorite thing for kids here is hummus rolled up in a whole wheat wrap. All are quick and easy. And really that, plus avoiding hormones and pesticides, is what it’s all about.

What is it about for you? And how do you do it without spending a fortune on groceries?