Organic food: Why?

[FatBloke]

Why do people buy organic food?  Is it because it's supposed to be better for you (no scientific evidence), or because it's better for the environment.

I buy organic products because I perceive them to be more environmentally friendly, but are they?

I have just opened a pack of organic minced beef, shrouded in plastic packaging with the legend "not currently recyclable". Earlier today I looked at a pack of organic asparagus that had been airlifted in from Peru.

Are we being conned? I'm beginning to think so. 

[woollypigs]

Yes we are conned. I tend to buy because I find it taste better most of the time.

[border-rider]

Why do people buy organic food?  Is it because it's supposed to be better for you (no scientific evidence), or because it's better for the environment.

I buy organic products because I perceive them to be more environmentally friendly, but are they?

I have just opened a pack of organic minced beef, shrouded in plastic packaging with the legend "not currently recyclable". Earlier today I looked at a pack of organic asparagus that had been airlifted in from Peru.

Are we being conned? I'm beginning to think so. 

For meat, dairy etc it's about animal welfare - though if course if you know the cow that you ate personally and that she was well-tended and happy on a non-organic farm then it's a red herring

Most of us though get milk  etc from the supermarket or milkman so it's likely factory-farmed

I know someone will come along in a minute and say that organic farming is cruel because it denies 21st century drugs - but I guess that's not quite how it works in practice and (one of the) alternatives is routine antibiotic etc use in megaherds.  Nasty stuff.

But yeah - overpackaging is an issue.  Faced with the choice between organic asparagus in plastic from Peru and non-organic from Hereford in a paper bag I'd go for the latter.

I guess it can taste better if it is small-scale organic, but agribusiness organic produce can be just as tasteless & watery as ordinary stuff.

I'm not convinced on the "inherently better for you" unless it is fresh stuff. 

[bikenerd]

The thing that annoys me the most about Organic Food is that it's not scalable.  We can't feed the world on organically grown food.  I think it's a sop to the middle classes who like to think they're being environmentally friendlier / healthier without having to change their lifestyles too much.

I also think it's a result of the backlash against genetically modified food that occurred in the early 2000s.  People had no scientific reason to not buy GM foods but a media campaign calling them "franken foods" but a stop to the GM industry in this country, without any tests and studies being done.

So, it's all marketing.  Stop buying it and buy meat and veg produced in this country!

[clarion]

Or*...stop buying meat, and it becomes much more scalable.





* or 'and'

[LEE]

To save money I buy Tesco Economy (Blue Stripe) produce and rub soil on it.

Hey Presto ! Organic food for half the price.

[border-rider]

The thing that annoys me the most about Organic Food is that it's not scalable.

You might argue that corporate intensive oil-dependent agribusiness is ultimately not scalable, both spatially and temporally.

[LEE]

The thing that annoys me the most about Organic Food is that it's not scalable.

You might argue that corporate intensive oil-dependent agribusiness is ultimately not scalable, both spatially and temporally.

I doubt I might, I don't understand half of what you just said.

[andygates]

Nobody's forcing you to buy asparagus, heavily packaged and flown in from overseas.  You made that choice, and you have all the information to hand.

I buy organic because I sometimes get allergic reactions (serious wheeze attacks) to remnant pesticides on fruit, and because I believe it to be better for biodiversity than the horrid monocultures of agribusiness.

If the choice is between UK normal and imported organic, I usually buy the UK stuff.

Are you being conned?  No.  There's this weird idea that "green" is a zero-sum game, that if you do something one way, it's worse than some other way and so all of its merit is lost.  That's bunk.  Both the airborne organic asparagus and local regular asparagus are a step up from airborne regular asparagus. 

[Really Ancien]

If you know little about agriculture and bio-chemistry, then it is perfectly possible to convince yourself that organic produce is 'better' and if you believe it to be good then that is a good thing. You're not being conned at all, just buying into a belief system, there's nothing wrong with that. 'Organic' Pork and Poultry can still be fed on fishmeal, so there's no more reason that they should taste like Pork or Chicken. Given a free choice of produce at a supermarket consumers buy the stuff with the longest shelf life, that has no taste because it isn't ripe. Ripening fruit and veg is the way to appreciate the taste. Produce from market stalls tastes better because the stallholder chooses to give you all the stuff which will be rotten tomorrow. Fine if you shop every day, but wasteful if you have to throw them out. I think an ethical stance is to buy frozen and tinned veg. Less waste that way, all the way down the supply chain as overripe produce can fed to livestock.



Damon.

[clarion]

Many people seem to think: Can't do everything, so we may as well do nothing?

Andy, I go with your approach.

I don't buy much organic food, but only because I haven't had much money for a long while.  Buying organic is a priority when we can afford it.

But I regard the 'greenness' of food as a holistic thing.  I don't want to make monocultural deserts of polytunnels in Peru or Spain, however restrained the chemical regime has been.

Similarly, I won't buy veg from Israel, because there are more important things than being able to buy celery all year round.

[Wowbagger]

I read somewhere, or heard about a lecture, I forget which, in which the author / lecturer maintained that in a few years' time, everything we ate would be organic because ultimately everything else is unsustainable, depending as most of our food does on large quantities of fossil fuel for fertilisers and transport. I think he was assuming, totally wrongly in my view, that the peak oil / climate change / credit crunch / general governmental incompetence causing the current crisis would suddenly lead to a more equitable distribution of resources and that millions won't just starve because of our cockeyed and corrupt system.

When I'm shopping, I tend to go for low air miles as an admittedly crude indicator of the worthiness of something. I always avoid buying Israeli stuff, but for something like dates, the alternatives are not necessarily a lot better. Yesterday I didn't buy apples because they came from New Zealand or South Africa, but did buy pears from the Netherlands, which for all I know were grown in heated glass houses and were therefore less environmentally sound that SA apples. I did buy SA satsumas. "Organic" doesn't really figure on my radar.

[border-rider]

The thing that annoys me the most about Organic Food is that it's not scalable.

You might argue that corporate intensive oil-dependent agribusiness is ultimately not scalable, both spatially and temporally.

I doubt I might, I don't understand half of what you just said.

Yeah, sorry, should have been" not scalable, either spatially nor temporally"

[border-rider]

When I'm shopping, I tend to go for low air miles as an admittedly crude indicator of the worthiness of something. I always avoid buying Israeli stuff, but for something like dates, the alternatives are not necessarily a lot better. Yesterday I didn't buy apples because they came from New Zealand or South Africa, but did buy pears from the Netherlands, which for all I know were grown in heated glass houses and were therefore less environmentally sound that SA apples.

Quite so.  Food miles aren't always the worst thing.  There was a R4 interview with a Prof of food science a year or two ago about this, and even though he's an advocate of carbon-minimisation of food, he made the point that "local produce" in many parts of Britain would lead to a diet in which turnips  featured more heavily than perhaps he'd prefer himself.

[iakobski]

Organic refers to the way the food is produced: for fruit and veg it means no pesticides or artificail fertilisers. For meat, eggs, etc it means no antibiotics, growth hormones, etc and also fed on (mostly) organic feeds.

There's nothing in the idea of organic food about animal welfare, however most organic certifying bodies like the Soil Association will only certify food produced to high welfare standards. For example, a free range pig might be fed on strictly organic feed and have no drugs but if it was weaned at 39 days it can't be called organic. Most of the organic standards of welfare are higher than free-range standards.

Once the food has been produced to organic standards, it should be organic. Whether it goes in a plastic bag is another matter, and that's an issue for the consumer: do you want organic produce or do you want organic AND environmentally friendly produce? Really this should be another issue, but the Soil Association have muddied things by threatening to not certify things which have been flown in.

People choose organic for lots of reasons, for example they may be worried about pesticide residues in the food they eat, or they might be worried about phosphate runoff into watercourses. So they might not care about the packaging or the transportation. Others might, and you can choose accordingly.

[Greenbank]

There are lots of myths about Organic food, such as no pesticides, more nutrients, etc:-

The great organic myths: Why organic foods are an indulgence the world can't afford - Green Living, Environment - The Independent

Although do read the comments section at the bottom too.

[FatBloke]

Nobody's forcing you to buy asparagus, heavily packaged and flown in from overseas.  You made that choice, and you have all the information to hand.

I did indeed, and the choice I made was to put it back on the shelf!

[Mr Larrington]

(Sings)

I’m gonna feed our children non-organic food
I’m gonna feed our children non-organic food
I’m gonna feed our children non-organic food
And with the money saved take ‘em to the zoo

(Bows deeply to audience, splits trousers)

[Really Ancien]

There are lots of myths about Organic food, such as no pesticides, more nutrients, etc:-

The great organic myths: Why organic foods are an indulgence the world can't afford - Green Living, Environment - The Independent

Although do read the comments section at the bottom too.

I especially liked

'Organic fields where I live are usually hand sown, hand reaped, non tilled and farmed by University degree holding women who get as many as four harvests a year from these fields. Were machinery is used it is kept to a minimum so as not to disturb the soil and have it blow away.'

This has to be the way ahead for agriculture.

Damon.

[Maladict]

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=DBB5C044FDD468C1BF0D23FCD2B121F6.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=1700496

Organic milk, at least, does show a health benefit.

[Really Ancien]

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=DBB5C044FDD468C1BF0D23FCD2B121F6.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=1700496

Organic milk, at least, does show a health benefit.

But I'm not a wheezy baby with eczema.

Damon.

[andygates]

This has to be the way ahead for agriculture.

Student totty bending over a lot?

I'm saying nothing.   

[Nienke]

What the random guy said.

I think there's a lot of misconception about what organic actually means. As I understand it, the idea is to make the food as 'natural' as possible, by limiting man-made (chemical) pesticides, fertilizers, and not using unnecessary drugs on the animals and not feeding them rubbish etc. This has very little to do with the environment, or with animal welfare in terms of living conditions.

I personally prefer limiting the packaging and buying locally produced and free range food, as I think those issues are more important, and I actually object to some of the rules organic produce has to adhere to (like no GM).

[border-rider]

There are lots of myths about Organic food, such as no pesticides, more nutrients, etc:-

The great organic myths: Why organic foods are an indulgence the world can't afford - Green Living, Environment - The Independent

Although do read the comments section at the bottom too.

There are myths, and much of what he says is reasonable - but much isn't.  It's a kind of diatribe, I guess.   

I have no doubts that largescale agribusness organic is just as energy-intensive and polluting and maybe more so) than largescale agribusiness conventional agriculture.

That doesn't mean that small-scale sustainable food production is a bad thing  - the key is to see how thta fits with organic/not

And as A Random One said, Uk organic certification tends to have an animal welfare component.

[Maladict]

What the random guy said.

I think there's a lot of misconception about what organic actually means. As I understand it, the idea is to make the food as 'natural' as possible, by limiting man-made (chemical) pesticides, fertilizers, and not using unnecessary drugs on the animals and not feeding them rubbish etc. This has very little to do with the environment, or with animal welfare in terms of living conditions.

We did this one to death before.

The standards currently set by the main British
farm assurance schemes covering beef, lamb,
pork, chicken, milk and eggs assure the fulfilment
of 4-7 out of 15 key animal welfare determinants.
This compares poorly with the standards set for
organic farming by the Soil Association. The Soil
Association Certified Organic Standard, a scheme
recognised as having high standards of farm
animal welfare, assures the fulfilment of 11-14 of
15 key determinants. Standard British farm
assurance schemes cannot, therefore, assure the
use of high welfare systems of breeding and
rearing animals.

From "An Animal Welfare Analysis of Major UK Farm Assurance Schemes
Compassion In World Farming Trust
2002"