Organic Food is Healthier: Bullshit.

Hey, if people wanna buy food that is more likely to have carcinogens, I wouldn't want to stop them.

Me, I am quite happy with the locally grown organice vegetables and occasional meat products I buy. It tastes richer and more interesting than the often cardboardy, plastic tasting veggies at the store. If you don't notice the difference, well I can understand your lack of interest in spending a little more. Leaves more choice for me on the really good stuff.

 

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I think its silly to boycott Whole Foods just because its CEO is against Obama's health care bill. I am all for universal health care but I am not going to check with every company I buy from to check and see if the owner shares my politics. There are other reasons that would make more sense to boycott the store and this has to do with business practices like organics that come from large farming factories as opposed to small farmers or something like that. Whole Foods is a large multimillion dollar company with stores all over the country, when anything gets to this size there is bound to be aspects of their business practices that would cause criticism like this article from Common Dreams:

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0502-34.htm

 

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Doesn't it just suck, though?

Yeah, from what I understand, there are a few problems with that enterprise. If I spent more money there to begin with, I'd probably pay closer attention.

Doesn't that just suck, though? I think the last real boycott I ever undertook was Gillette, something like fifteen years ago. Something about animal testing and all. But, as just about everyone who makes razors that work on my beard is guilty of something similar, what the hell is the point?

God, I tried to boycott China after the massacre. That's fucking impossible. It lasted a day, but that wasn't my fault. My mother was at a store, saw some shoes that were the kind I wore for all of eight dollars, and bought them. Yeah. Made in China.

I take it back. My last boycott was of Disney. And not even for their exploitative labor practices. Rather, I was just pissed off about Pocahontas and some other film they put out at that time and said, "I've had enough of these bastards." That one lasted a while. But then someone gave me a Mickey Mouse tie as a gift, and I thought, Is nobody paying attention? When I say "boycott", what do they think I mean?

Oh, well.

 

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A few years ago my wife came home so impressed that the store was selling chickens with a 300 year pedigree and a price to go with it of course. I was not impressed. It was a marketing gimick. I view organic foods in the same way, a marketing gimick.

 

if you assert everyone as being equally corrupt it is a statement of your own lack of integrity.

 

He did not imply everyone, rather that they were both marketing gimmicks, that 2 out of a selection of everyone, not everyone.

 

having known some of the local growers, the idea that 'it is a marketing gimmick' is just ignorance. Certainly once agribusiness got into the game it became included in marketing gimmicks and not so high quality products. But the people who did grow organically before any significant portion of the population got interested in organic products were not into it as marketing gimmicks. They would have done better with non-organic foods.

The great thing is you can still buy from people who do not view growing food as a marketing gimmick. And, of course, there are non-organic growers who care similarly about their crops - but less and less of them, as they are swallowed up by agribusiness.

A lack of nuance can be reassuring. 'Oh, it's just another gimmick, so I'll buy the other gimmick.'

But really it is not necessary, just do what you want.

 

And the growers of the food products you buy now, instead of Whole Foods, they are for the Obama plan and against, for example, the recent foreign wars?

Or is it just alternative food, health and other services who must be politically correct (according to your standards)?

And the suppliers of Whole Foods, who will get snatched up in any boycott....

these people are against the Obama plan?

 

Locally grown and organic foods are two very different things!

Can't live on the good old days.

yes a lack of nuance is clear on your part, if you want locally grown go to a farmers market and buy it directly from the farmer who selling right there at a stand, cheap energy-efficient. If you want organic go to the fancy isle of your shopping center with all the wood trim and buy over-priced food, these are not the same things, don't dare call them that!

 

it is a bit of a gimmick afa the final product is converned, but organic is better for the environment. that being said the human body is remarkably resiliant. all living creatures are, if youve ever seen a junk yard dog drink from a rancid puddle....they drink it like it was just any old water. amazing.

 

did MR Real go to potty town and make a lot of noise from his bottom while his mouth was moving ?

while all the retail outlets are owned by the same company that owns all the farms and trucking do you really think organic food will be delivered at a fair market price when all the retailing and distribution is owned and used as extortion to corner the market ?

sheesh

come on people at least pretend to have an intelligent debate...
as fare as the USA is concerned their / your agriculture cant stand up without its niggers in the fields.

i thought you banned slavery ?
whats with all the Mexican niggers you have as low income slaves holding up the massive profiteering profit margins made by all the corporates who own the transport and distribution ?

are any of you really capable of having a real debate on the subject ?
like big people who don't lie for personal convinience... ?

what do you call them ?
spicks, dagoes,wogs nig nogs winnabagoes or what ever you call them ?
is that right ?
have you replaced a African nigger with a Mexican nigger and pretended you banned slavery ?

come on people does that food really taste that nice since its all been touched by slaves ?
is that the way you like it ?

why do you think bush did not clamp down on illegal immigrants ?
because they support your economy from falling over as they work for slave wages and no health care and no retirement and no money for their kids education etc ETC et fucking cet tra.

land of the free ?
free what ?
free market profiteering slave traders and ignorant greedy selfish fat consumer pigs that's what it is.

 

right back at you because that makes no sense, I never argued such at thing! The organic food industry already has a very large distribution network! And I can buy produce from the farmers market for pretty cheap, where is their distribution network beside sending the 16 year old daughter in a Ford 150 fill with maze to sell it in a hot stand all day???

Never knew you hated Mexicans so much! You think it just the corporations that heir them, you don't think common farms don't either for their cheap cheap labor?

further quotes below are examples of "real debating"?

Their is a difference between coming her by free will and getting paid very little and coming here against ones will and not getting paid at all.

wait, what does this have to do with organic food?

You need to calm down, here is a nice animation about a little girl force to work on the winter streets Moscow in the 1800's by here abusive father:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUSzQBaWq0Q&feature=related

 

I believe in boycotting but not for reasons such as an owner's personal beliefs. In the case of Whole Foods their enterprise is so large that only a small percentage of their organic foods come from small farmers, most of it comes from large farming factories that happen to have organics along with the standard fair.

I try and eat from local farmers if I can help it. I eat organically because I don't want insecticides and pesticides from Monsanto because I hate Monsanto's contributions to the world which includes GMO's. I also don't appreciate their harassment of small farmers in the States and abroad. Like I have said I don't buy organics solely for health reasons.

Here's a documentary you might find interesting:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-food

 

Which is to admit that if you believe organics are healthier, you believe based on faith alone, and not science. "Natural" does not equate to "healthy". Feces and arsenic are natural, but I would not recommend eating them.

 

famous last words by the gestapo as the Jews and gypsies complained about having to go on long train rides and take showers.

i do not hate Mexicans.

but your feeble little brain seems to want me to.
why is that ?
so you can stand there and try and shout me down as the racist while the entire american consumer market treats them no better than they did the African niggers in the cotton fields ?

lets face it.
the African niggers have been replaced with the Mexican niggers and the only people complaining are those living in abject poverty being controlled by drug lords just south of the Mexican border.

the american agricultural and consumer market is being propped up by slave wages paid to illegal mexican workers who not only have no rights but seem to be expected not to protest because they should be grateful.

the only reason bush did not close the border down is because he found out just how much the slave wage Mexican niggers are lining the pockets of the racist African and anglo Americans.

from one slave trade to another.
your all soo corrupt its ridiculous.

the farmers cant afford to pay a fair wage to them so they can afford housing and health care.

soo who is buying the produce ?

who is making money trafficking them across the border ?

THE AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY IS PROPPED UP BY PEOPLE TRAFFICKING AND SLAVE WAGES.

and THAT is the simple undeniable truth.

buying local organic food will render these slave traders and people traffickers and slave workers mute from no money and it will force the Mexicans to stand up to their own american puppet government and over throw them to take back control of their own oil and natural resources.
until such a time they will be the slaves that the fat ignorant american consumer feed off.

because lets face it... most Americans are just not raised to choose the moral choice before profit are they.
that's not how the society was built or how children are raised there.

 

At one point in time I was sure that was right...until I actually tried them side by side, over a fairly extended period. In fact, I *wanted* to believe that the organics tasted better which is why the period of testing became quite extended. In the end, though I had to bow to the disappointing reality, that the inorganic food tasted on average better. There were a few times the organics did win, it just wasn't consistent.

As part of my trials I enlisted friends and family and one thing I did notice. The people who swore by organics consistently found that they tasted better. It was so much so, that even when I cut up a single piece of fruit or a vegetable, they found the "organic" sample to be better tasting or even to "taste cleaner" or "taste healthier." The "inorganic" sample, they found often "tasted artificial" or "had a chemical taste." Often they felt the organics were better by a wide margin.

I concluded they were in the same boat as me: they wanted the organics to be better. So, they either they fibbed to reinforce their preferred belief or they honestly (but wrongly) convinced themselves that the samples from one and the same source tasted vastly different.

At this point I buy organics mostly because Whole Foods is so conveniently located. Most of the people who shop there, I think, but because it makes them feel good but themselves to believe that they are engaging in a healthier and smarter lifestyle than the less intelligent (or at least less "enlightened") people out there. In reality I suspect they are fooling themselves.

I'm sure it makes them happy, which is good, but it's fundamentally no different than someone believing that their religion is the "true" one and everyone else's falls short.

 

If you want to.

Or you could follow the conclusions of reason from evidence leading to judgment, in an arena in which the very expensive science has not only not been done, but has been actively opposed and obscured by very powerful economic and political forces.

Your choice.

I don't doubt that superior taste is one of the less reliable virtues of "organic" food - and in my own estimation, not enjoyed by organic coffee, wine, and a few other items.

But there are some exterior factors involved in informal taste testing. For one, conventional stuff is often adulterated with known human taste enhancers (monosodium glutamate, for example, or sugar, or artificial vanilla). For another, as I mentioned above, far more "organic" produce is sold than is grown, in the US. If the odds are what they were a few years ago when I last checked, buying by chance you have about a 50% likelihood of being cheated - paying high prices for more or less conventionally produced produce. That would badly confound your testing over time - and consider that the temptation of marketing exactly the lowest quality conventional (the stuff that doesn't look so good) as "organic", is probably pretty strong.

The possibility of borrowing the psychological enhancement of the label to conceal what would otherwise evoke complaints is probably not lost on the cheats, either.

I once bought a bottle of wine labeled "organic" that had been, in the judgment of a friend with expertise, watered. The profit from such adulterations is greater with organics.

The long-standing principle applies: know your farmer. Buy close to the dirt.

 

Originally Posted by pande
"At one point in time I was sure that was right...until I actually tried them side by side, over a fairly extended period. In fact, I *wanted* to believe that the organics tasted better which is why the period of testing became quite extended. In the end, though I had to bow to the disappointing reality, that the inorganic food tasted on average better. There were a few times the organics did win, it just wasn't consistent.”

in response posted by iceaura
"I don't doubt that superior taste is one of the less reliable virtues of "organic" food - and in my own estimation, not enjoyed by organic coffee, wine, and a few other items."


carefully constructed placating misinformation to try and redirect the debate as if it hinges on the validity of a non essential factor.

mostly this type of psychology is specifically paraded out to pander to the average housewife.

 

ripleofdeath,

if you want to rant you can make a new thread for that.

 

You are seriously misinformed. "Organic farming" is no longer the exclusive province of small farmers. There are "powerful economic forces" making money producing and selling organics, unless you feel that the likes of Coca Cola, Kelloggs, Heinz, Cargill, Dean Foods, Dole, Tyson, Unilever, Campbells Soup are not powerful. Dean Foods owns Horizon Milk, which was (and I believe still is), the best selling organic brand in the U.S. Unilever owns Ben & Jerry's, the veritable poster children for the "holier-than-thou" version of organic farming you seem to be trying to claim makes you better than me.

Corporate organic farmers are doing quite nicely and appreciate the price hike the segment affords them very much.

See: http://www.ijsaf.org/archive/16/1/howard.pdf

There's a handy chart as Figure 1 that begins to show the consolidation, and it's out of date since they stopped collecting data in 2007.

Here's a animation that shows what's been happening, at least from 1995 to 2007. The large yellow dots are multinational agribusinesses like Dean Foods, Heinz, ConAgra, General Mills, etc. The blue dot of private equity firms. The green dots are legitimate organic brands (though most are acquired by 2007, they remain "legitimate" by my estimation). The red dots are "organic" versions of mainstream brands being marketed to consumers of organics.

http://www.msu.edu/~howardp/OrganicIndustry.mov

If all you have is faith that "big business" is fighting to kill organics and so is lying, that is not a very strong argument. Big Business is happily playing both sides of the field, and the profit margin and annual revenue growth for organics is greater for them. They can out-compete local growers quite nicely because economy of scale works pretty well on te distribution side of the business equation and has benefits on the production side too. All they need is the USDA "certfied organic" stamp, and they are golden.

Pre-USDA, actually, I think they had a harder time, because small farmers could then more convincingly claim that Agribusiness products weren't "really" organic. Now we have a neutral arbiter and an official seal-of-government-approval. There is no "secret" to organic agriculture that the big businesses can't also master, so meeting the USDA guidelines is easy.

No, in point of fact, powerful economic interests have never seen a food market as strong as the one for organics. In what is called the "BCG Matrix" (that, while too simplistic, is still taught in every business school in the western world), organics have taken food production from what the grid refers to as "dog" to "star" (or, at least, depending on the particular market segment, to "problem child" which is better than dog).

Many powerful economic interests are loving organics at the moment.