A few weeks ago, Jackie Avner from the Denver Post wrote an editorial about her reasons for buying regular goods verses organic goods. Take a minute and read her thoughts and comments on the booming organic market.
I don’t like to buy organic food products, and avoid them at all cost. It is a principled decision reached through careful consideration of effects of organic production practices on animal welfare and the environment. I buy regular food, rather than organic, for the benefit of my family.
I care deeply about food being plentiful, affordable and safe. I grew up on a dairy farm, where my chores included caring for the calves and scrubbing the milking facilities. As a teenager, I was active in Future Farmers of America, and after college I took a job in Washington, D.C., on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee staff.
But America no longer has an agrarian economy, and now it is rare for people to have firsthand experience with agricultural production and regulation. This makes the general public highly susceptible to rumors and myths about food, and vulnerable to misleading marketing tactics designed not to improve the safety of the food supply, but to increase retail profits. Companies marketing organic products, and your local grocery chain, want you to think organic food is safer and healthier, because their profit margins are vastly higher on organic foods.
The USDA Organic label does not mean that there is any difference between organic and regular food products. Organic farms simply employ different methods of food production. For example, organic dairy farms are not permitted to administer antibiotics to their sick or injured cows, and do not give them milk-stimulating hormone supplements (also known as rbGH or rBST). The end product is exactly the same – all milk, regular and organic, is completely antibiotic-free, and all milk, regular and organic, has the same trace amounts of rbGH (since rbGH is a protein naturally present in all cows, including organic herds). Try as they may, proponents of organic foods have not been able to produce evidence that the food produced by conventional farms is anything but safe.
Do organic production practices benefit animals? Dr. Chuck Guard, professor of veterinary medicine at Cornell University, told me that it pains him that many technological advancements in animal medicine are prohibited for use on organic farms. He described how organic farms don’t use drugs to control parasites, worms, infections and illness in their herds. “Drugs take away pain and suffering,” he said. “Proponents of organic food production have thrown away these medical tools, and the result is unnecessary pain and suffering for the animals.”
In order for milk and meat to qualify as USDA Organic, the animals must never be given antibiotics when they are sick or injured. On organic farms, animals with treatable illnesses such as infections and pneumonia are left to suffer, or given ineffective homeopathic treatments, in the hope that they will eventually get better on their own. If recovery without medication seems unlikely, a dairy cow with a simple respiratory infection will be slaughtered for its meat, or sold to a traditional farm where she can get the medicine she needs. I don’t buy organic milk because this system is cruel to animals, and I know that every load of regular milk is tested for antibiotics to ensure that it is antibiotic-free.
Organic milk certainly is not fresher than regular milk. Regular milk is pasteurized and has a shelf life of about 20 days. Organic milk is ultrapasteurized, a process that is more forgiving of poor quality milk, and that increases the shelf life of milk to about 90 days. Some of the Horizon organic milk boxes I’ve seen at Costco have expiration dates in 2008! There is a powerful incentive for retailers to put the ultrapasteurized organic milk on the shelf just before the expiration date, so consumers will think the organic milk is as fresh as the regular milk. After all, consumers are paying twice as much for the organic product.
Do organic production practices benefit the environment? In many cases, they do the opposite. Recently, Starbucks proudly informed their customers that they would no longer be buying milk from farms that use rbGH, the supplemental hormone administered to cows to increase milk production (even though the extra hormones stay in the cow, and the resulting milk is the same). The problem with this policy is that Starbucks will now be buying milk from farms that are far less efficient at making milk. Without the use of the latest technology for making milk, many more cows must be milked to produce the same number of café lattes for Starbucks’ customers. More cows being milked means more cows to feed, and therefore more land must be cultivated with fossil-fuel-burning tractors. More cows means many more tons of manure produced, and more methane, a greenhouse gas, released into the atmosphere.
I see Starbucks’ policy as environmentally irresponsible. When a farmer gives a cow a shot of rbGH, the only environmental cost is the disposal of the small plastic container it came in. But the environmental benefits of using this technology are enormous.
Attention all shoppers: Safeway is adopting the same misdirected policy as Starbucks, judging from the prominent labeling of milk at my local Safeway store: “Milk from cows not treated with rBST.” When I’m feeling particularly green, I drive past Safeway and shop at another grocery store in protest.
Consumers assume that organic crops are environmentally friendly. However, organic production methods are far less efficient than the modern methods used by conventional farmers, so organic farmers must consume more natural and man-made resources (such as land and fuel) to produce their crops.
Cornell Professor Guard told me about neighboring wheat farms he observed during a visit to Alberta, Canada: one organic and one conventional. The organic farm consumes six times as much diesel fuel per bushel of wheat produced.
Socially conscious consumers have a right to know that “organic” doesn’t mean what it did 20 years ago. According to the Oct. 16, 2006, cover story in Business Week, when you eat Stonyfield Farms yogurt, you are often consuming dried organic milk flown all the way from New Zealand and reconstituted here in the U.S. The apple puree used to sweeten the yogurt sometimes comes from Turkey, and the strawberries from China. Importation of organic products raises troubling questions about food safety, labor standards, and the fossil fuels burned in the transportation of these foods.
Does buying organic really benefit your family? Remember, there is no real difference in the food itself. At my local Safeway store, organic milk is 85 percent more expensive, eggs 138 percent higher, yogurt 50 percent, chicken thighs 80 percent, and broccoli 20 percent. If the only organic product you buy for your family is milk, then you are spending an extra $200 on milk each year. If you buy 5-10 other organic products each week, such as fruits, vegetables, eggs, yogurt and meat, then you could easily approach $1,000 in extra food costs per year. Families would receive a more direct health benefit from spending that money on a gym membership, a treadmill, or new bikes.
When I share this information with friends who buy organic, I get one of two responses: they either stop buying it, or they continue to buy organic based on a strong gut feeling that food grown without the assistance of man- made technology has to be healthier.
I don’t push it, but I wonder: Why do people apply that logic to agricultural products, but not to every other product we use in our daily lives? There are either no chemicals, or the minutest trace of chemicals in some of our foods. But other everyday products are full of chemical ingredients. Read the label on your artificial sweetener, antiperspirant, sun lotion, toothpaste, household cleaning products, soda, shampoo, and disposable diapers, for example. The medicines we administer to our children when they are sick are man-made substances. Chemicals aren’t just used to make these products; they are still in these products in significant amounts. It just doesn’t make sense to focus fear of technology on milk and fresh produce.
I say, bypass the expensive organic products in the grocery store. Buy the regular milk, meat and fresh produce. It is the right choice for the family, animal welfare and the environment.
9 Comments on “Editorial Addresses Buying Organic”
Having attended a wonderful seminar last weekend with Joel Salatin on his eco-friendly farm……..and going to organic farms where I buy produce and eggs and meat……I find this article unbalanced.
The animals are cared for in a wonderful manner, they live a healthy happy life and when you taste the difference of an animal that eats grass from non-chemically treated land you can taste the difference and know that this is a healthier choice for you and your family. Maybe the profit margin for your grocer is higher, so go to your local farm and try to support them. It is a win-win solution.
Having attended a wonderful seminar last weekend with Joel Salatin on his eco-friendly farm……..and going to organic farms where I buy produce and eggs and meat……I find this article unbalanced.
The animals are cared for in a wonderful manner, they live a healthy happy life and when you taste the difference of an animal that eats grass from non-chemically treated land you can taste the difference and know that this is a healthier choice for you and your family. Maybe the profit margin for your grocer is higher, so go to your local farm and try to support them. It is a win-win solution.
Having attended a wonderful seminar last weekend with Joel Salatin on his eco-friendly farm……..and going to organic farms where I buy produce and eggs and meat……I find this article unbalanced.
The animals are cared for in a wonderful manner, they live a healthy happy life and when you taste the difference of an animal that eats grass from non-chemically treated land you can taste the difference and know that this is a healthier choice for you and your family. Maybe the profit margin for your grocer is higher, so go to your local farm and try to support them. It is a win-win solution.
People only need to taste for themselves. I’ve had locally grown organic meat and produce. You can keep your agribusiness imitations.
rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) is not found in untreated cows. It is produced by genetically modified bacteria and injected into cows to increase milk production. How exactly is it supposed to get into the milk of untreated cows? Whether or not one can tell the difference between BGH and rBGH is another question. Is the author amazingly ill informed or trying to deliberately mislead? Either way that’s enough propoganda for me.
Speaking of rBGH, I suppose I should be touched that Monsanto and friends want to protect me from dairies that don’t use it. Reminds me of the Monsanto settlements, complete with nondisclosure clauses, with farmers whose fields have been contaminated with Monsanto gmo canola.
People have a right to know what is in their food and how it was produced. We also have a right to demand “no rBGH” milk. Every dairy is of course free to use rBGH, just tell me you’re using it so I can choose not to buy it. If you’re ashamed of rBGH maybe you shouldn’t be using it?
People only need to taste for themselves. I’ve had locally grown organic meat and produce. You can keep your agribusiness imitations.
rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) is not found in untreated cows. It is produced by genetically modified bacteria and injected into cows to increase milk production. How exactly is it supposed to get into the milk of untreated cows? Whether or not one can tell the difference between BGH and rBGH is another question. Is the author amazingly ill informed or trying to deliberately mislead? Either way that’s enough propoganda for me.
Speaking of rBGH, I suppose I should be touched that Monsanto and friends want to protect me from dairies that don’t use it. Reminds me of the Monsanto settlements, complete with nondisclosure clauses, with farmers whose fields have been contaminated with Monsanto gmo canola.
People have a right to know what is in their food and how it was produced. We also have a right to demand “no rBGH” milk. Every dairy is of course free to use rBGH, just tell me you’re using it so I can choose not to buy it. If you’re ashamed of rBGH maybe you shouldn’t be using it?
People only need to taste for themselves. I’ve had locally grown organic meat and produce. You can keep your agribusiness imitations.
rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) is not found in untreated cows. It is produced by genetically modified bacteria and injected into cows to increase milk production. How exactly is it supposed to get into the milk of untreated cows? Whether or not one can tell the difference between BGH and rBGH is another question. Is the author amazingly ill informed or trying to deliberately mislead? Either way that’s enough propoganda for me.
Speaking of rBGH, I suppose I should be touched that Monsanto and friends want to protect me from dairies that don’t use it. Reminds me of the Monsanto settlements, complete with nondisclosure clauses, with farmers whose fields have been contaminated with Monsanto gmo canola.
People have a right to know what is in their food and how it was produced. We also have a right to demand “no rBGH” milk. Every dairy is of course free to use rBGH, just tell me you’re using it so I can choose not to buy it. If you’re ashamed of rBGH maybe you shouldn’t be using it?
I know I have found this article late but here is my opinion for what it is worth. I personally think organic food tastes better. That aside, everyone has a bias. In the UK the food standards agency says that organic food is neither safer or nutritionally better than conventionally produced food but then you hear that the UK gov has spent millions and millions on research on genetically modified food – now a cynic could say that the fsa was a puppet to gov and high powered finacially rich food producing giants.
I cannot speak for the welfare of animals living on organic farms but organic food doesn’t contain any residue of pesticides etc etc. The powers that be say they are happy with the levels of residue chemicals in conventional food but why give your body any more foreign chemicals than it has to be exposed to. Personally don’t eat convenience food, artifiial sweeteners etc. As for shampoos, I don’t drink them!
We cannot avoid chemicals in our lives but we can minimize them and so if I can afford the prices, i will continue eating organic products.
I know I have found this article late but here is my opinion for what it is worth. I personally think organic food tastes better. That aside, everyone has a bias. In the UK the food standards agency says that organic food is neither safer or nutritionally better than conventionally produced food but then you hear that the UK gov has spent millions and millions on research on genetically modified food – now a cynic could say that the fsa was a puppet to gov and high powered finacially rich food producing giants.
I cannot speak for the welfare of animals living on organic farms but organic food doesn’t contain any residue of pesticides etc etc. The powers that be say they are happy with the levels of residue chemicals in conventional food but why give your body any more foreign chemicals than it has to be exposed to. Personally don’t eat convenience food, artifiial sweeteners etc. As for shampoos, I don’t drink them!
We cannot avoid chemicals in our lives but we can minimize them and so if I can afford the prices, i will continue eating organic products.
I know I have found this article late but here is my opinion for what it is worth. I personally think organic food tastes better. That aside, everyone has a bias. In the UK the food standards agency says that organic food is neither safer or nutritionally better than conventionally produced food but then you hear that the UK gov has spent millions and millions on research on genetically modified food – now a cynic could say that the fsa was a puppet to gov and high powered finacially rich food producing giants.
I cannot speak for the welfare of animals living on organic farms but organic food doesn’t contain any residue of pesticides etc etc. The powers that be say they are happy with the levels of residue chemicals in conventional food but why give your body any more foreign chemicals than it has to be exposed to. Personally don’t eat convenience food, artifiial sweeteners etc. As for shampoos, I don’t drink them!
We cannot avoid chemicals in our lives but we can minimize them and so if I can afford the prices, i will continue eating organic products.