I have read in various places from people who should know that there is no nutritional difference between “organic” and regular food. I do not doubt this, but we eat mostly organic food. It costs more, but we believe it is an ethical choice. I realize that most people cannot justify the extra expense. There is no way we could have afforded Whole Foods when our kids were young.
However, I would not care how food was labeled if we had transparency – if we could know that animals are treated ethically, soil preserved. We would be far better off to let our chickens roam free and put Monsanto in a cage. And if advertising ever told us anything that was true, we might make better choices.
But that’s the way we live. So even though it’s a bit annoying, we pay more for the “organic” label. Part of the high cost of organic food is the “ideology cost” – that is, Whole Foods jacks up its prices knowing that people will pay more if they believe they are participating in an ethical movement.
Whole Foods gouges the eyes out of its patrons. Every single item in that store ends with two digits: $.99. Pricing is merely a matter of picking the numbers that precede .99, and that often seems to be a random process. But they also treat their people well – their employees and suppliers. That matters too.
Here are our justifications for organic food:
2. Most organic food tastes better. Organic strawberries are smaller, but sweeter and juicier than their non-organic counterparts. Organic deli meat does not have that oily texture that we find in Subway sandwiches. (God only knows what they inject in that stuff to make it appear edible. Two things about it are certain: They add color, to make it look wholesome, and artificial flavors, to make it taste real.)
Some non-organic food is as wholesome as its organic counterpart. I notice no difference in organic potatoes, peppers, beans, chips, beer. Some is worse – organic bananas are hit-and-miss. Organic peanut butter … well, if I can’t spread it with a knife, I don’t eat it. I’m a Skippy man.
I realize that this is America, and there is probably a lot of hype behind claims of “free range” and “grass fed.” For instance, if they merely put a door and fifty square feet of lawn on a barn housing several thousand chickens, they can say that the eggs are “cage-free.” And probably much of it is just plain lying, either outright, or using words and phrases, like “lightly sweetened” or “natural” that have no legal meaning. Most likely much of what is labeled organic is just re-branded. This is America, after all, and advertising is nothing more than professional lying.
As always, it is buyer beware. But the closer to home our food sources, the more accountability there is.
Piece of Mindful 
Let’s go over the list of fallacies in your post:
Based on what measure?
My measure is the amount of land needed to produce an adequate food supply. If that amount of land is reduced annually to make that supply, that is the easiest use of land!
Organic farming requires orders of magnitude MORE land to feed the People.
A move to pervasive organic farming equals massive starvation.
“I wonder what would happen to the Midwest if we discover Martians. ”
Excellent reasoning, Mark. Let’s base human prosperity and survival on mere imagination and folly.
There is so much oil on Earth that man will have long left the planet before it is exhausted. You need not corrupt the present based on such a fantasy of “running out of oil”.
To who?
Most of it is self-hypnosis. In double-blind studies, food tastes better from NON-organic sources as determined by the vast majority of the public.
Yep. Enviro-nuts believe they can talk to the animals!
Yep, and you are free to spend more money on food if you like.
Oh? How do you claim this?
Do you really believe that a man in another country – whose livelihood depends on your purchase – is less focused then the guy across the street?
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I
Basic farming practice – crop rotation to restore nutrients, fallowing, crop diversity to avoid disasters. As we do it, we plant one crop over and over again, and it can only be sustained by adding petroleum to the mix.
I assumed at one time too that organic practices would result in lower yields, but that is not true. It merely costs more. Growers are drawn to cheaper, and not sustainable.
Now who is fantasizing here? That statement almost sounds biblical. Of course we will run out of oil. The petroleum age cannot go on forever, as it is a finite resource.
Better cite here.
I do realize, however, that the food flavors that come from the New Jersey turnpike often taste good to most people – they have worked hard on duplicating flavors that have been removed by processing. So I’ll give you that one. We are very very good at imitating flavors, and colors, and texture.
That’s a stupid comment, not to mention mean. I cannot deal with people who have no sense of belonging in a larger habitat.
Absolutely! The guy across the planet can make any claim substantiated or not. They guy down the road cannot.
What the hell is wrong with you?
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Mark
Ah, the old eco-nut belief that farmers – whose livelihood for the last 300 years comes from the land – are too stupid to manage the land that gives them their livelihood
Of course!
Growers are so stupid that they do not understand that they need to earn tomorrow to eat tomorrow, and will “eat their seed” today because they are so greedy today!
Do you really believe this?? Where do you think sustainable farming that has supplied you and your ancestors for the last 200 years with so much food that we waste 60% of it?
Musta come from econ-nuts – ’cause only THEY care about the land!! (rolleyes)
You are insane.
“Oil” -which I assume you mean complex hydrocarbons – is one of the most abundant molecules in the Universe – so much so entire planets are made out of it and it rains “oil” on the moon of Titan.
Whether the petroleum age goes on forever is moot.
We did not leave the Pre-historic age because we ran out of rocks, nor did we leave the Iron age because we ran out of iron, nor did we leave the Bronze age because we ran out of copper….
We abandon old choices for better choices when the better choices appear.
Whether a better choice is discovered in the future, probably – but that has NOTHING to do with any bizarre belief there is a shortage of “oil”.
Thinking cap time.
Do you think an “organic” apple is molecularily different from a “manufactured” (for lack of a better term) apple?
Of course not!
Further, without the herbicides and pesticides, organic apples ROT faster.
So, buy an “organic” apple, and a “manufactured” apple and let it sit for 5 days, and then do your taste test….
Mark, the stupid comment is believing you know what makes a cow happy.
IF you want to spend more money on food – good for you! That is why there is a market for you to do so.
Others do not wish to waste their money that way.
Ok, Dr. Dolittle.
Bizarre!
So how “far” is this “range” of focus? Do you believe the guy two blocks away is unfocused on your purchase? 5 blocks? A mile? 5 miles? 10 miles?
How far is your “sphere” of focus?
If the man across the ocean lies to you, you will not buy is product TOMORROW, and TOMORROW he will starve.
You issue is that you believe suppliers have no future focus – when the primary and most significant aspect of entrepreneurship is future planning
That question back at ya!
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You tell me things without meaning to – for one, that you have no compassion for animals. It makes me wonder, given your freaky economics, if you have compassion for humans either.
For another, you don’t know much history, or that that you do is selective. You’ve likely never heard of the Dust Bowl, or county extension agents. People acting alone did not know the greater harm they were doing, and had to learn to cooperate. Through government.
They learned good farming practices that increased yield, though government. They learned to rotate and fallow. They don’t do that throughout the Midwest. There is no diversity – we’re just pumping oil thorough the ground. If there should be a blight, we are largely dependent on one crop, Monanto corn, to feed us.
And you have a fundamentalist streak in you. I guess I’ve known that all along. It’s got nothing to do with religion – it’s just your sense that there is black and white. Period.
I’ve wondered and read a good deal about what is going to replace oil. It is the only reason we can sustain 6 billion people, Without it, population will shrink. There’s nothing on the horizon right now. There’s just this belief that when we click our heels it will appear. The planet will go on supporting abundant life, but what form it will take, I do not know.
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Mark,
First, I care not if you buy organic or not. There is a market because of your tastes – it did not appear on its own.
But to justify your tastes, you point to erroneous and fallacious beliefs is my complaint.
We are not running out of oil
We are not running out of “good” food.
“Manufactured” food has made Western society the healthiest, longest living humans in our history.
I, personally, prefer cows that haven’t been pumped up with antibiotics without cause.
Compassion is one thing. I do not like any animal suffer.
I do not confuse this with knowing what makes them happy, however.
Of course! But I do not pretend either that I know what is best for them either.
To do so would make me claim that I know more about that other man than that other man knows about himself.
If I hold such a belief would thus give me authority to overrule him by my demands.
But I would never have another man overrule me.
By the Law of Mutuality, I, therefore, cannot ever claim that I know more about him then he, so that he cannot claim he knows more about me than I.
Thus, the Universe has done this:
“You take care of you, and I take care of me”.
I care little of the decisions of other men – I care about my decisions
Sure I do. But the cause of the Dust bowl was not as “specific” as you pretend.
Utter blubbering.
People do not act alone. They naturally act in their own interests – which MUST extend to cooperation with other.
What you irritates you is that some refuse to cooperate WITH YOU. So you want to force them by point guns at them, called government.
Deja Moo!
(My daughter has a new saying! It means “same old BS” 🙂 )
Government does no such thing. Land management predates any government action.
Government action, in fact, reverses this by interference and fiat.
That has been know for millennium – and it wasn’t government that “figured it out”
Yep. There is freedom or there is slavery. There is no in-between.
Such as?
Solar (hahahahahah)
Wind (hahahahahah)
…
There are reasons we use oil.
It holds the most density of energy per volume and weight.
Consider, Mark:
The Saturn V rocket first stage is the most powerful engine invented by man at 7,650,000 pounds-force burning 30,000 lbs of fuel a second.
Though the most powerful chemical fuel in the world is the oxidation of hydrogen, the first stage of Saturn V is powered by even a more potent energy source – kerosene (similar to Av-1 Fuel). You didn’t know that, did you?
Why? Because kerosene has the most energy PER VOLUME. Liquid Hydrogen takes too much volume for its energy load.
That’s the reason we use oil, its called “energy density”. We didn’t just say “Hey, let’s burn this goo…” – there are real reasons why we use oil – it is the most effective energy source yet discovered.
Deja Moo!
We already exceed 6 billion with no oil problems other than created by government stupidity.
The Alberta Tar sands is over an area larger than Florida. 3 trillion barrels. It alone could fuel the world for a century.
And this isn’t the largest. Venezuela Maracaibo basin and its shale oil an order of magnitude larger.
Oh, darn. That isn’t the largest either. The Utah shale oil is an order of magnitude larger than that!
You suffer from Malthus disease.
Humans have always solved their problems and will always solve their problems by the genius that is human.
Perhaps it will be Thorium reactors, perhaps some sort of solar capture… (shrug)…. but we have SO much oil, and SO much coal and SO much wood etc. that believing we are desperate is pure foolish.
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Mark,
Prosperity is directly correlated with energy consumption.
With cheap energy, man can turn deserts to green fields, waste land into farms and food, rocks into homes, etc.
By artificially creating shortages of energy will create the disaster you fear.
You are a walking irony.
You fear a future, and then demand actions of which consequences will create that future.
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As someone that grew up on a farm and has worked on various farms and ranches in Eastern MT in my early teens and early 20s, farming practices at most large farms aren’t built around whats best for managing the land but how best to exploit various government programs and farm subsidies. Its a game of how to qualify for the most programs of assistance.
Another major driver of how farmers make choices is the debt wheel. One bad year can put a farmer in the whole for ten, forcing them to shoot for the moon when it comes to crop yields, borrowing more money to buy the fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides in the hope that everything will pan out just right and they’ll have a bumper year so that they can dig out of the whole one year at a time.
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Carfree,
I find it hard to disagree since any incidental experience of my own may in fact gain you more support!
Yep, the more government subsidizes, the more bizarre the environment.
My father’s side family are all farmers or dairy or beef cattle.
My uncle has one of the largest dairy farms in the area- but has fewer cattle than his “allowance”. So he sells his tokens to other farmers for a profit – and earns brilliantly while producing no milk!
Only government could do that!
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And government creates the environment for major corporations like Cargill, Monsanto, Tyson, ect. to thrive and dominate the food production chain because of over regulation from the FDA and USDA to the point that local food production cant meet the regulations.
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Mark,
You’ve got company in your Dr. Dolittle skit.
Prince Charles also talks about speaking with the trees and plants in his garden.
“I happily talk to the plants and trees, and listen to them. I think it’s absolutely crucial,” the prince says. “Everything I’ve done here, it’s like almost with your children. Every tree has a meaning for me.”
…the prince says speaking to the plants keeps him “relatively sane,”
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/prince-charles-eavesdrops-tourists-speaks-plants/story?id=11679656
Oh, yeah. He is an eco-nut too.
He thinks humans are a disaster on the Earth and advocates for massive death of humanity by disease, war, or famine.
“Human population growth is probably the single most serious long-term threat to survival. We’re in for a major disaster if it isn’t curbed…We have no option. If it isn’t controlled voluntarily, it will be controlled involuntarily by an increase in disease, starvation and war.” – HRH Prince Philip, interview “Vanishing Breeds Worry Prince Philip, But Not as Much as Overpopulation”, People Magazine, Dec. 21, 1981
“In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.”
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I know about the energy contained in oil. I know about tar sands and oil shale, and all of the methane locked up underseas, and all of the Bakken oil in MT and ND. I’ve got books around here that discuss all of these things. I made my living for 27 years in oil and gas. I’m not ignorant of the matters you talk about. None offer a current solution to a current problem. You say that solutions will present themselves. They said the same thing in the 1980’s, including shale. It hasn’t happened. Technology is decades away at best, and it all has a South Park underwear solution kind of feel about it.
And, I take it that you have bought into the AGW denier creed.
The rest of your stuff, not just today, but back to the beginning, is summed up as follows:
Wrong.
By the way, I am perfectly capable fo knowing the feelings of an animal. Ask any rancher about his animals, he’ll tell you that it is not only possible, but natural among us, just as we know the feelings of our pre-verbal children, our pets. We are not stupid.
‘Nuff said.
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Mark
What current problem?????
You are imagining fantasies and then trying to solve them in reality!
Doing that will most certainly create serious problems!!!
10,000 plus years later, it has never failed. You are here because of it.
You now believe – in the midst of the greatest explosion of science, learning and understand – that suddenly man will be incapable of it!!!
Mega-bizzare, Mark
Because government has prohibited the development!@!!
Deja Moo!
We had the technology in WW2- so it is obviously available at that level at a minimum!
…so you get your understanding of the world from South Park…. hmmm….
“Creed”?
Yes, the science is settled. It is bizarre to believe humans can cause climate change (or is it disruption now???)
AGW is a “corrupt social phenomenon”.
The fact is, Mark, that AGW hypothesis is false. There is no proof for it, never has been, and none forthcoming.
Only eco-nuts and the easily fooled still hold on to it.
And that is from me, a physicist by education, speaking.
Brilliant response – so full of detail and rebuttal. LoL
Okie Dokie, Dr. Dolittle.
Ask your cow what he thinks about Climate change and his perspective on human rights.
I doubt it.
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Mark,
Even the great AGW priest, George Monbiot, has thrown in the towel.
Climate change enlightenment was fun while it lasted. But now it’s dead
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Enlightenment is indeed dead in the US. I agree with him.
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Mark… a better, cheaper, and more local solution is your local farmers market, if you have one close. You get to cut out the corporate middle man selling an ideology more than a product, and put your food dollars directly into the pockets of the people that care about the same food issues you talk about above.
Plus its fun to get a dozen eggs with a rainbow of colors inside the carton.
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We do have one in here in Boulder. They are thinking of expanding to five days a week. It is very good growing country down here with hot days and warm nights.
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