Comments on: Organic Foods and Frugality

By: JT

JT — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:50:28 +0000

I tend toward organic because I am allergic to most pesticides.
It has been brought to my attention recently that some crops are gassed to speed up the growing process.
Does anyone know if that is prohibited in organic farming?
What crops are gassed?
Some farms worse than others? States? Countries?
JT

By: Lori

Lori — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 05:16:16 +0000

We had a garden last year and plan to expand and build some raised beds this coming year. I love it when we have our own fresh grown, organic veggies because I know exactly what went into them. The rest of the year, I buy organic when I can. Our homeschool group also has an organic co-op, which is great. I agree that there is a huge difference in the taste.

By: Monica

Monica — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:12:16 +0000

Trent, love what you’re doing and appreciate all the work that goes into this website.

For the first time I have to disagree.

Store produce tastes like !@@3 because it is genetically altered to be disease and bug resistant. American produce can not be imported in Europe for this reason.

I hope you get to go to Europe someday and get to taste a real apple, plum, orange, tomato, blueberry, raspberry, grapes or a pear.
Delicious! Monica

By: Mariette

Mariette — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 22:31:09 +0000

The following article showed up in the NY Times today on 5 easy ways to eat organic: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/five-easy-ways-to-go-organic/?em&ex=1193371200&en=5a05b87e57a5edd7&ei=5087

There are some good links as well as info on which foods are the most pesticide laden.

By: pamphyila

pamphyila — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:29:23 +0000

For years I couldn’t really eat nectarines, peaches or apricots because whatever pesticide they used on them made my mouth pucker and my lips swell. Now I find I can enjoy them if I get them at the organic part of the farmer’s market or store. (Otherwise I stick to fruits I can peel – like bananas and oranges, etc… and I try to get unwaxed cooking apples…)

By: Lucy

Lucy — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:32:43 +0000

I would love to buy more organic for all of the reasons discussed above, but at the moment my food budget is seriously limited which in turn limits the amount of organic food I can buy. There are a couple of things I always buy regardless of the budget though;
- organic milk
- free range eggs
- free range chicken (I personally can’t bear the thought of battery farmed chicken)

I agree with alot of the previous posters who have said that one of the main reasons for buying organic is the taste as well as the possible health benefits, and as my food budget hopefully starts to increase so will the amount of organic food I buy.

By: David

David — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:37:50 +0000

I really think you only need to ask yourself one question: If someone put two vegetables in front of you, one that was grown with pesticides and one that was grown without – which would you choose?

When it comes to eating, it is one thing I am not frugal about, as it is the fuel you are putting in your body.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:58:34 +0000

Elizabeth, I concede that ammonium is man-made and is terrible for the environment (particularly as it contributes to hypoxic zones around the world). I missed that when I read the blog.

I buy from the farm so we are on the same side. My point to Trent was that, with the exception of ammonium, the things on that list are pretty basic stuff that our great-grandparents used (soap, wood chips, metals as fungicides). They are not all perfectly ideal, but they are not organophosphates etc. I feel he was equating any chemical name to being bad, hence my question about dihydrogen monoxide.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:24:14 +0000

For me the last paragraph of Trent’s post is absolutely key — and I do grow MOST of my own produce because I have the luxury of a big sunny yard. My second choice is to buy from farmers I can talk to at the farmers market — whether they choose to pay for organic certification or not, a sign saying “no chemicals have ever touched these vegetables!” speaks pretty loudly. But when I am buying something I didn’t grow and can’t get from local farmers — wheat flour, for example — I will pay extra to buy organic not because I am worried about residues but because of the chemicals being put into our environment.

Lisa, here’s just one of the things wrong with those chemicals: there’s an area in the Gulf of Mexico the size of New Jersey that no longer can sustain life because of all the fertilizer washing down the Mississippi River. I want no part in that.

My husband and I literally keep track of the extra expense of organic vs. conventional under “donations” in our budget. Well, we don’t track item by item, but use the estimate that the additional cost is about 25% of our grocery bill. I consider this extra expense at least as worthy as other ways we choose to donate to environmental causes — I think if money were tighter I’d give up my annual contribution to the Sierra Club before I quit buying organic.

Elizabeth

By: Mariette

Mariette — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 04:45:54 +0000

The other environmental impact that no one has mentioned is the petroleum intensive means of production with conventional agriculture (and some large scale organics) through the use of heavy machinery and even some of the fertilizers and pesticides themselves. If you are trying to reduce your carbon footprint buying from smaller, family farms is essential.

There is a very interesting documentary out now about this that is touring the festivals called “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil”. It’s about how Cuba’s agricultural system completely transformed after the collapse of the Soviet Union because they had very limited access to oil (and the information conveyed is interesting and useful no matter how you feel about peak oil or Cuba.)

Now nearly all their food is grown by a network of small farms, in the city as well as the countryside and 80% of farming is organic. All because they don’t have oil to spare for growing food. Another result has been that farmers are well paid, some of the best paid jobs in the country, and are now respected members of the community.

By: Susy

Susy — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 01:06:54 +0000

I only buy “the dirty dozen” in organic if I can find them. I buy for personal health as well as for environmental reasons. I buy organic milk and local free-range organic eggs. I live in rural OH, so I have a hard time finding good organic produce in my small town groceries. I’m starting to grow my own because it’s cheaper and healthier, you can’t get any more local than your own back yard!

Milk is our big organic purchase. I will never buy non-organic milk again! Tastes better, and it’s better for you! If you can find a local dairy to buy from even better!

By: Sylvia

Sylvia — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:04:27 +0000

I’ve struggled with the issue of organics for several months now. I’ve finally narrowed it down to a few things. My doctor wants me to avoid hormones so I buy organic milk. ( my mother died of breast cancer, so that is the reason to avoid hormones) I don’t buy much meat anyway but the next time I do it will be organic for the same reason. I buy eggs from mennonite or amish farmers. And my doctor also wants my to avoid the harmful fats in bakery goods and peanut butter. So I buy organic peanut butter. Even though my children are grown , trying to be buy all organic is way beyond our budget. We try not to spend more than 250.00 dollars a month on food and supplies. Let my tell you though, I have agonized over this issue.

By: Brock

Brock — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:24:10 +0000

Essentially Trent’s just waving around words with scary-sounding suffixes. And no, the American Chemistry Council did not pay me to write this comment.

My point is not that USDA organic standards are perfect and wonderful. A previous commenter points out that these are, after all, _USDA_ standards, with a great deal of industry baggage.

My point is that organic can indeed be better — for a person and for the environment. Reducing chemical loads is important not even necessarily for our own health, but for the long-term sustainability of our agricultural and ecological systems.

We can’t all grow our own food, Trent. We don’t all live in Iowa. Some of us — gasp! — don’t have yards (or even usable open space), and a lot of people don’t have access to food co-ops. If we want food without chemicals (or with as little chemical load as possible) we have to rely on organic farming — and that involves, yes, the dreaded trusting of other people.

Sometimes, in society, we have to do that.

And yes, local is demonstrably better for all kinds of reasons, taste and embodied energy (fewer food miles) being chief among them.

Here’s a graph:

L|
O|
C|
A|
L|
+————–
O R G A N I C

Try to maximize both.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:42:19 +0000

Trent, what do you think is wrong with those allowed CHEMICALS you list? Those aren’t large man-made concoctions like the herbicides your corn-growing neighbors use.

From your point of view, DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE is bad.
dihydrogen monoxide = H2O = water!

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:25:33 +0000

Since the USDA now controls ‘organic,’ and the USDA is under the influence of the Arthur Daniels Midland (ADM: supermarket to the world)and Cargills (ie: BIG business), many of you have fallen into the very ploy those companies intended. That is, you believe that ‘organic’ is not really good at all and that any data/study is arguable. Tobacco did it, big oil does it, and now your corporate farm is doing it too.

Buy local when you can. Better taste, less energy used in transportation, better for your economy. Talk to a farmer.

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:42:01 +0000

You certainly seemed to be riding the fence until that last paragraph.
Very good post.
There are so many loop holes in the USDAs regulations that the really big agribusinesses can hire crafty lawyers to get around just about anything. For instance, a chicken is considered free-range if it is just given “access” to the outside and pasture, so what many agribiz farms do is raise the chicken, packed with thousands of others in a building completely closed off, for the first few weeks of its life, and then gives it “access” to the outdoors by opening a small hole in the wall, which the chicken, by this point, has no desire to go through. But, they were given “access” and because of that, they can be labeled Free-Range, according to the USDA (of course it’s not quite this simple, but you can see what I mean).
The bottom line is, you are in charge of what goes in your mouth, and you are the one that suffers or benefits from any consequences that arise from your actions. Stop delegating your life.

By: Marcus Murphy

Marcus Murphy — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 08:06:54 +0000

Really it shouldn’t be about organic or in-organic. Before the recent fad of buying organic, I can tell you the quality of food labeled as organic was phenomenal! Since its popularity rose, restrictions have been cut back etc. For me I saw organic and I knew it was a safe bet back then for high quality food. Not so much anymore. Now I just shop where I know the food is still grown to a stricter regimen. It delivers every time. I agree above about the taste. My grandmother never really liked strawberries growing up. I insisted that she try an organic one grown on a local farm. One bite and she was hooked!

Another issue I can pick with inorganic food is that the nutritional quality is lower, in many cases much lower. It all depends on the source that grew it. I would never buy organic in a grocery store, it really isn’t that much better than inorganic in my eyes.

By: m

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 06:00:54 +0000

This post seems different than when I read it this morning. Is it or am I imagining things?

By: Jillian

Jillian — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 05:55:21 +0000

I think you’ve got to do your research when it comes to buying organic, just like anything else. I buy organic milk because I have enough of my own hormones to deal with, eggs because they taste better, and tea and coffee because you’re literally drinking the run-off from the plants.
But for all I know, all tea could be grown organically, and they just stick an organic label on some of it so they can charge more…

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 04:52:08 +0000

Yes the USDA label has diluted the meaning of organic, before the USDA took over the labelling we had far more strict 3rd party labelling, which still exists if you look closely, this is a case where education is useful and you will not get any from the agri business owned USDA.
We belong to a local organic co op and for $500 we get veggies for a family of four ,once a week,pulled out of the ground that morning ,grown by people we know,that taste FABULOUS ( from June till October, in Alaska).
The food is better than store bought, cheaper, our money stays in the state,and we don’t pay for transportation costs.
If you want food the way it was grown for millenia,before the chemical companies saw a new “market”, you must know your local farmer and know how he grows. Do not trust the USDA,their interests lie in the hands of big industry and profit,not in clean safe food and unpolluted waterways.