Cant stop thinking this after shopping at Whole Foods....

[baronsamedi]

I agree with that. Heirloom vs. a hybrid tomato is night and day. Just like growing one in your garden tastes 100x better. I think the main issue is your average grocery store hybrid tomato is engineered for durability rather than taste and ripened after picking, whereas your farmer's market heirloom is picked ripe and sold soon after that.
I agree that organic farming is a viable way to produce food. My main contention is whether any measurable benefit of buying organic makes the markup on price worth it. Most of the time, I'm on a budget so being able to buy one unit of organical stuff vs. sometimes three times that amount of the regular stuff makes the answer no for me. Even if one organic aparagus spear has slightly more vitamins than one regular one (and I've yet to see that proven scientifically) It won't have more vitamins than the three I could afford to buy at regular price.
One reason whole Foods has such big ripe vegetables is that they buy a shit ton of vegetables, save the big pretty ones and throw tons of usable food in the trash! There have been some efforts at getting them to resource usable food away from landfills, but as of yet, there is no official policy on the matter. By contrast Wal-Mart actually directs food that they can't use to charitable sources as a matter of policy. I'm not what you'd call a big Wal-Mart fan, but I have to recognize the difference.

 

[sparroa]

baron,
I agree that many producers put an unfair markup on organics. In my area, it would be a struggle for an upper middle class family to put organic food on the table. My income isn't high and as I result I have to make plenty of concessions and accept conventional meat and produce a lot of the time... With that said, I'm not happy about it and actively seek alternatives. If I lived in a better agricultural region I'd definitely make the full switch.
You are also correct that organic food is not necessarily more nutritious, but I think it is more about reducing exposure to potentially unhealthy pesticides and returning to a more natural and sustainable system of farming that doesn't take such a toll on the earth. I think a switch to organic farming could in the long run improve soil health to such a degree that we'd see a rise in nutritional content...
But yes, it is definitely a matter of economics for most people. By all means, if you get 3 spears of conventional asparagus for cheaper than 1 spear of organic then go that route... Meat, however, is a little bit of a different matter if you ask me... The feedlot approach has led to the cultivation of sick and obese cattle that produce massive amounts of poor quality meat from an unnatural diet of corn and grains. With all of the problems this creates, from waste management to disease control, we'd be better off if grass-fed beef was mainstream and if we consumed way less... Same goes for pork, chicken, and all the rest. I'm not even looking at it from an animal rights standpoint - just by demanding junk, we receive junk in return and that is the reason why heart disease, diabetes, and digestive cancers are out of control in my opinion.
I'm in Canada so I don't know very much about WholeFoods and I've never even been inside one. I have read a lot about their business practises, however, and what you say doesn't surprise me...
I'd rather support farmer's markets or community supported agriculture any day, but in North America there is no doubt that we need to get the corporate grocers away from their wasteful and superficial practices.

 

[mlaug]

I'm just beginning harvest, almost three weeks early because of the drought. Lots of hours, little computer time, and almost no pipe smoking. :crying:
If I had more time and energy I'd be happy to point out some serious misconceptions about organic/natural foods being pronounced here as fact. I've had these discussions before and I've been fortunate enough to be an agricultural ambassador. I've hosted delegations from India, Russia, Ukraine, China, Mexico, France, Poland, and other countries here on our farm. There are places in the world where access to abundant protien is now becoming a reality and the people have the cash to pay for it. They are interested in getting the same kind of food access that most Americans take for granted.
I've also been involved in a program to get urban folk out of the 'burbs and cities and onto farms to see what issues we face and try and teach them about the economics of food production. It is very frustrating.
I'd rather spend my time doing this...

Posts like some of those above only serve to remind me that people know more about where/how their cell phones are produced than how their food arrives on their table. :|

 

[baronsamedi]

OK So now I want to know, what's your opinion on organic food since you are actually a farmer? I've no doubt you know way more about the process than me.

 

[ravkesef]

KennyJo said:

If that is true that organic food is more tasty and healthier than normal food

I'm one of those who is not convinced that organic food is either more tasty or healthier. It's just organic. It is also not axiomatic that using certain chemicals on crops is necessarily harmful to human beings.

 

[J. Mayo]

Sparroa, no offense taken at all. I should have explained myself better. I worked on an organic farm/ranch through college and have some experience with the production of all kinds of organic vegetables, pork, beef, chicken, etc. One of the perks of working on the ranch was that I always had a bag full of organic veggies to take home free anytime I wanted. After sampling all kinds of both, I personally wouldn't be able to tell you the difference between an organic or non vegetable if they were presented to me without a label. My objection is to paying a higher price for something that I don't enjoy more or feel like I gain any real benefit from. The best vegetables I can ever find come straight out of my mom's garden here in south Texas. My grandfather was a peanut farmer in Poteet, TX. (Poteet is the strawberry capitol of the world, no idea how he made a living off of peanuts.) I guess she just comes by it naturally. But my point is that any organic food vendor would probably faint at the sight of the pesticides she uses, but the produce from the organic ranch couldn't hold a candle to anything that comes out of that garden. Being a born and raised Texan I've developed a very strong, stubborn sense of "if it ain't broke, you don't fix it". My best explanation is that I've applied that to my taste in food. I had never even heard the term "organic" until I was in college and the idea that something grown in such a way would have huge benefits has never made much sense to me. With the price difference, I could never justify changing my ways because of my personal experiences with the two.

 

[photoman13]

I would like to hear more from you mlaug.

 

[J. Mayo]

+1 photoman, I think mlaug would have a lot to offer to the conversation. I know how harvest season goes though. "Out here 9-5 is more like 5-9".

 

[J. Mayo]

And kennyjo, sorry we hijacked your thread and turned it from organic tobacco into "organic vs non".

 

[adam12]

sorry we hijacked your thread and turned it from organic tobacco into "organic vs non"

No apology needed, this has been very informative

 

[Perique]

Small farmer here. I think many reading this thread would be surprised at how their food gets to the supermarket. It has the appearance of the real thing, the suggestion thereof. But it's often an impostor- vastly inferior in terms of taste and nutritional value, be it fruit, vegetables, milk, etc. Suffice to say I don't eat a lot of corporate food - mostly game, my own poultry, this morning's milk, and what I grow. But it's impossible to get away from it entirely.
The food we buy in the super market - things like GMO vegetables, pasteurized milk, processed foods full of preservatives and corn derivatives - are literally poisoning us.
That said, if we're going to support the number of people we have in the urban / suburban lifestyle they choose to live, we need industrial corporate food. Sadly, that means feed lot cattle, hatching plants, chicken houses, GMO corn/soy/canola, fields sprayed with Agent Orange (aka Round Up), HFCS, tomatoes picked green and brought to color in containers with ethylene gas, etc etc.

 

[sparroa]

John,

Thanks for expanding on your position; it really fleshes out your beliefs and I respect your stance on the issue in spite of any disagreements we may have. Your "real world" experience definitely leaves your argument with a strong leg to stand on, even though I see some things a little differently. Personally, I think the system is broken and that it does require fixing, but that's probably a diatribe for another day... The one thing that gets my goat above all, though, is the notion that organic food is an unsustainable passing fad; I don't get that at all because all food would've been organic once upon a time. Modern agriculture is just that, modern, and sure it has led to a lot of growth for a couple of generations but it definitely taking its toll in return...
sothron,

Thank you for your post. It is very valuable to this discussion. I agree with everything you've said, but I raise this question - do you think it is even possible to support this number of people in the urban/suburban lifestyles they want to live in? I personally think something's gotta give and that the status quo is going to take a beating in the years to come... People may not end up with organic on their plates but if all this continues there will be less excess, whether they choose it or not.
BTW, OP, I also apologize for derailing this thread... Organic tobacco is an interesting subject but the fact that nobody really demands it is a telling sign that it's not going to take off in a big way.

 

[Perique]

sparroa: "Do you think it is even possible to support this number of people in the urbban/suburban lifestyles they want to live in?
Hi sparroa, no. As I said in my post, it is not possible. That's why industrial food was developed: to meet demand. There are simply too many people who choose a lifestyle where they are completely removed from the source of their food, and too few who have any real interest. As such, we feed each other chemicals, preservatives, and carcinogens. The results are the health problems and obesity epidemics we have today. What other side effects will we find a generation or two later? We shall see. I fear, however, that we will encounter more problems than we bargain for in terms of disease, sterility, cognitive ability, and hormonal imbalance.
I'm don't mean to deride anyone's choice of lifestyle - simply connecting the dots on the industrial food issue. One is a function of the other; we cannot have both healthy, tasty food and the modern lifestyle we have chosen - which is to say, keeping our hands clean, our guts squeamish, and not paying others to feed us.
The sad part is the knowledge that has been lost - no longer passed on from generation to generation. Further, the loss of culture - not just the loss of the culture of the hunt, the field, the pasture -- but more importantly the culture of the table and the kitchen.
But we are no longer the society we once were. Whether that is for better or for worse is yet to be determined.