It's interesting how some mistrust the "organic/cage-free/free-range" label and others mistrust safety thresholds. Anyone mistrust both?
Also, why is food labeled organic so damned expensive?
1, Indeed I mistrust both. I prefer to get the least amount of unnecessary chemicals in me as possible. This leads to some paradoxes, like avoiding "cage free, antibiotic free, free range" chickens and stuff. I would agree with the poster(s) that say humanely treated animals is what I want to see. I don't buy in to the scare propaganda of the "Food, Inc" stuff other than that. Treat animals humanely (up until I eat them).
A funny story was when a big organic, free-range and other buzzwords chicken farmer in [Northern Colorado city] came to my company and wanted to rent farms to raise his chickens on. When asked why, he said "because mine are all diseased". He doesn't use antibiotics. Nice, so now he sells chickens/chicken meat/eggs from diseased birds? No thanks.
I understand that they have to be kept indoors (which can be a fenced in shelter so they get *some* exposure to air/sun etc, but a lot of livestock (like the common "turkeys are retarded they drown when it rains" stories) are inbred and dumb. They don't know to go inside when it gets cold outside so they freeze to death. Or get picked off by predators.
They should be kept in large enough areas that they don't wallow in their own feces, or large enough to not stress out over cramped space and peck each other to death etc, then we don't need antibiotics to fend off disease.
Personally I'd like to find a butcher with cows that hang around on a farm and eat grass, and roaming around with chickens who eat whatever they peck from the ground and when they get sick, they get treated like any other sick animal (or human). Then they get slaughtered and I get a happy, healthy slab of beef and eggs. Just like nature intended.
2, Organic sells for a higher price because people PAY more for anything labeled "organic". The definition of organic is very loose. I used to work for the Hain Corporation and a lot of the Celestian Seasoning and Jason stuff was organic, but only 70% of the raw materials were required to "come from organic sources" The definition of "organic source" is also interesting. :)
Having worked in the food industry since 2005, I've seen a lot and asked a lot, and basically it boils down to money. If you can make more money by stuffing more animals in a cage, and feed them antibiotics to keep them from being diseased, that's what will happen.
If there's an organic label to be had by meeting some idiotic criteria, that could be done if the income goes up enough to justify the label, I mean, one chicken for a 1x1 foot space is easy enough to meet if you can increase profits 20% for "free range".
If you can sell eggs from chickens never treated with antibiotics for a premium, then the chicken gets sick and they're "normal" eggs after, you STILL make more money than before.
The only organic label I trust is on stuff I grow in my own garden, water and feed on my own and then pick the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers etc. Paying for organic? Naw, not worth it.
It's vaguely reminiscent of the whole E85 gasoline debacle that is such a gigantic hole in our (consumer) pockets, but as long as the marketing makes people believe it's a good thing, it's profitable and so it goes.