Organic or 'conventional'?

[trekkiedane]

Sephiroth wrote:

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you guys actualy BUY meat? it's called hunting, people

True, but that just makes it even more expensive!

[Robert Maxwell]

When the organic stuff costs 50-100% more than the non-organic, it seems like a pretty shitty deal. I'm not made of money.

[trekkiedane]

Sephiroth wrote:

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you guys actualy BUY meat? it's called hunting, people

True, but that just makes it even more expensive!

Besides, where do you hunt chicken?

[Holdfast]

I don't have any environmental qualms either way, so I certainly don't seek out organic food per se. I think the bread and eggs I sometimes buy at a local cafe/deli happen to be organic, but I buy them because I like the taste of the food there. Same goes for some of the chicken and other bits and pieces I buy elsewhere; I'm not sure, but I think some of them may be organic. So I guess you could call me an occasional inadvertant organic consumer.

[trampledamage]

macloudt wrote:

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^You have a good point regarding food miles, cultcross. The farmers' market I frequent sells only local produce, so walk away poorer but feeling very smug. I agree that it's better to buy conventional local apples than organic apples from the other side of the world.

I read an article a while about about the environmental impact of food and their conclusion was to look for things in this order

1) Local organic
2) Local non-organic
3) Non-local organic
4) Non-local non-organic.

So that's what I try for these days.

Root vegetables are the ones you really want to try and buy organiic because the chemicals from the farming leach into the roots and with root veg that's what you're eating.

[indranee]

I never buy bananas, avocado, mangos, garlic, oranges or onions organic. Stuff like lettuce/spinach leaves, red/green pepper, carrots and apples etc yes I do buy organic. Anything you peel and eat, there's no point buying them organic. The prices are too g-d high.

I don't buy farmed salmon etc. I do buy fish from a local fishery once or twice a month. And I don't eat meat much... at the most I'll have chicken twice a month. Those I do buy organic.

I've let milk and dairy go. Instead, I buy organic almond milk. I do love yogurt so I'll buy that organic eveyr once in a while. But I've actually made yogurt out of almond milk. It's delicious!

[trekkiedane]

indranee wrote:

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I never buy bananas, avocado, mangos, garlic, oranges or onions organic. Stuff like lettuce/spinach leaves, red/green pepper, carrots and apples etc yes I do buy organic. Anything you peel and eat, there's no point buying them organic. The prices are too g-d high.

Especially foods that contain compounds which are health-beneficial (as opposed to being merely nutritional), like garlic and onions, I make a point in buying organic

[teacake]

trekkiedane wrote:

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Just this Saturday I went to the local 'farmer's market' where I had the choice of locally grown tomatoes (it's winter here, darnit!) or organic ones from Spain... which ones would you buy -those that are grown conventionally in heated green-houses or those that come from thousands of kilometers away?

Local every time.

I had a local place that sold organic vegies. They cost sometimes triple what the supermarket charged and all looked like they'd been run over. I'm also put off by having heard from a radio program in which a greengrocer admitted that he just picked out the dirtiest most irregular produce at the markets, labeled it organic and tripled the price. I personally know people who have a cafe that claims everything is organic: this is a complete lie. They buy most of it from the supermarket and use any old butter etc..

The only possibly organic stuff I buy is from my local health food store that sells produce people in the area have brought in.. home grown garlic, honey, oranges, eggs. I don't know what those people used to grow things but I do know the produce spent 5 minutes in the back of a car to get to that shop and that's nice. The stuff has always been excellent too.

As to free range meat--I don't bother, costs too much. I mainly eat kangaroo which is pretty free range anyway and dramatically cheaper than steak.

http://www.macromeats-gourmetgame.com.au/

[Showdown]

Conventional, but it doesn't matter to me.

[Miss Chicken]

I don't buy many organic vegetables mainly because I have my own organic vegetable patch.

[bigdaddy]

Wow.. The OP must be an American, I can't believe how misinformed they are. Stunning.

Organic means nothing, there is no official meaning to it and you can still use 126 chemicals on food. Those chemicals are weaker and need to be used more.

Best thing to do is buy from a local farm, if they use chemicals or not.

[Small White Car]

I, for one, am shocked that quite a few people on the Trek BBS aren't concerned by the fact that more girls are growing breasts as early as age 7 than ever before.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...rty09_ST_N.htm

You all can keep eating and drinking the chemicals they pump into animals, but that stuff scares the %*#@ out of me. I'd feel terrible if my daughter started going through puberty that early because it's pretty clear that it's the food we're eating that causes such problems.

That's preventable and I really am surprised so many of you just don't care.

(And for you men that can't be bothered to worry about what happens to women, there's a whole part in there about tiny penises too.)

[teacake]

Hormones have not been used in chicken production in Australia for over 40 years. So I'm good on that front.

[indranee]

I've noticed more and more locally grown vegetable and fruit products in my local Giant and Safeway... so that's good.

[thestrangequark]

bigdaddy wrote:

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Wow.. The OP must be an American, I can't believe how misinformed they are. Stunning.

Oh give me a break. This anti-Americanism is so tired and passe and it certainly doesn't make you sound intelligent or well informed, just prejudiced.

Anyway, to the topic: It's true that "organic" as a marketing buzzword doesn't have any real meaning, so it is unwise to assume that something labeled as such was actually grown/raised/produced in a way that meets one's own standards of what is natural, safe, and healthy. Personally, I like to know what I'm putting in my body, so I simply stick with whole foods from trusted sources. I try always to buy hormone free meat products and stick with packaged foods with fewer than 5 or 6 ingredients, all of which I can easily pronounce.

As to the article about early puberty, it is interesting, and clearly the possible side-effects of chemicals in food production and agriculture are alarming. However, (to play the Devil's Advocate) it is inconclusive. There are a number of theories as to why girls are going through puberty early, one mentioned in the article being the relation to overweight and obesity. Another interesting theory I read about was that the proliferation of sexual imagery in our culture (on TV, in ads, etc.) is to blame.