Pros and Cons of Organic Greens

[pdrobber]

My torts don't necessarily get organic. Sometimes they do, other times not.

 

[fbsmith3]

In the back of our Grocery store are marked down fruits and vegetables. My wife buys the organic stuff there, since they are more expensive they don't sell as fast and tend to over-ripen faster than "non-organic".

Even though they look ugly, my wife buys it since she can prepare a meal and you would never know it was past "shelf life"

 

[Mao Senpai]

I just buy whatever is on sale. Chemicals are everywhere these days but to each their own. If I recall.... didn't someone a while back had all of their torts died from eating organic cucumber from trader joe? something about.... the trucks used ammonia to clean the trucks and its possible it got on the cucumber... even though it was safe for human consumption.

 

[ascott]

Tom, I believe that studies also show that farmers will rotate some of their crops from one field to another to aid in not harboring the same environment for particular pests to have time to "infest" a crop over and over again....therefore if you plant one type of crop it comes with its own type of pests, so a specific pesticide and other chemical warfare is used to combat that pest...then the farmer rotates out the crops to a different part of his field and uses the spray there and the crop that replaced the last growth is now something different and comes with its own pests--now another pesticide is used, etc....this is why I do not like pesticides and herbicides Tom, they are so damaging in so many ways and can touch so many different places than that where they were originally distributed.... and you can not wash that crap off...it is systemic in so many ways by the time the process is said and done....and this is not even considering so many fertilizers used.....

 

[Jacqui]

I just buy whatever is on sale. Chemicals are everywhere these days but to each their own. If I recall.... didn't someone a while back had all of their torts died from eating organic cucumber from trader joe? something about.... the trucks used ammonia to clean the trucks and its possible it got on the cucumber... even though it was safe for human consumption.

The one known certain fact is, trucks are not cleaned with ammonia, so that is not where it came from. The tortoises were never given a necropsy, so it was only a guess as to how and why they died.

 

[Madkins007]

Let's clarify a few things...

Most 'organic' stuff does not automatically meet any standards. There are few terms used that have specific, legal, enforced meanings behind them. Produce labeled as just 'organic' may be the nice, healthy, 'just yanked from clean soil', or stuff that has been trucked for hundreds of miles and subjected to a lot of processing- but using at least some organic compounds instead of synthetic chemicals.

'Certified organic' means the grower met specific standards, including the use of synthetic chemicals- however, there ARE synthetic chemicals which can still be used and get the label. Most of these are not a big deal, but there always seem to be a few that are considered controversial. Remember- certification is a government program, which means that big businesses often have a say in how it is set up. Also remember- many legitimate small-scale organic farmers cannot afford to have their places certified.

From a human health perspective, a big 2009 study found little, if any, benefit to human health from eating organic over non-organic. There are probably a lot of reasons for this, but then again, the chemical companies have argued for years that studies have shown the stuff to be reasonably safe.

MY OWN PERSONAL TAKE ON THIS is that 'non-organic' or 'organic' is not as important to healthy, nutritious food as AGE is. Much food goes through rather long processing phases, and is shipped great distances- all of which lets it loose nutrients and moisture. Buying FRESH and LOCAL may be far more important than just buying the label.

Sadly, even places like Whole Foods and local farmer's markets are not always able or willing to buy local. A lot of the stalls in the farmer's market are buying their stuff from the same wholesalers the grocery stores are. For example, we had a big hailstorm here that badly damaged a lot of local crops, especially the tomatoes, so no one had many nice, local tomatoes.



By the way, Tom, etc.- a lot of chemicals are used in the processing, not growing phases. Ammonia is routinely used to clean meat, for example, and chlorine/bleach for produce. They are even on the allowed list for organic growers!