Organic Food
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Organic Food is food that is, ostensibly, grown without manmade aids such as synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or fungicides, and processed with no synthetic additives, colouring or flavouring.
Actual legal definition of the word varies wildly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In fact, it may be safer to think of it as a marketing term, than a legal term.
Organic food is more expensive, owing to health, taste and nutritional benefit claims that are made in the sale of it.
All-natural does not mean organic.
Organic Claims and Counterclaims
Organic is not a certification of quality: an non-certified organic pâté, for instance, produced with traditional methods, may be higher in cuisine quality than a certified one.
Note as well that not all organic food is necessarily good for you: an ice cream can be all organic, but that doesn't mean you should eat a whole tub of it, with organic cookies on the side, all in one sitting.
While there may be scientific backing for claims that the production of organic food is better for the environment, that is not the same as evidence that that particular carrot is more nutritious for your body. Wary of getting caught of making nutritional claims that might end up not being true, and consequently inviting friendly queries from government Food and Drug departments, some companies are instead marketing the "absence" of things, like hormones, pesticides, chemicals, etc.
"No conclusive evidence shows that organic food is more nutritious than is conventionally grown food. Most experts agree that the amount of pesticides found on fruits and vegetables poses a very small health risk." [1]
Both sides -- organic backers and "regular" food backers -- keep cherry picking what science is currently available. Some organic proponents get frustrated that, when it comes to pesticides, governments seem to say that the risk is so minimal it's not worth thinking about -- but then if one person gets slightly sick, possibly from eating raw-milk cheese, the health authorities will say any risk is unacceptable, and destroy 9 million tonnes of good cheese and bankrupt the producer in court.
Some consumers just won't trust that food grown with pesticides are safe to eat, no matter how much they are assured otherwise. "The American Cancer Society says there is “no evidence that residues of pesticides and herbicides at the low doses found in foods increase the risk of cancer." [2]
If someone who is a scientific expert in pesticide use says they are safe, then the organic side won't trust him or her, thinking the views influenced and financed by the pesticide industry. On the other side of the coin, anti-pesticide reports from the organic side are often written by scientists or nutritionists already converted to the cause, and can be seen as just as biased.
"On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs." [3] That particular review was funded by the UK Food Standards Agency , but the authors assert that "the funding organization had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing of the report." The study, though, "did not include a review of the content of contaminants or chemical residues." [4]
In fact, there have been reports that in focussing on what pesticides might kill people 70 years from now, some producers are overlooking what might kill people tomorrow: "Overall, chickens labeled as organic or raised without antibiotics and costing $3 to $5 per pound were more likely to harbor salmonella than were conventionally produced broilers that cost more like $1 per pound." [5]
Can you trust organic to be organic?
A former Canadian organic food inspector, Michael Popoff, says that in Canada, the organic certification system is essentially a "self-regulating, honour-based audit trail" owing to lack of standards at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and in the Canada Agricultural Products Act. There is no testing to ensure honesty or inadvertent omissions. There are no inspectors to monitor the production, let alone any surprise inspections to verify the "organic-ness" of the food being shipped at the end of the day.
Popoff estimated that, aside from the producers whose products ended up not being organic without their knowledge owing to other factors, 10 to 15% of other producers were knowingly falsely stating their products are organic. "I don't buy organic. I buy a lot of local produce from farmers that I know. Certified organic is completely meaningless. I don't just come at this because I was an inspector and I was on the inside and saw a few things that bothered me. That just opened my eyes to it. What I see now is an honour-based system and there's no honour among thieves." [6]
Organic in various countries
The Soil Association is the largest certifier of organic food in the UK. In 2006, 0.5% of the UK's 4.6m hectares of arable and horticultural farmland was being farmed organically. [7] By 2010, that percentage had rise to 4.3 %. By 2011, however, that had fallen to 4.2%, or 738,709 hectares. The number of producers also fell, from 7,896 to 7,567.
At the same time, though, estimated sales in the organic market in the UK fell from £2.1 billion pounds in 2008 to £1.84 billion in 2009, a 13% drop in value. In 2010, overall sales fell again, 5.9 per cent, from £1.84 billion to £1.73 billion.
In 2008, the American organic market was worth $23 billion US. Since 2002, organic certifiers in America have to be accredited by the National Organic Program, and meet its standards. In 2009, owing to reports of certification issues, the USDA said it was going to start auditing the National Organic Program.
In 2009, Canada and the US reached an organic equivalency agreement that anything certified organic in one country, is certified in the other. The agreement went into effect in June 2009. [8]
More than 80% of organic products consumed in Canada are imported from the U.S.
Organic certification in Japan is much stricter. Certification there looks not only at how long you have not used chemicals, but also at whether neighbouring farms do, and if they don't, have long have your neighbours been chemical free. See the entry on Yuuki.
Organic farming and productivity
Organic farming is less productive than "modern" farming. If all farming in the world went organic, British scientist John Emsley estimates that we'd need to starve 2 billion people to death. Earl Butz, American Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 to 1976, reputedly said something along the lines of "Show me the first 10,000 Americans who are prepared to starve to death and then I'll do something." (the quote varies.)
Some environmentalists are concerned that organic farming productivity levels require more land under cultivation, which puts pressure on wildlife habitat areas such as forests, grasslands and rain forests for animals and plants.
Organic food and social class
Some people feel that advocacy for organic food, owing to its elevated prices, smacks of just another of the many ways throughout history that food has been used to mark class boundaries. Certainly, sometimes organic food advocates seem to equate one's ability to pay the higher prices with morality: "What makes the snobbery of the organic movement more insidious is that it equates privilege not only with good taste, but also with good ethics." [9] Without meaning to, organic advocates can make being poor immoral.
Organic foodies, though, are not necessarily foodies in the old, Julia Child sense of the word. The organic movement can be seen as more of a political and health movement than a foodie movement: “We see ourselves first and foremost as healers." [10] In this, they can be seen as part of the American way of approaching food as a social, political and religious topic that was begun by Sylvester Graham (1794–1851.)
Some people say that they're happy to pay extra for organic food because it has superior taste which they enjoy, and because they care about the superior nutritional value for their children. However, a study released in early 2011 by the British consumer association, "Which?", found that regular broccoli had slightly higher levels of antioxidants compared to the organic sampled, regular potatoes had more vitamin C than the organic, and that regular tomatoes were sweeter, more flavourful and juicier. The taste tests were conducted by 194 professional food analysts, who were not told the object of the tests. "Which?" cautioned that the superiority found in regular vegetables could not necessarily be attributed to them just being "non-organic"; but that it might have been something about the manner in which the regular were grown that had produced the better produce.
History Notes for Organic Food
The Organic movement got its name in 1942, with the start of the "Organic Gardening Magazine" published by Jerome Irving Rodale (1898 – 1971.)
Literature & Lore
Acknowledgements
[2] Ibid.
[3] Alan D Dangour, Sakhi K Dodhia, Arabella Hayter, Elizabeth Allen, Karen Lock and Ricardo Uauy. Nutritional quality of organic foods: a systematic review. American Society for Clinical Nutrition. 2009. (Am J Clin Nutr (July 29, 2009). doi:10.3945/ajcn.2009.28041.)
[4] Organic food not nutritionally better than conventionally produced food. London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Press Release. 29 July 2009. Retrieved September 2010 from http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/news/2009/organicfood.html.
[5] Consumer Reports. Dirty birds: Even ‘premium’ chickens harbor dangerous bacteria. Yonkers, New York State, USA. January 2007.
[6] Boodhan, Veronica. How organic is organic food? Toronto, Canada: National Post. 4 February 2009.
[7] Hickman, Leo. Is organic worth it? Manchester: The Guardian. 31 March 2006.
[8] Bentley, Ashley. Organic agreement between Canada and U.S. signed. Lenexa, Kansas: The Packer Magazine. 17 June 2009.
[9] Powell, Julie. Let them eat canned tomatoes. Paris, France: International Herald Tribune. 23 July 2005.
[10] Tim Young. Nature's Harmony Farm website. Georgia, USA. Retrieved September 2010 from http://www.naturesharmonyfarm.com/our-farm-values/
11] Wallop, Henry. Organic food less tasty than normal, watchdog says: Organic vegetables are less tasty and contain fewer nutrients than normally-grown produce, according to a leading consumer watchdog. London: Daily Telegraph. 23 Feb 2011.
Gulli, Cathy. The truth about organic food. Toronto, Canada: MacLean's Magazine. 10 September 2007. Page 82.
Hickman, Leo. Is organic worth it? Manchester: The Guardian. 31 March 2006.
McGee, Harold. Organic, and Tastier: The Rat’s Nose Knows. New York Times. 3 October 2007.
Meikle, James. Research 'could calm organic row'. Manchester: The Guardian. 7 August 2001.
Meikle, James. Organic foods 'not more nutritious'. Manchester: The Guardian. 25 August 2000.
Powell, Julie. Let them eat canned tomatoes. Paris, France: International Herald Tribune. 23 July 2005
Ruiz, Rebecca. In Depth: Organic Food, Behind The Hype. Forbes Magazine. 20 August 2009.
Sales of organic foods drops for two years in a row as recession-hit shoppers go for cheaper products. London: Daily Mail. 4 April 2011.
Smithers, Rebecca. Sales of organic products in UK fall by 5.9%. Manchester: The Guardian. 4 April 2011.
Webster, Ben. Organic farming not better for all birds and the bees, say researchers. London: The Times. 5 May 2010.
Walston, Oliver. Organic farming just doesn't earn its corn. London: The Telegraph. 9 June 2010.
Wente, Margaret. Organic tastes good, but better for us? No. Toronto, Canada: The Globe and Mail. 20 July 2009.
