Organic Foods

Noodles, what's your beef with organic coffee?

Personally, I find the idea of some of these companies "going organic" to be a bit of a laugh, because they are going organic with the same mindset they use for conventional products, so they're still loaded down with sugar (organic or not) and other stuff that may not be all that good for you. We always shake our head when we go to our organic market and see all of these pre-processed products which manage to take a good concept like organic, and then knock 50% of the benefit out by adding garbage to it, or processing the life out of it.

"We believe the time is now right to bring the thick and rich taste of Heinz to this fast-growing segment of consumers."

It reads like an Onion article!

Man, am I stupid or what?

BOO-Yah!! seems to fit into this post somehow.

"You've got a mean one, Mr. Grinch!" or "Hey, Cindy Lou Who, I've got a present for you!"

Seriously, and back on topic -- they've got a few organic markets here, plus a genuine farmer's market during the summer (New Jersey is "the Garden State," you know). Once you get over how the organic veggies look (and the hippie vibe from the organic markets), they taste great. Then again, my parents had a veggie garden when I was growing up and I'm used to the look and taste of homegrown stuff (esp. zucchini, prob. the easiest thing to grow in the world).

also, if these large companies encourage organic farming, I do think we'll all be better off in the long run.

Ethiopian Yirgacheffe
Guatemalan Huehuetenango
Colombian Bucaramanga
Sumatra Gayo Mountain

Blanket statements about all organic coffees sucking are rooted in ignorance -- sorry to be a jerk about it, but there's really no reason for organic coffee to be tasteless. I assume that the stuff you've tried has been poorly grown, poorly selected, poorly roasted, and/or poorly prepared. I hope you come across some of these coffees I listed done right -- you're really missing out!

Psychological marketing, methinks? It all looked so farmly and good I wanted to buy it even though it cost 3 times as much!

Grinch's cock haha

Where did Hanle y go?

we've been buying almost 100% organic food for a year now and holy shit it is expensive to do this.

Really a waste of money.

for some thing yes, for lots of things I don't think so.

We got an organic food delivery and it is pretty reasonable. it also means that we end up getting all kinds of strange things and expanding our cooking repertoire. Also I swear I sleep wayyy better since we started doing this, I used to suffer from terrible cripling insomnia and I sleep like a baby now. Count me in as pro-the organic "revolution".

I don't think it's a waste of money if you consider the wider impact of your food choices. If you and a few hundred other people are keeping an organic farmer in business each week, then I think that's a really positive thing to do from an environmental POV.

Also nice buy local, espec. when you live in CA and everything is so delic.

I'm right here wondering if organic raisins are worth the extra dollar. Then again a dollar isn't wort h m uch these days

Still not worth it.

I kind of hate the way the whole organic food thing is sort of like some kind of conspiracy or something - I mean for christ's sake, is it bad for you to eat the shit they spray on normal food and if so why is it legal? WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE!!

I don't really get too worked up about this stuff but I did find the following lists from the Environmental Working Group (http://www.ewg.org/) pretty interesting. Basically they recommend always buying organic versions of the 12 most contaminated and saving your money on the 12 least :

12 Most Contaminated

Peaches
Apples
Sweet Bell Peppers
Celery
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Pears
Grapes (Imported)
Spinach
Lettuce
Potatoes

12 Least Contaminated

Onions
Avocado
Sweet Corn (Frozen)
Pineapples
Mango
Asparagus
Sweet Peas (Frozen)
Kiwi Fruit
Bananas
Cabbage
Broccoli
Papaya

I have that list but I find the least contaminated also the least appealing - especially horrible KIWIS! though I like Pine-apples

kiwis are only tolerable if you leave the skin on

Just wash your foods, dudes.

The organic thing is often (though of course not always) a scam, because in the end it's just a certification that you have to pay for. Ergo, there are a lot of organic food producers who forego the stamp of approval to save money. Case in point, locally, is Intelligentsia, one of the top coffee roasters in the country. Their beans are not branded organic because they'd rather spend the (not inconsiderable) cash on the growers and product itself. But of course, as Intelligentsia points out, most boutique coffee is grown the way it's always been grown, for hundreds of years, which is to say, "organically."

Thought this revive might have been because of the ongoing E. coli situation in Europe (22 dead, major farming crisis in Spain after initial speculation by the German government that imported cucumbers were to blame). Now seems to be linked to organic bean sprouts from a German farm. Don't know how the bacteria would have entered the production - guess it's either faecal contamination of the water supply or someone with mucky fingers doing the packing?

"Pesticides can locate on the surface of foods as well as beneath the surface. The amounts that washing can remove depends on their location, the amount and temperature of the rinse water, and whether detergent is used. Most people rinse their fruits and vegetables with plain water before eating them. In fact, Consumer Reports on Health has recommended this [15].Consumer Reports stated that it did not do so because the FDA tests unwashed products. The amount of pesticide removed by simple rinsing has not been scientifically studied but is probably small. Consumer Reports missed a golden opportunity to assess this.

Do pesticides found in conventional foods pose a health threat? Does the difference in pesticide content warrant buying "organic" foods? Consumer Reports equivocates: "For consumers in general, the unsettling truth is that no one really knows what a lifetime of consuming the tiny quantities of foods might do to a person. The effect, if any, is likely to be small for most individuals—but may be significant for the population at large." But the editors also advise, "No one should avoid fruits and vegetables for fear of pesticides; the health benefits of these foods overwhelm any possible risk."

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/organic.html

the revive was due to my grocery bill being too high - i think actually sprouts are notorious for contamination

http://www.ehow.com/about_5345169_pregnancy-bean-sprouts.html

I imagine that the risk, as such, posed by food contaminated by pesticides is no greater than the risk posed by the contamination of everything: the air we breathe, the water we drink, the lead paint we eat ... oh, wait, scratch the last one. But seriously, we're eating and breathing countless artifacts that likely affect different people different ways, assuming they affect us at all. You can't prove that trace elements of pesticides pose no harm, so eventually you've got to give in or give up.

still, i dont wanna eat poison

Your loss!

I actively seek out good quality basic ingredients. I like to know where my food comes from. I care about locality and seasonality. I dislike industrial farming, especially of animals. Homogenisation of fruit/vegetable varieties saddens me.

All these concerns influence my shopping habits, but more often than not they don't lead me to buy organic. I will preferably buy organic meat, because organic certification entails better-than-free-range animal welfare standards and better-tasting meat. Otherwise it's trial and error as to whether I go for an organic product; for example, I've managed to convince myself that the organic carrots from the supermarket are better than the standard ones. If there's a choice between organic green beans imported from Kenya in the supermarket and local freshly-harvested non-organic beans from the market, I can't see any reason to pick the former.

Doubts are being cast on the organic beansprout story btw: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/06/e-coli-bean-sprouts-not-cause

not beansprouts... not spanish cucumbers.. PLEASE GOD WILL SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT VEGETABLE I NEED TO BE AFRAID OF

killer tomatoes iirc

Green onions.

If you buy organic produce because you think it will taste better, then you probably shouldn't bother. Ditto for buying it because you think it has more nutrients.

The reason I buy organic stuff is pretty simple. I do it because, when it's done correctly, organic practises require the farmer to improve his soil rather than either depleting it or dumping loads of petro-fertilizers and petro-pesticides on it. In the long run, this seems like the only way forward and the sooner we move that direction, the less disruption there will be to the food supply as oil runs out and aquifers are pumped dry.

As usual, the "organic" certification becomes more debased the more it is adopted by large agrabusiness and Fortune 500 food-processing companies. That's why I participate in a CSA-share program, run by some local idealist-farmers, who do it the right way, but who barely eke out a profit because the CSA model of business eliminates the middle man and allows them to sell direct and recoup some of the margin.

So, the extra outlay for organic is mostly going to earnest people who are working to develop alternatives to the corporate farm model. Since I can afford it, it seems a good idea to encourage this.

The reason I buy organic stuff is pretty simple. I do it because, when it's done correctly, organic practises require the farmer to improve his soil rather than either depleting it or dumping loads of petro-fertilizers and petro-pesticides on it. In the long run, this seems like the only way forward and the sooner we move that direction, the less disruption there will be to the food supply as oil runs out and aquifers are pumped dry.

^^^this

also yeah CSA's are the way to go

"Organic" is just another stamp on the package, and frankly I imagine the risk of food-bourn illness is equal whether the food is organic or industrial.

I'm 100% pro farmers market, which I prefer to crapshoot CSAs. You can still get sick - you can always get sick! - but you know where the food is coming from, and you know exactly where your money is going.

crapshoot CSAs

We've bought into about five different CSAs over the years. Two of them were great and the rest so-so. One of the great ones went under when their lease ran out on some land that ended up with a developer. The other great CSA we participate in now, and have stuck with it for 4 years. It's run by some old hands at it, real smart people who've dialed in their methods and consistently deliver the goods. We're lucky!

we're on our third - the second one we signed up with was our favorite but yeah it went under for similar reasons. one we have now is great, have been with it for 3+ years

what is CSA?

"community-supported agriculture". You pay a flat fee for a box of vegetables that come directly from a local farm.

i always do feel like a big jerk for pointing out that juice is just a fructose delivery system, because people seem to like it so much.

xp

haha i was agreeing with hurting but sure, yes ;)

i actually do agree w you

what is wrong with fructose? It has a low glycemic index

when I am eating raisins I often think "I hope the resveratrol is present and extending my life" - we do have the Singularity coming you know

it's still sugar
xp

i guess everything is tho

eventually

I guess you have not heard my "Arguement for SUgar"

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=BC786BCBA594A7FD!1480

Fructose does not have a low glycemic index, it has a low glycemic index for sugar, and glycemic index alone, like any other single factor, doesn't give you a full picture of whether a diet is healthy.

Anyway, if you like juice, drink it in moderation, is what I say. But don't go crazy trying to find the holy grail of juices, bc it's all juice.

a grail is something you drink juice FROM

I just drink Fresca. Screw all other liquids.

what abotu people who ONLY juice like Jay Kordich and live to be 100 in full stnrigh and can make ** three tires in one day

I dislike raisins, I will not make it to the singularity, banaka is somewhere ashamed

The singularity will make it to YOU

You will learn to love raisins - in time...

never consume anything with sugar

Too late.

Just bought a bunch of non-organic veggies to juice: kale, cucumber, celery, parsley because the local grocery does not carry organic produce.
Again, feel great one minute then like I could be poisoning myself the next.
After reading this feel like throwing it out:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/health/the-dirty-dozen-and-clean-15-of-produce/616/
Depressing.

My not completely scientific guess is that it's very unlikely that you are "poisoning" yourself eating washed non-organic produce. If there's any true negative health effect, it's probably the kind of thing that builds up over years of consumption. If that weren't true, we'd all already be poisoned. I mean I assume most of us grew up eating non-organic produce, since there wasn't really such a thing as organic when I was a kid.

Pretty much OTM.

i mean 80 years of eating pesticides? surely it builds up

only if it's bioavailable and goes into your system, and stored in fat or something

you poop them out, iirc

well for me I'd rather just eat cheese and onions and be on the safe side whrn it comes to blueberries

at some point you just have to live with the endless anxiety that comes with non-intimacy with the bulk of your food supply and be grateful that we have this thing down well enough that there are rarely mass outbreaks of death from foodborne illness

or the endless anxiety of intimacy with the world

Endless Anxiety Food Corp. vs Finite Anxiety Farm

organic latex bodysuits and pure vegetables for everyone

Buy Local: At Least You'll Know Your Food Didn't Live A Life Plagued By Anxiety

Actualyl I get emails from the FDA for food recalls and there is almost never any organic listed in there - its always they sprayed food. Thats what they are doing - shitting on yoru food. Id taht what you want? Food from an animal's condemnation - orifice!?

most of the food recalls are due to bacterial contamination which is due to either wild animals or bacteria from fertilizer, both of which could happen in organics!

You also have to adjust for the fact that organics are a small fraction of conventional, so naturally they'll be outnumbered on recall lists.

You cannot convince me. I know the humble organics granma in her velvet shirt is wathcing her fileds, carefully, keepsg all bastards away. She makes it yummy for me. AS opposedd to thegreat big spikey corporate yuckers and thei fecal machine belching out chips a hoy!

This is being passed around:
http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm

what is being said about it?

at some point you just have to live with the endless anxiety that comes with non-intimacy with the bulk of your food supply

― look at this quarterstaff (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 12 September 2012 16:09 (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if it grew in my garden, it probably means the cat has shat somewhere near it, AND SHE LICKS PLASTIC CARRIER BAGS.

The GM corn study has some issues - http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gm-corn-rat-study/

I have a problem with a lot of the anti-GM stuff, actually. It's not that I trust big food to have our best interests at heart, or that I don't think we should be cautious, I just think that the movement starts from an almost superstitious premise that there is something "unnatural" and therefore frankenstein-like about genetically modifying foods.

That's entirely it.

I don't think it's entirely superstitious when we're messing with nature in unprecedented ways to be a bit hesitant about ingesting the products of it. Maybe it's perfectly safe, but it's not entirely irrational to want to let someone else be the guinea pig.

All of agriculture is messing with nature. This is just cutting out the middle man. Eat up.

I just think that the movement starts from an almost superstitious premise that there is something "unnatural" and therefore frankenstein-like about genetically modifying foods.

there is nothing superstitious about distrusting a corporation as monstrous and historically irresponsible as Monsanto

the company that brought us PCBs and DDT

I stopped nieghborcat from shitting on th garden by spreading straw/branches - they hate that , don tlike pussyfooting on it

I guess my feeling about organic food in general is that while there is something arbitrary about where the lines are drawn between what can and can't be labeled organic, a blunt instrument is still better than nothing. Overall I think it's a win for consumers that there is a label that has some objective criteria behind it that they can use to inform their purchasing decisions. This is not to say that organic is always better than non-organic, or it's worth paying the premium for it. But I think that if you don't eat much meat and you don't buy a lot of processed foods, you can eat pretty affordably buying organics.

Sounds about right.

we spend probably $500/mo to feed a family of three, I think

We're more like $700. But you know, NYC.

figured I live in the most expensive city in the world food-wise but I could be wrong

well besides Hawai'i

switching to the farmers market has made a difference in my fruit/veg budget by at least 50% (drop, not increase), and I still buy mostly organic

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/15/the-great-organic-food-fraud

salute to a true grifter lol