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Organic Food

Puppycow

Penultimate Amazing
Puppycow
Joined
Jan 9, 2003
Messages
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Location
Yokohama, Japan
I have some questions about organic food:

1) Is it healthier for you?
2) Is it better for the environment?
3) Is it worth the extra cost?
4) In the Grand Scheme of Things, is organic food good, neutral, or bad?
 
1. no
2. not necessarily, on balance generally no
3. depends in what terms you're considering it (worth it to me for health benefits, or worth it to us all for environmental benefits or whatever), but overall, no
4. overall, probably bad

Rolfe.
 
I would rather that organic food was defined in the same way as organic chemistry (as in: derived from compounds containing carbon)
 
No to all. Organic farming is what all the people who can't afford the tools of modern farming do all around the world. That takes more resources per measure of crop rendered, is less likely to yield untainted food (contaminated with bacteria, fungi, critters), and is actually worse for the environment. It's basically the result of a romantic notion for the purity of yesteryear and a mistaken notion that Natural is better than synthetic.
 
Puppycow said:
I have some questions about organic food:

1) Is it healthier for you?
2) Is it better for the environment?
3) Is it worth the extra cost?
4) In the Grand Scheme of Things, is organic food good, neutral, or bad?
Click to expand...

1) No, infact if they are using manure, the bacteria count can be far higher
2) Not really, it's often shipped much greater distances than if you were just to buy local produce.
3) Personally, no, but try a blind taste test
4) I err towards bad due to transportation issues.
 
Thank you all. That's what I suspected, but I wondered how other skeptics thought about it. Another example of the naturalistic fallacy, I guess.
 
Organic food bought from local farms is likely to be fresher, so will absolutely taste better. But then, non-organic food bought from local farms also tastes better for the same reason. The difference is, there aren't really any non-organic local farms doing the £10-a-box delivery scheme like the organic suppliers do. So, in my opinion it's worth paying a little bit extra to get very fresh fruit and veg delivered to my door, but if you're buying processed food, or fresh supermarket produce, it's a complete waste of money.
 
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tkingdoll said:
Organic food bought from local farms is likely to be fresher, so will absolutely taste better. But then, non-organic food bought from local farms also tastes better for the same reason. The difference is, there aren't really any non-organic local farms doing the £10-a-box delivery scheme like the organic suppliers do. So, in my opinion it's worth paying a little bit extra to get very fresh fruit and veg delivered to my door, but if you're buying processed food, or fresh supermarket produce, it's a complete waste of money.
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Also organic food people tend to grow tastier varieties that have been pushed out by the supermarkets because they don't look as good on the shelves as some less tasty variety.
 
Sounds like homeopathy. Farm-fresh organic foods 'work' in that they taste better and offer more vitamins, but for reasons other than the fact they're organic.
 
Puppycow said:
I have some questions about organic food:

1) Is it healthier for you?
2) Is it better for the environment?
3) Is it worth the extra cost?
4) In the Grand Scheme of Things, is organic food good, neutral, or bad?
Click to expand...
Organic meat is tastier *yummy*:p and "healthier" (no hormones, less use of antibiotics and such) and more environment friendly, since it is usually from local farmers. For veggies and fruits it doesn't really matter.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Also organic food people tend to grow tastier varieties that have been pushed out by the supermarkets because they don't look as good on the shelves as some less tasty variety.
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This is very true. I love ugly food. And I love washing the mud off, it's relaxing.

Supermarket tomatoes and carrots are the worst. They're all uniform size and shape and colour, and taste of nothing. Still, consumer demand has led the changes, we get the tomatoes and carrots we wanted.
 
ixolite said:
Organic meat is tastier *yummy*:p and "healthier" (no hormones, less use of antibiotics and such) and more environment friendly.
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It's not more environmentally friendly, and in the UK supermarkets it's certainly not likely to be from local farmers, they import most of their organic meat.

You should talk to Rolfe about your misconceptions about 'healthier'. And in blind taste tests, organic meat tends to fare no better than non-organic if the meat is of the same age.
 
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I get lots of yummy organic food, but for the reasons Prof. Yaffle and Teek suggest: they tend to be good varieties, grown with care and picked fresh, whereas commercial produce is often from far away, harvested way before ripe, and shipped under stressful conditions. How important that is may depend on where you live and how good the produce is at your local supermarket. Here in Vermont, it's hard to find a good supermarket produce section, so the local co-op, despite its annoyingly self-righteous air and its racks of homeopathic nostrums, gets at least some of our business.

There is also an economic issue here, because as the small family farms disappear from New England, the organic food racket has been a boon to local growers, and I'm happy to support them if their produce is cheap enough. Oddly enough, many items are actually cheaper at the local co-op than at the supermarket, so why not eat them?
 
I believe (have not checked) that a roadside market in central London can qualify as a "farmers' market" (which gives the impression of locally grown food and less mileage) as long as the produce is sourced within 100 miles, which means it could come from France in an articulated lorry on Eurotunnel.
 
I have some questions about organic food:

1) Is it healthier for you?
2) Is it better for the environment?
3) Is it worth the extra cost?
4) In the Grand Scheme of Things, is organic food good, neutral, or bad?
Click to expand...

1) Maybe. Organic produce tends to be fresher, which means more vitamins and minerals than less fresh produce.

Because pesticides approved for organic use tend to break down much quicker in the environment, organic produce tends to have much less (2/3 less) pesticide residue than conventionally grown produce.
Here's a link: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C04EEDC1530F93BA35756C0A9649C8B63

Whether that is actually "healthier" or not, of course, depends on the particular pesticide and how it reacts in human bodies. Previously approved conventional agriculture pesticides like lindane, dursban, diazanon, or kelthane have been removed from the market because of later found human health risks. Because of this, I tend to believe that just because a particular pesticide is approved for agricultural use now does not mean that it is actually safe for human consumption.

I personally think that minimizing the amounts of pesticides you eat is probably a good idea. I believe it is "healthier".

2) Sometimes. Organic farming is a method of farming that concentrates on improved soil structure and fertility, minimizing off farm inputs, and reclaiming and returning nutrients back to the soil. These methods reduce soil erosion, minimize runoff and reduce the amount of nutrients and pesticides that can leech into water tables. Organic practises also concentrate on cultural and biological solutions to problems, for example choosing a variety of plant that is resistant to local common fungal infections rather than choosing to spray fungicide, which lessens the amounts of pesticides transferred to and stored on farms, which reduces the risks associated with spills, accidents and misuse, as well as their approved use.

3) I think something to keep in mind when considering the cost is that there are very few subsidies available to organic farmers. Out of the around $16 billion of U.S. subsidies to farmers, only about $20 million went to organic agriculture. ($5m to assist certification and $15m for research for the next 5 years), so when you buy organic produce, you are actually paying a more "real" cost of growing, storing and transporting that food, vs the subsidized price you pay for more conventionally grown foods. Should the U.S. start to subsidize organic farmers or should they reduce the amount of subsidies for conventionally grown products, the consumer price for organic vs conventionally grown will probably grow closer.


4) In the grand scheme of things, organic farming in developed nations has created a system whereby consumers can buy a high quality product for which small and medium sized farmers can actually charge a price that allows them to stay in business without subsidation. In less developed countries organic farming methods allow farmers to produce high quality food products with less cash money up front, which can allow them to keep their land producing food for their communities.

I consider both of those things to be "good" things.
 
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