Organic Shmorganic

(This is the first of many Guest Posts. If you have a topic you want to discuss here send me an email; if it meets my standard then I'll post it.)

Guest Poster: Boz Millar

Lately, I have become a little irritated with a newly developed fad. It's called organic food. First off, let me state that I don't believe that there is anything inherently wrong with organic foods, but I think people are extremely misinformed on what 'organic' really means, and what the 'benefits' of eating organic foods really are.

When talking to people, the general thought is that organic is good, chemicals are bad, organic means no chemicals, and chemicals means not organic. People also think that organic means natural, and that anything natural is good. They also think that genetically modified is unnatural, and therefore bad. One more argument I hear is that organic tastes better. None of these ideas is true.

To keep this short, I will only argue a few points. First of all, I would like to point out that just because something is natural, does not mean that it is better for the human body. In fact, there are many natural substances that have harmful effects like nicotine, THC, alcohol. These are not by any means organic, but they are quite natural. I mention these because I have seen places that use alcohol or tobacco as means to keep bugs away from their fruit.

For some reason, people have it in their mind that if something is made by someone in a white lab coat, it is bound to cause some sort of long term diseases. The truth is, most "man made" chemicals are easily found in nature. We make them in a lab so that we don't have to dig through a kitty litter box to find it.

Another problem I have is with people who think "genetically modified" means that the fruit was made by a glowing green stick by men who have no clue about the natural powers they are messing with. Isn't this where Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles come from? This is indeed great cause for alarm. Genetically modified fruits actually go through a very natural process to reach their current state. In fact, this process is called natural selection. Now that sounds healthy. We tend to eat the fruits that we like best, therefor we grow more fruits that we like. We eat even more fruits that have been mixed with good fruits to make a super good fruit. I will not argue the fact that often times the biggest strawberries taste the most like water, but I have tasted many large fruits that had plenty of flavor.

This brings me to my last topic, which is that organic foods do not taste better than non-organic foods. The reason that locally grown, organic, natural fruit tastes better is because it was more ripe when it was picked. Many food distributors will pick the fruit long before it is ripe, and let it ripen in the truck on its way across the country. You can prefer locally grown fruits, but all natural and organic have nothing to do with how the fruit tastes.

I could go on for many more pages on misconceptions about organic foods, but I've gone too long already. Anyways, the reason why the organic food kick bothers me is because organic food cost three times the price of non-organic food. Because farmers make so much more money off organic food, they are all making organic food, meaning that those of us that don't care that our fertilizer is white instead of brown no longer have the option to buy food for what it should cost. Maybe I should just cash in on the scam myself, and next time I eat too much Mexican food, maybe I should save my output in a box, slap a big O on it and sell it for three times what it's worth. It's natural. It's organic. So it must be healthy right? Right?