Organic blah blah blah

coach4tl

I mean honestly. Is it really that much better? Or is this just another one of those corporate BS campaigns to make my wife spend more money on bread and detergent? What are the real, honest benefits?

ladygooddiva

yes it is better .I have worked in that section and saw a lot ..and learned a lot..i miss it here where i live now really ...

Get_Right

its both actually

organic is better for you

but the food companies have been lobbying hard in recent years to reduce what is required in order to be labled "organic"

bottom line, research your food suppliers/producers. If its from a huge company, Id be more suspect than if its from a local or even regional company.

EDIT: For me its not so much about the benefits, but about the what Im not putting into my body.
Read the omnivore's dilemma by michael pollan and lets chat.

GreenTeaDisease

I don't know if organic is necessarily much better for *you* but it is much better for the environment. that's a given. Most of the food I buy is just organic by default.

however, it's probably more important to buy things grown locally rather than just looking for organic. organic can come from anywhere.

coach4tl

GreenTeaDisease wrote:

I don't know if organic is necessarily much better for *you* but it is much better for the environment. that's a given. Most of the food I buy is just organic by default.

however, it's probably more important to buy things grown locally rather than just looking for organic. organic can come from anywhere.

That's what I tell her. I'd much rather support the local producers at the farmers market than buy something from Kraft with "organic" on the label.

GreenTeaDisease

coach4tl wrote:

That's what I tell her. I'd much rather support the local producers at the farmers market than buy something from Kraft with "organic" on the label.

well it depends what your priorities are. and why not do both if you can?
plus many of the farmers at your local market could be organic as well. local is good because the food doesn't have to be transported great distances. a lot of the food we buy in the grocery store, be it organic or not, comes from all over the world, often when there that type of food is grown closer to you. I'm not a fan of whole foods overall, but I do like that they have signs saying where the produce came from.

oh and I just noticed you are in northern CA...it should be easy to buy a lot of things close to you, even within state! In MA it's not so easy.

quarterpast

coach4tl wrote:

I mean honestly. Is it really that much better? Or is this just another one of those corporate BS campaigns to make my wife spend more money on bread and detergent? What are the real, honest benefits?

Organic is loads better for the Earth. Using your example of detergent: waste water goes to a treatment plant to become usable again - regular detergents are full or harsh chemicals that are dangerous to plant and animal life (of course, for humans, you'd have to drink a good bit, but for small organisms, a little bit does a lot of damage), using organic detergent has very little toxic output (also in the production stages of the product). Most people I know who live out in the country with wells and cesspools have been using Earth friendly products for a long time because what comes out of their house has the potential to come right back in much quicker than for those of us on city sewer systems.

We as humans have an all time high amount of chemicals in our bodies. This mostly affects children who breast feed. I worked at Whole Foods (full time) as a college student and met many people whose bodies have a very difficult time with chemicals, they just haven't adapted the way most bodies have. It was scary to watch a woman's fingertips turn blackish after she handled money without gloves. You meet children who have to wear surgical masks 24/7.

While we are not all crippled by chemicals, my time at Whole Foods, seeing people with such extreme reactions, makes you start to look at labels and really notice how many harmful chemicals are in every day products. I did change to all natural and organic home cleaning products. As for food, I can't afford to go all organic, nor do a see a need for myself to do that at this point. (I will by local over organic if I have the choice)

I can see how most people have trouble with buying organic and wondering if it really matters. My parents still see organic as 'inefficient farming.' Who wants to pay more for fruit and veggies that aren't nearly as bright and shiny? Take an alcohol swab to a sunkist orange and see how much orange dye and wax rubs off.

Corduroyboy

Just shop at Trader Joe's and your life will be good.

I didn't believe all the organic nonsense until I married a 100% organic life supportive vegetarian. Granted I will never become a vegetarian because I love lamb chops and prime rib, but the food I do buy now is a lot different than what I bought 5 years ago.

he still stands

The more important thing to do is to BUY LOCAL produce. It will taste better and is better for the environment if you don't buy an apple that was transported 2000 miles to get to your dining room table.

quarterpast

coach4tl wrote:

I mean honestly. Is it really that much better? Or is this just another one of those corporate BS campaigns to make my wife spend more money on bread and detergent? What are the real, honest benefits?

Here is some useful info:
http://www.seventhgeneration.com/learn - there is a question and answer section where you can write in to them. (these are the people who make organic household products, i love them)

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/issues/organic/index.html - lots of info on organics. The 'issues' section of their site has some other great info (I recently read up a lot on seafood sustainability after seeing warnings about eating certain types of fish nowadays do to recent unhealthy levels of toxins within fish)

http://www.storyofstuff.com - shows what comes out of production of many products

_Crazy_Mary_

I say, if you can afford organic, go for it! But don't preach to me or look down on me because I don't. I work in a restaurant that is almost 100% organic - down to the flour and sugar they use for desserts. All the fish is wild, line caught and the meat is free-range and grass fed. The hippies here love it. They don't mind paying $36 for salmon, but I do. Hey, that's how I make my money!

he still stands

I've been involved in many arguments about organic food over in the Moving Train.

If you do enough research you'll find, from unbiased sources who don't profit from either conventional or organic agriculture, that switching over to organic food would mean not enough food for the world to survive. We could produce as much, but it would require 20x the amount of labor which isn't available and would require huge government subsidies. The cost of food would skyrocket. So go ahead and eat it, but don't think that you will be eating nothing but GMO free food here in the US anytime soon. And like I said earlier, it is much more important to buy local than to buy organic.

coach4tl

Wow tons o' info! Thanks for all the responses. Please don't get me wrong, I think the concept of organic production is great. I just really wondered if the whole "organic" thing that is being touted by all the publications was simply a means to raise prices and profits or if their was legitimacy to it.

quarterpast

coach4tl wrote:

Wow tons o' info! Thanks for all the responses. Please don't get me wrong, I think the concept of organic production is great. I just really wondered if the whole "organic" thing that is being touted by all the publications was simply a means to raise prices and profits or if their was legitimacy to it.

If it has the official usda certified organic seal, it's the real deal. A lot of companies try to fake it, so you just have to be careful to make sure you aren't handing money over to some liars

acoustic guy

Anyone who thinks Organic is not healthy for you is just simply uneducated on the topic.
I use Horizon Milk for my family. It is produced without growth hormones antibiotics or pesticides.
The milk you buy that is not organoc has all that shit.
The veggies and fruits you eat have all sorts of crap on them.
Just read up on the matter and see for yourself.

mca47

All I know is that organic produce is about 10000x better than it's non-organic counterpart.

If I had the money, I'd buy nothing buy organic goods.

_Crazy_Mary_

My family rarely if ever eats bread and one night last week after work they had a ton of extra sourdough rolls. The chef tried to send some home with me and I said, "no, thank you. I don't eat bread." She asked why and I ended up saying my family doesn't eat crap (as in bread, pasta, pizza or anything enjoyable). She responded, "but it's organic!" it's still bread!

acoustic guy

_Crazy_Mary_ wrote:

My family rarely if ever eats bread and one night last week after work they had a ton of extra sourdough rolls. The chef tried to send some home with me and I said, "no, thank you. I don't eat bread." She asked why and I ended up saying my family doesn't eat crap (as in bread, pasta, pizza or anything enjoyable). She responded, "but it's organic!" it's still bread!

You think whole grain organic bread is crap?

ladygooddiva

if i would not live here
and i we ould be in germany i would just buy orcanic specially for my baby...i ca t change not my heatlh but she is on the way ..not all this poisend food etc...

mca47

acoustic guy wrote:

You think whole grain organic bread is crap?

Oh man, whole grain bread is the shit!

Mmmmmm...nice and warm dipped in some good olive oil. Yum-o!

GreenTeaDisease

_Crazy_Mary_ wrote:

My family rarely if ever eats bread and one night last week after work they had a ton of extra sourdough rolls. The chef tried to send some home with me and I said, "no, thank you. I don't eat bread." She asked why and I ended up saying my family doesn't eat crap (as in bread, pasta, pizza or anything enjoyable). She responded, "but it's organic!" it's still bread!

those things aren't "crap." they are just simple carbohydrates. I don't eat them either (though I do eat whole wheat versions in moderation), but they aren't "crap"- they aren't "bad" for you as long as they are all natural. crap is junk food- processed foods, artificial colors, highfructose corn syrup, etc. they aren't efficient foods so if you are trying not to get fat it is probably a good idea to avoid them, but there is a world of difference between a "fattening" food and "junk/crap/bad" food.