The "Organic" Trend - do you believe the hype?

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

I most definitely believe the hype when it comes to sustainable anything - housing, farming, what have you. I always try to buy organic (not from Whole Foods if I can help it) simply because it's better for me and is healthier for the land as well. Milk, produce, even dishwashing liquid, soap, and beauty aids.

What are your thoughts on organic produce and health products? If you do try to purchase organics, have you found a store that doesn't charge an arm and a leg? If you don't, is it something you'd like to try?

 

[Elaina]

I'm a fencer. I don't buy into the hype, but I do belive in homemade remidies. Around here that leaves witchcraft stores and whole foods for herbs and oils to use.

Food: I check what I buy for no extra hormones, but face it I can't pay $6 for a chicken when I can get it for $2. I watch what I buy for the additives. Other then that I'm on the "Made in USA by union workers" kick. My daddy is a Teamster, and a lifetime of doing that dies hard.

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

I have a huge problem with Whole Foods, because they jack up their organic prices to double the conventional prices. That's completely unecessary and they do it just because people will pay it. Trader Joe's, for example, is cheap and the organics are minimally more expensive than the conventionals. Also, smaller, independent markets usually can be found (I can't speak for Dallas of course) that are reasonable, and don't cater to the yuppie set.

 

[Lord Jagged]

I read in The Times a really interesting article about the organic vegetables being no better than the normal ones in any measurable way. I'm totally up for concern over animal welfare and free-range works for me. Not buying into organic veggies though

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

I read in The Times a really interesting article about the organic vegetables being no better than the normal ones in any measurable way. I'm totally up for concern over animal welfare and free-range works for me. Not buying into organic veggies though

REALLY! I'd like to see that article. The typical argument, I believe, is that organic growers don't use aritficial pesticides or fertilizers which can and do build up in your system. Does that make it better for you? Seems like it would to me! But I've been wrong before.

I'm a vegetarian for animal rights reasons, and I wholeheartedly support buying free range meats, and non-farm-raised fish. (I do eat fish, I'm a fake veg.)

 

[Story]

I'm a firm believer in the organic properties and health benefits of Dihydrogen Monoxide.

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

I'm a firm believer in the organic properties and health benefits of Dihydrogen Monoxide.

I prefer mine with added flouride and chlorine, personally. Doesn't everyone?

 

[Elaina]

I read an article about that too concerning a product that's supposed to take off the chemicals off vegetables where they said (basically) washing in a mild detergent and water then rinsing well gets rid of pesticides and other gunk.

We have a farmer's market I can walk to where I'm at, but the problem is is largely it's illegal immigrants and imported from Mexico. I can go to Wal-Mart or Kroger's and get more local products then I can either at the market or Whole Foods (and I have no problems walking into the back to see where the stuff is from). So I buy alot of summer/spring/fall produce off the side of the road (I know the farmer, he usually emails me his locations every month), unless I grow them outside my apartment (like strawberries, tomatoes, and herbs) and I go and get my pecans from a little old lady where I spend some time picking them off the ground and sharing with her (too old to stoop. I get my bags, and my son gets hers). While I believe in the independents, we also eat a ton of salads, cucumbers, and other stuff that independents aren't economically sound here. Part of my job as a wife is getting the house ran for as cheaply as possible, in the most healthy way possible.

Meat I've always kept an eye on. I believe that an animal should be killed as humanely as possible, and there are more that do that then mass butchery that frightens them to death before hand. But I haven't ate veal since I was 3. Not a vegetarian (I might as well be. When I work and we eat out more then we don't, I rarely eat meat) just cheap.

I'm sure some of you out there can understand the fact medications get old. I have a basket full of 'cures' and treatments from all kinds of places. My son call it my witch's pot. But they're hardly sick aound here (I'm different. I don't take my own medicine). Son got a staph infection last year, we had him on 4 different antibiotics (his dad doesn't approve of the 'cures'). When they prescribed the 5th one, I gave him a home remedy, and it was cleared up in 3 days. I can't get things like cowslips from standard groceries, so I'm stuck with Whole Foods (also someplace I can walk to, the next nearest place is 20 miles away).

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

I love buying produce from local farm stands! I moved here recently though and don't know any around.

 

[jake_fink]

I think that more than the personal (possible) health benefits the appeal of organic produce is that it is believed to be less harmful on the environment to produce. It gives consumers a (sometimes false) sense of having done the right thing by buying organic.

The problem is the the word "organic" is applied sometimes even to produce that is not fertilized with chemical fertilizers but with manure and sometimes even sewage sludge. The problem with farm effluent is that it comes most often from large industrial factory farms and it may contain trace amounts of whatever the animals have been fed or medicated with. As well, dumping large amounts of effluent can affect the local water supply and may cause conatimnation of the produce itself. Sewage sludge is an even bigger problem because it also includes grey water runoff, which means that anything that went down the drain is part of the mix.

These points don't automatically mean that all organic produce is tainted or a scam, but it does mean that since the word itself has become a means of marketing (like "vintage" being attached to any old piece of clothing) the buyer should, as always, be informed and beware.

I buy from local producers whenever possible, and I buy organic when I know that it is from a reputable producer. In any case I will only buy what I can afford, and if organic brocolli is $3.50 and non-organic $.99, choise has effectively been removed.

Something I see as ironic is that often buyers of organic produce are also buyers of bottled water. Wholefoods has an enormous bottled water selection. There is basically nothing worse you can do to the environment, short of dumping your microwave ovens, compuer hardrives and cans of solvent in your local headwaters, than drink bottled water. And anyone that drinks Dasani or one of those other bottled tapwaters is just a lame-brained sucker.

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

Something I see as ironic is that often buyers of organic produce are also buyers of bottled water. Wholefoods has an enormous bottled water selection. There is basically nothing worse you can do to the environment, short of dumping your microwave ovens, compuer hardrives and cans of solvent in your local headwaters, than drink bottled water. And anyone that drinks Dasani or one of those other bottled tapwaters is just a lame-brained sucker.

I have never heard this. Please explain! (Edit - obviously buying bottled "purified" tap water is stupid...I assume there's something else to it)

 

[jake_fink]

Bottled water has to get to market. It is driven and flown. It has to be packaged in glass or plastic. It puts a strain on sources that are not carefully managed and potentially depletes local water supplies, sometimes diverting water that would otherwise supply streams, wetlands etc.

Your local tap water is a good clean source that requires a fraction of the energy, almost none of the fossil fuel emissions and no packaging whatsoever. Tap water is the environmentally friendly alternative to bottled water.

 

[Mr. Lucky]

This is just MY theory:

When the family farm and the family rancher were still the predominent supplier of meat and produce in this country, they used mostly safe pesticides (DDT being the one exception) and fertilizers simply because it was cost effective and readily accessible.

But as these institutions have become scarce and most meat and poultry come from industrialized, corporate farming - farming that is done on such a massive scale - that it has become more cost effective for these institutions to use growth hormones and other chemicals that deeply effect these products on a very wide range. They look good, but they are rife with chemicals and, in my opinion, taste like...well, nothing!

Let me put it this way - It is now McFarming; everything being the same, deeply chemicalized and deeply manipulated. Ask yourself, if you are over 40, if steaks and corn and even bread taste like they used to. Or does everything just taste like communion hosts?

Again, just my opinion.

 

[scotrace]

Color me skeptical...

I'm finding it very hard to believe that any farmer would be able to get raw sewage, let alone dump it on his fields.


And bottled water is really a silly waste of money. If you are willing to pay more than a dollar for a pint or so of water, then it really shoots holes in any complaint over gasoline at $2.50 a gallon.

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

I'm finding it very hard to believe that any farmer would be able to get raw sewage, let alone dump it on his fields.


And bottled water is really a silly waste of money. If you are willing to pay more than a dollar for a pint or so of water, then it really shoots holes in any complaint over gasoline at $2.50 a gallon.

Well, it is very convenient, but not any more so than purchasing a nalgene bottle and toting that around.

 

[Legal Concepts]

I most definitely believe the hype when it comes to sustainable anything - housing, farming, what have you. I always try to buy organic (not from Whole Foods if I can help it) simply because it's better for me and is healthier for the land as well. Milk, produce, even dishwashing liquid, soap, and beauty aids.

What are your thoughts on organic produce and health products? If you do try to purchase organics, have you found a store that doesn't charge an arm and a leg? If you don't, is it something you'd like to try?

Being a Vegetarian is a healthy choice, being vegetarian is organic?

When it comes to food, organic is very healthy, however It is my opinion, if somthing isn't toxic, causes cancer(in California) and you must wear goggles and gloves, I'm sure the product works great, but if there is a alternative that works just as good(and happens to be Organic) the more power to you!

 

[Elaina]

I buy a case of water every 6 months, so I can reuse the bottles at the gym, for my car, or keep it in the icebox so I can keep an eye on my water intake. After about 6 months, I either lose the bottles, or they're too used to keep re-using them.

It's not to be cool or anything else, other then I can grab a bottle of water when I put cream in my coffee and drink a 1:1 ratio of coffee to water.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

My daddy always said bottled water is just someone else's tap water.
I carry a good old-fashioned sippy cup. Or a canteen. But then I drink my cafe au lait out of a crystal tumbler.
Often at Wegman's, our local supermarket, organic is the same price as (what to call non-organic?) I prefer organic.
Bring back lard! That's one reason foods from our childhood tasted better. I use it except when cooking something to be eaten by veggies. .99 cents a slab.

 

[John in Covina]

Organic Beer

I had organic beer from England and it just wasn't up to par.

During the course of the year, we usually have several vegies growing in the garden, and they tend to be very good. I haven't had organic fresh vegies that I did not like. But organic in the can or frozen doesn't seem to be better.

Totally Organic, man!

 

[Lincsong]

I'm finding it very hard to believe that any farmer would be able to get raw sewage, let alone dump it on his fields.


And bottled water is really a silly waste of money. If you are willing to pay more than a dollar for a pint or so of water, then it really shoots holes in any complaint over gasoline at $2.50 a gallon.

I agree to a certain extent with the bottled water. However, the water in Los Angeles is so full of minerals it's like drinking water and oil. If I lived down there I'd definetely have a bottled water service. I've lived in Illinois, Florida and Hawaii and the water is fine. But, when I travel to Los Angeles; NASTY!