Thread: organic food....

What's the deal, eh? A study came out saying it is not nutritionaly superior. Don't know if I see any reason it would be. BUT, a big reason I hear for eating it is 1) there is no pesticide residue, which is a nice health benefit, and 2) it is cultivated in more environmentally friendly ways.


Organic food is no healthier, study finds - Yahoo! News

My wife buys (and my family therefore eats) mostly organic food.
So...who is in the know on the topic?

Organic foods typically do not have GMOs which is great. Also some organics are Fair Trade and sustainable.

Would I buy an Organic Banana, no. Would I buy organic peanut butter, yes because there is typically less "what the hell is that ingredient" in the ingredient list.

An exception to that is Adam's Peanut butter.

I mix it up. Sometimes organic and more often not. I've done a lot of reading on it and there have been studies with conclusions both ways. It is kind of like global warming. You can find experts on either side of the fence. One thing that is for sure if the bees keep dieing off it won't be an issue since nothing will be pollinated and we will all starve. Soylent Green ?

That study or result of numerous studies as it suggests doesn't really surprise me; We've been fortunate enough to be able to afford to buy mostly organic food including milk for our three children. However, buying organic for the sake of nutritional superiority over similar non-organic foods has never been foremost on my reason for buying organic. We buy organic for the following reasons off the top of my head in descending order of importance:

1. The lack of any potentially harmful pesticide residue. "Yeah, but you can wash off the residue on conventional foods". "Yeah, but all the pesticides used to produce conventional coffee (I recall reading a study that coffee ranks with tobacco and cotton as being one of the top three plant based products in which the highest amount of pesticide is used to grow it) are burned off during roasting", etc etc.
2. Supporting sustainable small scale agriculture and the small farmer vs. factory corporate farming which relies on pesticides, GMO and petroleum based fertilizers to grow most conventionally grown produce in the nutrient poor "dead" soil its grown in.
3. I feel better about it.

I also plan of being able to grow most of our produce next year using raised bed gardening in our small city lot which I'm very excited about. Since I'm unfortunately skeptical given that organic is such a growing profit center that we can be assured that what we're actually buying in all cases is or will continue to be truly organic.

Regarding conventional pesticides, I recall reading something approx seven years ago about a pesticide used at that time for killing off the above ground potato plant prior to harvesting the below ground tubers. IIRC the pesticide was known as something like "Aldicarb"? The information talked about the pesticide being so highly toxic and poisonous that those using it had to almost be covered in space suits to handle it. What was fascinating to me was that the info said if a human was exposed to a small amount of the stuff directly again, IIRC, they would first spontaneously urinate and defecate prior to promptly dying from the exposure. I remember thinking it sounded like what I would think the insect equivalent of getting shot with a stream of "Raid" insecticide is to insects.

Chris L

Same three arguments for me. Getting decent meat in Berlin is nigh impossible, but we were lucky to find an organic food chain, which is organised like an LPG sans the communist fluff. So most of their foodstuff is local, which I like a lot. You know, salads that actually have a flavour, and all that.

Originally Posted by BeBerlin

Same three arguments for me. Getting decent meat in Berlin is nigh impossible, but we were lucky to find an organic food chain, which is organised like an LPG sans the communist fluff. So most of their foodstuff is local, which I like a lot. You know, salads that actually have a flavour, and all that.

That's a good point, flavor. I could have added as one of my points. Organic meats, eggs and even some of the produce has more flavor than conventional.

Tomatoes for example? I'm pretty sure conventionally grown tomatoes sold in the U.S. are poster children for GMO. Not to mention, they're downright awful and flavor and texture. Absolutely positively not even worth wasting money on let along putting them in my mouth.

Chris L

Some London researchers have said that organic food is no healthier than non-organic. You can read the Reuters article here: Organic food is no healthier, study finds | U.S. | Reuters

I'm a fan of the non-gimmick organic food. Living in the healthiest state has its advantages, and apparently getting cheaper organics is one. As such, my diet includes more of it because it's typically the same price as the other items. I can't say that I necessarily feel healthier, but I do know that it tastes better and tends to cook better as well. Surprisingly, it also seems to last longer than the typical non-organic food!

Overall, I won't go out of my way to get organic food. However, given the choice and an equal or close to equal price point, I'll reach for the organic.

What's your take?

This is already being discussed.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/conve...anic-food.html

Well I'll be Mods can delete this if they wish.

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

Well I'll be Mods can delete this if they wish.

oh, we can be fancier than this - i'll underwrite a merger!