Sunshine and Light

Organics...another view

Hmmm, a blog I read posted this as a "devastating" article taking down organic foods, specifically Whole Foods organic foods. In skimming through this, the main issues appear to be:

• Organic foods is big business, which is counter to the hippy organic food vision
• Organic foods aren't tastier or demonstrably healthier than regular foods
• Organic foods use lots of fossil fuels in being shipped across country and in having manure shipped into the farm
• You can't feed the world using purely organic farming methods.

To which my reply is "So", "So", "So", and "No kidding".

To start from the beginning point...well I guess there's not much to say in addition to I don't think I would take business or investment advice from the 1960s version hippies. They were awful big on vision, and awful poor on execution. Sorry, dude, if your pot isn't organic.

The second point is important only if taste and your personal health are the main two reasons for buying organic. If it's more of an environmental concern, then this point isn't nearly as persuasive as the next point - the fossil fuels. But based on this article, I can't tell if organic foods are using more fossil fuels than their conventionally raised counterparts. If they're using comparable amounts of fossil fuels, at least in buying organic they're not putting the chemical fertilizers and pesticides into the system. I'm not totally against chemical pesticides/fertilizers, but I think we have this tendency to find years down the road that there are side effects to the chemicals we use that we don't expect. Not always, but enough of the time that I think there's a place at the table for farming organically. If it turns out that organic is more fuel intensive, then Chris is right and it make more sense to buy local produce than to buy organic.

The final point I've heard before, and it always makes me laugh. Really? You're really that concerned about feeding the world? Change what you eat. Give up meat. Better yet, go vegan. I don't think anyone will contest that cattle are far more resource intensive than wheat. I also don't see how getting triple the arugula yield is going to help the starving children in Africa. So maybe your next salad could skip the shee-shee foods so that those fields can be used for wheat or corn. Don't want to sacrifice on the diet? Well how about setting up a means of getting that grain to the victims of famine? How many "We are the World" moments have we seen on tv where stacks of food are sitting on docks? I'm guessing the biggest threat to feeding people in this world is NOT the organic vs non-organic method of farming.

Anyway, the persuasiveness of the article depends on the reasons for buying organic. I think it's silly to be ticked off that people are buying organic. If you don't want organic foods, it's still FAR easier to find conventionally raised food than it is to find organic. Relax people, it's just lunch.

And off the topic of the article and on to the grass-fed beef...I made a batch last night in spaghetti. I'd been warned it would taste different, but honestly I couldn't tell a difference with the spaghetti sauce, onions and bell peppers in the mix. I figure I'll make a few more meals before I make a definite decision on buying more, but so far, so good.

posted by MyHusbandRules @ 8:43 AM