This has been weighing on my conscience lately and I really feel I need to at least get more info. Why should we switch to organic foods? Is it so important that even though our budget is tight it squeals at a pitch only dogs can hear, we should spend the extra on organic foods?
This is from one of the posts I made in the Organic Gardening class in the Free School Forum. I know you weren't asking a gardening question, but it also covers why organically grown food is better not only for the sustainability of the environment, but also for the health of those who eat it (who eat the food, not eat the environment) Peace, poor_old_dad
I think the "price scare" of organic food is just propaganda. Yes it's a little bit more expensive, but I think the moral is that we all don't need to eat as much as we think we do. I am not a man of means (by no means, king of road....) and I still manage to stock my cupboards and refrigerator with predominantly organic and/or local foods. Since I started doing this I find I'm purchasing better food and eating better in general. The only thing that is very expensive, i've found, is butter and other dairy products. What ends up being expensive is when we try to still eat tons of things and "stock up" on food stuffs that we may not even "need" to be eating/could replace with something else. I guess it comes down to a general lifestyle and change in your diet in order to make it easy and affordable. Also, I don't think stores like "whole foods" or Shaw's "Wild Harvest" are helping the average consumer in their organic food quest; with their huge profit margins and advertising budgets to support it's no wonder everything there is more expensive. Small stores that do limited advertising, if any, like Trader Joes deal mostly fair trade and make eating well affordable.
-better flavor. -far less poison in the food. -far less poison in the environment. -and it's more nutritious (no matter what they tellya). -easy and inexpensive to grow your own food. -way cheaper than prepared food and fast food so stop making excuses. :tongue:
Good point. Organic food really is not that expensive. Rather, mass-cultivated non-organic foods have an artificially low price tag because of their artificially enhanced yields. And one has to keep in mind that the true cost of something does not only lie in what you pay for it at face value but what you pay for it down the road (physically, environmentally, politically).
Like with everything local conditions vary. But around here Organic foods in the supermarket are more expensive, but that is to some degree due to packaging, transportation, and multi-middle men markups. Try the local farmer's markets. Meet & talk to the folks who actually grew the food. Ask questions and express an interest in how, where, etc., their stuff was grown. I've never met an Organic Farmer yet who didn't like to talk about what they do. And even if you can't afford, or in some cases find, all you want in the way of food, you can get some Organic. Even if you cann't grow all your food, grow some. A couple tomato plants, a couple pepper plants, and a few herbs grown in pots on a porch or balcony can make a big difference in what you spend and how you feel about what you're doing. With the money you save, buy other Organic food. Like I said earlier: If you want to eat food that is higher in nutrition, the nutrients must be in your food, that means the food must be grown in soil that can provide those nutriants to the plants. Certainly the best way, some (including me) would say the only way, to do this is to eat organic. If you want to eat food with less nutrition but with synthetic chemicals, possibly poisons, then don't eat organic. Peace, poor_old_dad
we have gotten used to food being inexpensive in this country when it should be more than it is. it costs $2.15 to grow a bushel of corn. in the market today (this stat is at least a year old so its not really today) corn costs $1.15. the only thing keeping corn farmers from sinking is government subsidies. food does cost more than we're used to monetarily. and really we're paying a hell of alot more when it comes to the price thats being taken on our health and the health of this planet, and on our local farms. gmo's are the big issue though imo. monsanto is the single most evil and corupt orginization on this planet at this time as far as i believe. the future of food has already been damaged beyond repair in many ways when it comes to things like corn, soy, and canola. whomever thought it was a good idea to patent seeds certainly opened the doors to some serious trouble.
It's true the use of GMO's in food is out of control. It's silly how people will be so outraged about calorie content and how many "points" on their diet something is... and give little thought as to the ingredients of the food they're debating over.
“ Organic” is a lot more expensive!! I buy roma tomatoes from the Mexican market for 69. cents a pound. Organic ones in the store are $3.50 to $4.50 a lb. The same is true for all of the other stuff I buy 3 to 5 times more expensive, I’m sure you can shop around and find deals but in general it is just too expensive for me. How much does it really help the earth? They are still tilling up and destroying the same amount of earth to produce organic stuff. They are still burning the same amount of diesel fuel to produce and ship it. How much better is “organic” chemicals then produced ones? “Organic” fertilizer will pollute just as much as synthetic produced fertilizer. A lot of the sales pitches say you support small local farmers but if you study a lot of the companies they are just branches of major food companies. They just see some money in the “organic” industry so they grow a section of “organic” food. If you are worried about eating pure food with no chemicals a small amount of synthetic pesticides is nothing compared to the air you breath walk out of your organic food market and you will breath more poison in 60 seconds then is on a non organic tomato. The only benefits I see is less synthetic pesticides but a lot of organic or natural pesticide chemicals are not that great for the environment either. Just because a chemical is “organic’ doesn’t mean that it is safe some of the most dangerous and poisonous chemicals can be found in nature. If I pay 3 to 5 times more for food that means I have to work more which feeds the machine more and produces more pollution so I am just doing more damage buy buying more expensive food. Plus I go to a small market and pay no taxes, support small vendors. If I go to the health food store I am supporting a bunch of rich yuppie entrepreneurs who live in huge custom homes. Never mind they clear cut hundreds of acres of trees to build their stores and homes because they use energy saving light bulbs and reusable shopping bags. If I grew my own food it would be all organic but I won’t spend 3 to 5 times more to support a bunch of yuppie entrepreneurs trying to cash in on the green marketing. I think a lot of people buy into the marketing and think if they are buying “organic certified” food they are saving the planet. Very false.. You are still tilling up the earth killing and displacing animals and burning mass amounts of fuel to get your veggies on the shelf of your “green certified” “organic” “health food” store. It is just a marketing theme as far as I can see.
^ tilling the earth isn't damaging to it. Part of organic farming also involves responsible crop management so as not to deplete the soil of its natural resources. "organic fertilizers" are manure and compost which are not "just as damaging" as synthetic fertilizers at all. Going along this track, organic farms use greensand and other naturally occurring soil enriching minerals that not only promote biodiversity and soil health, but also reduce erosion of land. Organic farm regulations also pertain to food additives, live stock conditions, and the use of GMO's. No herbicides or weed control chemicals are needed since techniques like cover cropping solve those problems. I'll give you the fact that people need to be careful and look for origin labels on their food. But in times past the MAJORITY of organic farms have been small and family owned. It's only recently that their growth has expanded beyond these means. But if you go to a local organic farmers market, you'll find that you ARE supporting local farms and good earth tenancy practices. To go along with this, some products that are organic are comprised of collections of small family farms. The particular milk I buy is produced by a group of small local organic dairy farms. Is the product still shipped? Yes, however, shipping is virtual constant for anything at the store, so it need not even be compared. It would be nice if it wasn't shipped as far, but by shopping at stores that only buy direct, like trader joes, you eliminate a whole product shipping cycle (manufacturer -> distributer -> store warehouse -> stores VS. manufacturer - > stores OR manufacturer - >store warehouse - >stores). As for the price, like I mentioned before with appropriate shopping organic is not much more expensive. You may just have to buy less, as crazy a concept as that may sound. I feel like you're just a little misinformed. You're entitled to not buy organic, and to think it's too expensive for you. But the farming information you're talking about is just not true. As for the "green market" yuppies: I'm with you 100%. Your local "health store" might be full of bullshit and run by users. But that doesn't mean the whole movement is flawed, or the same everywhere, yah know?
^I totally agree on the local thing and farmers markets are the way to go.... I think farmers markets are a very small percentage of the organic food industry. I do always try to support farmers markets for a lot of reasons. I have to disagree about some of your organic farming beliefs when you til the earth you have killed everything that was living on it, trees, and animals the entire eco system that was surviving there, so it is destructive to the earth… When you buy organic food in a container and it has pictures of exotic animals playing all over a farm that is false. 99% of those exotic animals are displaced and dead.. You are still farming and you still have erosion and most of the pollution that goes along with farming. I think with the organic industry they over advertise their positive values they do try to stop erosion but they still have it and falsely advertise that they don’t a lot of times. When you are using organic fertilizers you are still applying chemicals to the soil the chemicals are just contained in the organic matter but they are still chemicals and still have the negative effects that the synthetic versions have. Sometimes worse because when you apply a organic material for a chemical you are also applying an array of other chemicals that are in the material also, some might be harmless and inactive and some could be poison it is hard to say. Most of the synthetic chemicals people make today we originally got from nature and we are just coping them in a production lab. Just because a chemical is in organic material doesn’t make it non-polluting. I do volunteer work with eco system restoration and get to see a lot of natural non chemical weed control practices they are not as effective as they are advertised.. A lot of the non-native invasive species of weeds are just so aggressive that people just can’t control them with out chemicals. And a lot of organic farms have to resort back to chemicals every few years to get a handle on them. I do think the effort to not use chemicals is good, but the effectiveness of these non-chemical methods are way over advertised and exaggerated. I think another factor to consider about the organic movement is a lot of these organic pest control methods are still very experimental. A lot of ecological disasters have happened from experiments with natural pest control. Like the mongoose to control rats in Hawaii or cats in Australia same thing has happened with insect experiments also. It is always a risk introducing non-native species to an environment, they can a lot of times cause more damage then chemicals. I am all for organic farming but to me I think the positive benefits are over exaggerated and the positive values it brings are not worth the extra money to me. If I made a lot more money it would spend the extra on supporting organic faming but I don’t and it is not worth the extra to me. Yeah it has positive things but you still have 90% of the negative affects of farming, you have the destruction of eco systems, soil erosion, diversion of water systems, on and on ect. If people can afford it I think it is the way to go. I’m just in the same predicament as the OP I’m on a tight budget.
the thought that organic is more expensive really isnt so. ets eat the 99cent heart attack in a box from mickey ds instead. Yes the 99cent menu at most fast food places is cheap. VERY CHEAP. cheap in nutrients, cheap in flavor, cheap in your health. You can pay cheap prices for fast food now and more in health cost later. Or you can pay more now for good organic food and less in health cost later in life because your arteries werent clogged with trans fats, high cholesterol, cancers from genetically modified organisms, and more. Its your choice.
