These people are real?

[odput]

I was at a friends house this past weekend and somehow the topic of grocery shopping came up.  My friend's wife told us about how she was talking about shopping at Aldi with her coworkers, and how they looked at her with disbelief, and bombarded her with things like "you mean you don't buy organic produce?" and "what about all the pesticides?"  When she calmly told them that she washes their fruits and veggies before eating them, they said "you'll change your mind once you have kids, you'll see."

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!?

I know this forum has plenty of real-life accounts of this kind of stupidity, but up until this weekend, I always assumed that at least some of it was embellished, either the stupidity or the condescension or something like that.  Nope...these people are real

[Guizmo]

What's wrong with organic foods? I can't tolerate regular yogurt, but organic yogurt does nothing to my body but fill it up. Same with many foods. I don't think it is ridiculous to buy organic food. I do think it is ridiculous to buy it at a place like whole foods, where the mark up is crazy high.

[YK-Phil]

The only thing I can afford at the local organic food store is the free water. Yes, I would rather buy everything organic, whole food, chemical free, local, range-free and whatever-free, but I really can't afford the stuff and the superior virtues and self-righteously pious attitude of the folks coming to shop there in their brand-new Subaru pisses me off.

[Eric]

Which part surprises you?  The fact that people buy only organic or the fact that people are judgmental?  I thought both were pretty common.

[Bruised_Pepper]

I'm with you, OP.  Organic is just a buzzword to sell overpriced food.

Psst...there's a LOT of people on this forum like your friend's wife's coworkers, so I can't imagine this going over well.

[stevesteve]

I'm with you, OP.  Organic is just a buzzword to sell overpriced food.

Psst...there's a LOT of people on this forum like your friend's wife's coworkers, so I can't imagine this going over well.

1) Calling it a buzz word implies there's not a difference.  There is less pesticide residues on organic foods and I imagine the effect of washing varies drastically between different types of food.  There are also fewer antibiotics used (negligible direct benefit, broader benefit of reducing antibiotic overuse).  There is also a general negative effect of pesticides in the environment.
2) I think most people here would spend less and wash their food if they believed that was the only difference.

I don't generally eat organic food.  It strikes me that eating it is probably a decent use of the precautionary principle and has clear but limited pollution-related benefits.

[SwordGuy]

Half of all people are dumber than average...    Never be surprised by stupidity, it's commonplace.

[vern]

When I was little, we were poor so we ate organic produce from my mom's garden and grass fed beef from the local farmer because it was too expensive to buy meat the grocery store.  It's funny how times have changed.

Nice!

[dragoncar]

My grandpa grew up surrounded by a farm, and he died of cancer years ago (as did four of his five siblings).  His type of cancer was linked to chemicals that were commonly used by farmers.  Organic isn't just a buzz word.  We don't only buy organic, but we do get plenty of organic stuff.  We also grow some of our own (for frugality and humane farming).

Organic is totally a buzzword absent a specific certification, even with which it may or may not be healthier for you.  There is no guarantee that foods labeled "organic" have less pesticides or less harmful pesticides.  If you locally source your food and know exactly how it's been treated, then I agree that's probably your best bet.  But that isn't the case for the vast majority of "organic" product out there.

[wtjbatman]

My grandpa grew up surrounded by a farm, and he died of cancer years ago (as did four of his five siblings).  His type of cancer was linked to chemicals that were commonly used by farmers.  Organic isn't just a buzz word.  We don't only buy organic, but we do get plenty of organic stuff.  We also grow some of our own (for frugality and humane farming).

And now those chemicals (like DDT) have been banned. And any new chemicals/pesticides are tested and those that are found to be harmful are banned.

This isn't our grandpa's era anymore.

[smalllife]

I was at a friends house this past weekend and somehow the topic of grocery shopping came up.  My friend's wife told us about how she was talking about shopping at Aldi with her coworkers, and how they looked at her with disbelief, and bombarded her with things like "you mean you don't buy organic produce?" and "what about all the pesticides?"  When she calmly told them that she washes their fruits and veggies before eating them, they said "you'll change your mind once you have kids, you'll see."

Yep, I know several of these people.  They didn't know what to do with themselves, so they had a kid and now they listen and believe all of the boogey man stories on the news and are afraid of every dark corner.  They didn't have any thoughts worthwhile or opinions that mattered until they had the kid.  Now they know everything and if you aren't in their situation you can't possibly understand. 

[Leisured]

After the sixties book ‘Silent Spring’, scientists understood the great importance of designing pesticides and herbicides which do their job and then break down quickly, so there is less of a problem today than then. There are recommended withholding periods for fruit and veg, that is the grower should hold produce off the market for the recommended period. I live in rural Australia, and some time in the seventies, I was talking to an inspector from the Department of Agriculture, and he said that there was not enough to staff to test all produce for concentrations of pesticides at the market. He recommended peeling apples, pears and similar fruit. Bananas are always peeled.

Washing fruit and veg under cold water is similar to rain falling on the produce, and pesticides are meant to cling to produce long enough to do their job. I suggest washing produce either in slightly soapy water, then rinse, or under a trickle of boiling water, which will also kill bacteria.

[odput]

What's wrong with organic foods? I can't tolerate regular yogurt, but organic yogurt does nothing to my body but fill it up. Same with many foods. I don't think it is ridiculous to buy organic food. I do think it is ridiculous to buy it at a place like whole foods, where the mark up is crazy high.

I guess I wasn't clear that the organics were all bought at Whole Foods and the like...I don't mean to implicate organic fruits, moreso the condescending attitude that "regular" fruits and veggies are unacceptable and cannot be tolerated by a fragile young body, and that this would become obvious once having one running around

[GuitarStv]

My grandpa grew up surrounded by a farm, and he died of cancer years ago (as did four of his five siblings).  His type of cancer was linked to chemicals that were commonly used by farmers.  Organic isn't just a buzz word.  We don't only buy organic, but we do get plenty of organic stuff.  We also grow some of our own (for frugality and humane farming).

Organic is totally a buzzword absent a specific certification, even with which it may or may not be healthier for you.  There is no guarantee that foods labeled "organic" have less pesticides or less harmful pesticides.  If you locally source your food and know exactly how it's been treated, then I agree that's probably your best bet.  But that isn't the case for the vast majority of "organic" product out there.

My dad's a farmer.  He grows organic soy beans, and is certified by the Canadian government.  To become organic certified you need to fill out a form that tells the government what pesticides/farming practices you use (I think GMO stuff is also not permitted).  That's it.  What's supposed to happen next is that a government agency comes by every year to make a scheduled inspection . . . I think that theoretically there are supposed to be surprise inspections as well.  In four years though, my dad's farm has had zero scheduled inspections.  It's not hard to pass off pesticide laden foods as organic . . . and there's a big monetary incentive to do so.  There's virtually no proof required in the whole system.  No lab testing, no examination of crops, nothing.

Hell, even if you get real organic foods . . . the idea that non-organic foods are bad for you because of cancer causing pesticides isn't really accurate either.  The National Cancer Institute of Canada in 1997 reviewed all the studies and concluded that conventionally grown fruits and vegetables did not increase the risk of cancer.  Most studies that I've read show little to no difference between organically grown food and regular food as far as vitamin/nutrient content goes.  Maybe a bit of a case could be made for them if you're a pregnant woman (always good to be careful with kids), but by and large organic produce appears to be a bit of a scam, at least in Canada.

[Cromacster]

I only eat Vegan, GMO-free, grain free, paleo, grass-fed, free range food.

Oh, and I pocket mulch.

[mrsggrowsveg]

Aldi does sell some organic food now.  I prefer to buy organic food within reason.  However, grocery store organic food is hardly worth the extra costs.  The process organic convenience food still has little nutrition because it has been so processed.  The produce is expensive and shipped from far away so it is old and not better for the environment.  Local food that happens to be grown without pesticides is really good for you and the environment.  Local farmers (such as my husband and I) use farming techniques such as interplanting, rotational grazing and permaculture.  These processes rebuild soil and raise the nutrient content of the food.  Grocery store organic is often grown similar to conventional food and uses organic pesticides and herbicides.   

[kms]

This may apply specifically to Europe only but a few years ago there was a huge scandal regarding regular food from all over Europe being transported to Italy, relabled, shipped back, and sold as uber-expensive organic food at specialized organic grocery stores. I'm pretty sure that at least part of so-called organic food is no better than regular non-organic stuff - where there's money to make there's fraud.

[Alfred J Quack]

This may apply specifically to Europe only but a few years ago there was a huge scandal regarding regular food from all over Europe being transported to Italy, relabled, shipped back, and sold as uber-expensive organic food at specialized organic grocery stores. I'm pretty sure that at least part of so-called organic food is no better than regular non-organic stuff - where there's money to make there's fraud.

Haven't heard about this one but there was a local controversy a few months ago in the Netherlands where a subsidary of the biggest meat-production company was found to have relabeled regular meat as organic. A few weeks before that said company was in a documentary where they were nailed to the wall for the same issue which they (quite forcefully) denied as rumor-milling.
I've basically lost faith in the big companies when it comes to organic (I'll trust my own garden though) but other than the idea i'm not much of an organic buyer though :P

[Jamesqf]

Is that why we still have high rates of cancer today (as opposed to 2003, when he died)?

The question you should be asking is whether we actually do have high rates of cancer today.  You could even look further back in the past, to the days when all food was 'organic' by default.  It turns out that if you account for a few specific causes, such as smoking, it's not at all clear that they have increased.

You also have to take longer lifespans into account.  Cancer is more likely the older you are.  (Indeed, it's been said that everyone would eventually get cancer if they didn't die of something else first.)  So if you died of smallpox or cholera in your 20s, you had little risk of cancer.

Also note that there are plenty of perfectly natural, organic cancer-causing chemicals.  Plants are locked into a war of survival - if you're a plant, everybody wants to eat you - and evolution has developed chemical warfare to a high art.

For a simple example, consider that tobacco is a plant, and it would be perfectly possible to grow a organic, pesticide-free tobacco crop.  Do you think smoking (or chewing) that would nort cause cancer?