Side A: Organic foods contain less pesticides, support small businesses, are healthier for you, taste better, contain more nutrients, are less toxic and are better for the environment.
Side B: Organic food production creats less viable crops, the crops take up way too much room, it doesn't benefit the environment at all, creates less food overall which means more starvation and it tastes exactly the same.
What do you think?
Last edited by JuniperWoolf; 11-09-2011 at 05:06 AM.
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Are you sure it doesn't benefit the environment? Less toxic chemicals getting into the air, water systems, our bodies (and from there, back into the environment)? And I'm not sure it does taste the same.
I object to supermarkets hiking up the price for 'organic' produce - I know it's said the organic growers may not produce as large a crop so they need to charge more for their harvest but I suspect precious little of the supermarket price finds its way back to the growers.
Side B: There will always be a small market for this kind of cottage industry, but you are not going to be able to feed the world on idealism. You need high yield crops. There is a balance you have to find between using helpful chemicals and over-using them--but to make organic vs. non-organic the arbitrary line is a gimmick or a marketing strategy. It really dodges the question of how to produce enough healthy food through sustainable farming methods.
I just think pesticides need to be looked at and improved...for human consumption, that is. I don't go out of my way to get organic and I won't pay a whole lot more for it either. The kind of veg I usually buy is 'A grade' non-organic which I make sure is washed properly before I prepare them. I go to one specific supermarket for my veg because I know it's very high quality and it actually lasts longer in the fridge. So I don't really care about organic...I might get organic baby food though, if I ever have kids.
What I do care about is free-range. It's way less cruel to the animals. Unfortunately, inorder to buy free-range meat you have to take out a second mortage for about three small chops. However, I do buy all my milk and eggs free-range.
I worry less of organic or not, and I'm much more concerned with locally grown produce. The reason for this is that whether your produce is organic or not, if it is grown further away is is more likely that it was picked and then ripened. Locally grown produce is allowed to ripen longer before picking creating a greater abundance of the nutrients we all believe are in the food. Me personally, I'll frequent farmer's markets for my produce when they have them, and I tend to buy what is in season.
As for meat, I prefer things I've killed and butchered myself, but given that I have little time to go hunting and I don't own a farm I settle for whatever is at the store that I can afford. I have considered purchasing beef as a slab straight from local farms, but you have to really know the person you are buying from if you wish it to be antibiotic free.
I don't really buy organic food, I try to make sure I buy fruits and veggies from the ice and not imported. don't buy any meat cause I don't eat it, I buy free range eggs though and always organic honey.
I hope death is joyful, and I hope I'll never return -Frida Khalo
If I seem insensitive to what you are going through, understand it's the way I am- Mr. Spock
Personally, I think that the unique and supreme delight lies in the certainty of doing 'evil'–and men and women know from birth that all pleasure lies in evil. - Baudelaire
This is a really good point I hadn't heard made before.Originally Posted by TurquoiseSunset
One thing I like about the organic food thing is that it is in resistance in small part to major agrobusiness, like Monsanto. As far as I'm concerned, if ever there was an evil corporation, it is Monsanto.
As to the health benefit claims, I think they're based on flimsy logic and they lack evidence. The fact that major agrobusiness drives down food costs (maybe, it's not quite sure they do because we subsidize food production and they already produce more food in the West than they can sell) is problematised by their ability to drive up food costs by preventing farmers from producing their own seed, and by forcing farmers to buy specific pesticides that only work with their products.
Organic food movement will never have a significant effect on food cost, at least nothing like the impact that cash crops (coffee) and industrial crops (corn used to produce corn-syrup, animal feed, and ethanol), have on global food costs. In fact, the real problem with food costs in developing countries is the globalization of food markets, their food prices are being effected by Western demand when their food would be affordable if the prices were determined simply on local demand.
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
Thanks. I just think babies might be affected so much more by pesticides and the like, why not give them a good start while they are developing at the speed of light?
I think it is good not to give a baby whatever is out there but I never bought any baby food for my boy I just made it myself there are no bad E- ingredients in the food I made and it's cheaper.
I hope death is joyful, and I hope I'll never return -Frida Khalo
If I seem insensitive to what you are going through, understand it's the way I am- Mr. Spock
Personally, I think that the unique and supreme delight lies in the certainty of doing 'evil'–and men and women know from birth that all pleasure lies in evil. - Baudelaire
Sorry I didn't mean to say giving babies non-organic food was wrong. I was just looking at my own situation. Organic food suppliers here are few and far between and the food can be expensive. So, if I were to have children I would give them organic baby food instead of buying all our food organic (which would be impossible anyway). So my original point was just that I wouldn't buy organic normally, but would probably buy organic food for my baby instead of non-organic (they price the same as the non-organic ones, I have seen).
But you raise a good point. Baby food purchased in jars are processed and contain preservatives, etc. By making your own baby food it won't contain any of those chemicals they use in the process or after to keep it 'fresh'.
I know you didn't mean it was wrong, I have just seen so many people feed 6 month old babies only food from a can and I don't think that is right. it is easy and handy but I would not do it, I just have to make that point about making the food yourself when people talk about the baby food on the market. I am sure a lot of it is good and all that but I just don't think anything can be better than homemade.
but I do think it is good when people think about getting organic and better food for their kids (even if it's just what they would do if they had kids). I often wonder about all the stuff that is in our food and how we often don't know what half of it is .
I go back sometimes to the Futurama show where we see the main ingredient in the most popular soda drink of the future.
I hope death is joyful, and I hope I'll never return -Frida Khalo
If I seem insensitive to what you are going through, understand it's the way I am- Mr. Spock
Personally, I think that the unique and supreme delight lies in the certainty of doing 'evil'–and men and women know from birth that all pleasure lies in evil. - Baudelaire
Thanks for the thread....yes to me i have tasted organic food - veggies- fruits..and makes you feel better...i dont know how to describe this but ...you feel better bit by bit..maybe you wont realise straight away but things like hair loss improves...your blood test turn out better.
thanks again .
Smile to the world and world Smiles Back!
Gone.
Last edited by Ragnar Freund; 12-13-2011 at 04:13 PM.
You don't have to qualify that statement. They absolutely are evil
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