Do you buy organic food

MacDoc · Jun 10th, 2006, 07:47 AM

Noticed the space for organic food is growing and places like Whole Foods in Oakville are occupying supermarket retail space and locations.
Clearly it's big business now.
Wondered how Mac users are participating.
This seems a good trend for some of the family farms as organic requires close attention and so far command higher prices.

I buy some things more on a Fair Trade basis ( coffee for one ) and Omega 3 eggs which also are organic but not so much on the organic produce unless price and produce quality are similar.

So, thoughts, tips, where to buy??

Is this a good thing for the farm community or just one more expense to be undertaken.

adagio · Jun 10th, 2006, 08:02 AM

I'd love to buy true organic food. I live very near an all organic store and have gone in a few times to buy things. The problem I have is, what is "organic"? If I'm going to pay double the price for something then I'd like to know if the product is genuine. What proof do I have?

I asked the owner of the store this question. How did he know for certain that both he and I weren't being ripped off. The problem is, we don't know and I suspect there may be some hanky panky going on as "organic" becomes more trendy.

MacDoc · Jun 10th, 2006, 08:06 AM

Yeah I agree - it's tough to know and standards are still emerging.

Perhaps list you fav store and location so others in the area might drop in.

Do you actually perceive differences??/ ie taste etc or is it more a long term insurance policy.

JumboJones · Jun 10th, 2006, 08:11 AM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by MacDoc
	I buy some things more on a Fair Trade basis ( coffee for one )

You may want to watch out for this one, in order to become "Fair Trade" certified coffee farm owners need to pay to be a part of it. Being that most coffee farms are in third world countrys and they are continuously paying to be "certified" I don't think there is any gaurantee that the workers on these farms are getting paid anymore than any other farm. But at least you can sleep at night.

It is best to look for coffees that reinvest into the farms in which they buy from. This way at least you know that the coffee company is committed to quality and keeping future harvests at the same level. Unlike Tim Hortons where they concentrait on quantity and not quality.

MACSPECTRUM · Jun 10th, 2006, 08:25 AM

my first sample of organic foods were bananas

the organic version didn't taste like wood, much more banana flavour and held their ripe much longer
cost about $0.20 more per pound, but I'm only buying for one person so it doesn't add up to much

the big problem, as mentioned earlier, is to know what the definition of organic is at your local grocer

Beej · Jun 10th, 2006, 08:41 AM

I go with synthetic foods. Soylent Green is my favourite.

It doesn't make much difference to me. I only cook a handful of meals at home in a given week, and usually as a last minute thing, thus making buying groceries ahead of time risky. I would consider 'organic' beef, but the label would have to mean something more than 'local farm', I'd want a standard of feed and treatment before paying a huge price premium. Of course, getting around by walking, it would also have to be convenient.

For cheeses, except for my standby cheddar, I try to avoid QC products. That's not a quality thing (although a lot of it is very bland), it's about the abusive market control.

Does anybody know of trustworthy label standards for beef and sausages?

MacDoc · Jun 10th, 2006, 08:49 AM

I buy the Kicking Horse Frair Trade brand....a Canadian operation.
http://kickinghorsecoffee.com/index....ion=fair_trade

So I have a choice either deal with a major - where I KNOW it's dog eat dog trading practices.
Or deal with a small Canadian company that
a) might have it right
b) at least I'm keeping some Canadians employed.

I've tended to avoid organic apples as I find they are not crisp enough. Blemishes don;t bother me but proper storage does.

Banana's I'd have a hard time justifying it - anything with a strong removable skins seems a bit odd to worry about beyond the farming practices.

What I'd really like to see are foods identified from sustainable farms but that's a ways off.

Until the middlemen get cut downon their profits and farmers get a fair slice it's hard to see massive change beyond vote with $$ - but that just benefits the food distribution oligarchy.

With transport costs high I fear it's going to be toughter for farmers to work around the large scale operations in the middle.

Paris is surrounded by wheat fields specifically for bread flour and strongly protected

.

We on the other hand park the QEW in some of the best farmland in the world. sigh

MaxPower · Jun 10th, 2006, 08:51 AM

I'll buy Organic if given the choice.

Milk for example, I always buy Organic because I don't want to put all of the hormones into my body.

There are some things however that simply cannot be Organic. Honey is one of those things.

Organic is a better, healthier choice. And it has to be certified Organic.

MacDoc · Jun 10th, 2006, 08:57 AM

Beej Schnieders certainly works at the quality and you are supporting a local Canadian concern.

http://www.schneiders.ca/

I see they've merged with Maple Leaf so again you are supporting local employment in many small centres.

	Quote:
	The company produces more than 1,000 products such as ham, sausage, wieners, bacon, luncheon meats, specialty meats, and grocery products for sale through retail stores, delicatessens and foodservice establishments. The company has operations in Kitchener, Ayr, Hanover, St. Marys, Guelph, Mississauga, Toronto and Port Perry, Ontario; Winnipeg, Manitoba; Surrey, British Columbia; and St-Anselme, Quebec.

With homegrown sources at least there is some leverage on standards and moves to sustainable and organic practices.

I buy their Octoberfest regularly to assauge my Germanic background. Saurkraut, Octoberfest and a bunch of red potatoes. Yum

••

MaxP - care to elucidate "hormones" IN the milk in Canada???

I buy Omega 3 milk BTW

iMatt · Jun 10th, 2006, 09:18 AM

I put priority on buying from small, local producers before buying organic; I find them at my local public market). Often it amounts to the same thing or better, even if there's no certification. Can't wait for that chemical-pesticide-free corn to show up, assuming we get some sunshine...

Very interesting reading on the implications of mass-produced organic that has to travel long distances. If it takes all kinds of fuel to get organic goods to your table, how much better is it, in the grand scheme of things?

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/con...15crat_atlarge

	Quote:
	Yet the net benefit of all this to the planet is hard to assess. Michael Pollan, who thinks that we ought to take both a wider and a deeper view of the social, economic, and physical chains that deliver food to fork, cites a Cornell scientist’s estimate that growing, processing, and shipping one calorie’s worth of arugula to the East Coast costs fifty-seven calories of fossil fuel. The growing of the arugula is indeed organic, but almost everything else is late-capitalist business as usual. Earthbound’s compost is trucked in; the salad-green farms are models of West Coast monoculture, laser-levelled fields facilitating awesomely efficient mechanical harvesting; and the whole supply chain from California to Manhattan is only four per cent less gluttonous a consumer of fossil fuel than that of a conventionally grown head of iceberg lettuce—though Earthbound plants trees to offset some of its carbon footprint. “Organic,” then, isn’t necessarily “local,” and neither “organic” nor “local” is necessarily “sustainable.”