"ORGANIC" is a big scam!

Organic produce is a big scam.

It's something my mother's been telling me for years.

"There's no difference between that," she insists, jabbing a finger at my organic apple, "and the normal stuff."

"The normal stuff," is what she calls the pesticide-laden germ warfare that graces most supermarket shelves under the smokescreen of "natural" and "fresh."

Luckily, I stopped listening to my mother after she sent me to school with a rhinestone-studded unicorn sweatshirt. The shirt that matched the one she made my teacher. The teacher she called in advance, to plan the day we could coordinate our outfits.

I never looked at a Bedazzler the same way again.

Anyway. We've had this argument once or twice over the years, with her challenging me to come up with a laundry list of proof regarding organic foods' superiority over their conventional counterparts.

Usually, I kind of stumble around the matter, blurt out something like, "It's healthier! Better for the planet!" and make for the exit before she can press me for details. I knew it was better to support organic farming methods, but I didn't really know why.

So here are a handful of reasons to keep in your arsenal, should you one day find yourself in the same predicament.

1. Organic produce is safer and healthier.
Certified organic produce must adhere to strict regulations regarding pest control and growth, meaning farmers cannot use unnatural and potentially dangerous chemicals to control beetles or plump up their tomatoes.

2. Growing organically is safer for the environment.
No chemicals leaking into our water supply or killing wildlife. And while conventional farming methods usually mean the land is worked until it's no longer usable, organic methods utilize crop rotation, which retains and replaces soils' nutrients.

3. Organic produce is not genetically-modified.
Basically, scientists have started to mess with the DNA of natural foods like soy and corn to make them more profitable. GE foods can be made "Herbicide Tolerant" (tweaked to withstand direct applications of pesticides that would naturally kill them) or "Insect Resistant" (the plant itself produces an insecticide that kills pests -- which will likely develop immunities down the line anyway. In the meantime, we get to digest more chemicals. Yum!)

Because foods are not required to have a "GE" label on them, the only sure way to avoid them is to buy food with a "non-GE" label (Go figure -- unnatural foods have become the norm, and normal foods now need a label) or buy organically-grown produce.

Some of my mother's favorite reasons for not choosing organic produce:

"How do we know it's really organic?"
Certification is a long and costly process that can take years. It is strictly monitored. Sure, buying organic requires a certain level of trust in those guidelines, but buying anything does. You trust that you'll get round cereal in your Cheerios box, or that the expiration date on your milk is correct, or that the kid who unloaded the apples didn't juggle them first. (I didn't! I swear! I can't juggle for beans.)

"It costs more!"
Well, yeah. It does. There's no getting around that. Why? Well, for one thing, organic produce is more expensive to grow. Without using cheap pest deterrents (i.e. sewage sludge and chemical fertilizers), farmers need to rely on compost and methods like hand-weeding or crop rotation. Maybe one day, it will become normal to eat natural things again, and prices will react accordingly.

In the meantime, you can make choices that are healthier for all involved.

What's your view? Put in your two cents by answering the poll to the left!

Posted by Angelina.

Sources: On Cost
On organic food terms
On GE foods. Also here.