Organic food is one of the latest trends out there. It’s part of a reaction against the commercialisation of food, and all the evils accompanying it. I mean, who wants food with nasty chemicals on it? So the basic idea is to avoid non-organic methods in the production of food. Advocates of Organic foods would argue that it’s both healthier for us, and healthier for the environment. I want to look at these claims
For a start, is it really healthier for us? It seems intuitive that natural is good right? Well, natural food is good, but if you’ve ever been stung by a bee, or stepped on a thorn, you’ll have (hopefully) quickly learnt that nature is not geared towards meeting our needs. Yes, there are a lot of non-organic substances that can mess us up, but there are also a lot of organic substances that can also mess us up good. So we should avoid the fallacy that natural = good.
Is it better for the environment? Perhaps. It might prevent the build up of chemicals that build up in the environment, but bear in mind that organic farming produces less food per acre than non-organic farming. Again, chemicals can be bad, but so can organic products.
My main issue I have with organic food is that it is often taken to be a primary indicator of healthiness, when it’s only a secondary measure of healthiness. Maybe organic foods are healthier than non-organic foods? If that’s the case, we should buy them not because they’re organic, but because they’re healthy. So why bother looking for what is and isn’t organic? Why not just look for healthy foods? If it’s organic, sweet. If not, no worries. No sense getting all dogmattic about it.
[There's also the issue of 'organic' starting to become a brand name, which starts to exclude small scale local farmers, which kinda defeats the whole philosophy behind it all.
So: buy healthy, buy local. Importantly, make sure you read up on where you food is coming from. Be aware of where you food is coming from.
Yeah, what are other's thoughts on the matter?]
3 comments
Comments feed for this article
April 21, 2009 at 10:09 am
Jim
I think one of the reasons diets based on organic foods are healthier is that you have to put in effort.
(same goes for vegetarian diets, gluten free diets etc)
It eliminates most of the easy convenient junk food… so you have to think about what you are eating.
If you are going to a speciality store (or market, or section of a supermarket) to by foods you have to cook yourself from fresh/raw ingredients it requires no more effort to eat healthily than unhealthily.
But if you will scarf down anything, big macs, takeway pizzas, fried chicken, fish and chips, pies, meat in tinned sauce with no added veggies are all available as salty/fatty/easy options.
April 23, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Amoebe
Ok, so you distinguish between organic and non-organic and healthy and unhealthy food. It’s just that with organic food it’s easier to establish whether it is healthy or not because it is mostly unprocessed. You have more control over what you eat. Adding a modest amount of organic cream to your organic veggie stew is healthy (adding tons of organic cream isn’t). It you buy some veggie stew or whatever processed food, however, you will not really know what’s in there and it’s likely going to contain a lot of sugar, saturated fats and glutamat and flavor enhancers.
Some organic food I would argue is health(ier) per se, namely organically grown veggies and fruit as they don’t don’t contain allt hose chemicals in the fertilizer many non-organic veggies and fruits are smothered with (you can actually taste the fertilizer in some non-organic veggies and fruits like tomatoes or cucumbers).
Re your argument that less food per acre is produced - less food per acre is going to produced from a short-term perspective but the ground which is being farmed organically will be fertile for much longer than the ground which is being subjected to mono-cultures and large amounts of chemicals. Organic starting to go brand name is not per se a bad thing. If organic farming and food goes more large-scale prices for organic food are going to go down and more people will be able to actually afford to make the organic choice.
June 8, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Kelly
Hmmm, your main protest seems to be against uncritically accepting the ‘organic’ brand name without considering the issues behind it - similar to ‘greenwashing’, yes?
I think people getting informed and caring and asking questions is a good thing.
I also think organic is a good thing.
Yes, there are unhealthy (in large quantities) organic processed foods, etc. Living on cookies and muesli bars isn’t a good plan, whether they are organic or not. As for the overall healthiness of organic vs non-organic food, I prefer to leave such matters to respected political dietitians, as food research is massively politically charged and best left to the pros to decipher. Marion Nestle (no relation to the evil corporation) is my fav political dietitian, and she reckons that there is no conclusive evidence that organic is healthier, although the environmental benefits alone are enough for her to buy organic. She does note that pesticides from food have been found in the bodies of children, but there is no evidence that these go on to cause any particular health problems.
Environment: truly organic farming methods are much healthier for the land (not just not spraying for x number of weeks before harvest!). This is the way agriculture has been done since humans began to use it. Sprays and fertilisers kill the helpful bacteria and creatures (like worms!) in the topsoil, and vast monocultures are more prone to pests and disease, requiring even more sprays. Organic farming includes crop rotation and resting the soil so that it is not exhausted, avoids creating monocultures in favour of working ecosystems that prevent pests and disease, feeds the soil with compost and manure that keeps beneficial soil bacteria and organisms happy, etc etc etc. Most artificial fertilisers and sprays are based on unsustainable petrochemicals that are brought in from outside, while a good organic system will be self sustaining within a given area.
Yes, organic farming produces less food per acre. The main limiting factor is nitrogen. Legumes ‘fix’ nitrogen from the air into the soil, so the next crop that is planted in that bed will use this nitrogen. The discovery of how to artifically produce nitrogen fertiliser from fossil fuels led to an increase in food production, and a corresponding increase in population, so today it is estimated that 1/3 of the world’s population is dependent on artificial fertiliser for its food supply. With world overpopulation and peak oil, it may be almost time to get all Daniel Quinn on their asses. Very difficult issues, but the longer we ignore it, the worst it’ll get.
Sorry for long comment…