It is undeniable that the world of organic food can be a very confusing place. Is organic food really that much better for you than conventional produce? Are you truly benefitting yourself and the ecological state of the earth if you are dutifully buying organic produce that has traveled across the world, burning up fossil fuels in order to get to your market? There is a bit of a moral conundrum when it comes to determining the nagging question of, is it better to eat a piece of fruit that is loaded with pesticides than it is to eat one that had to burn up gasoline, deplete the ozone layer and make quite the carbon footprint in order to get to your table? On the one hand this is a personal question - eating the conventional piece of fruit is worse for you as an individual while eating the organic-at-a-cost piece of fruit is bad for the rest of the earth. Yet, the growing awareness of the dangers of global warming and world pollution among other ecologically unsound lifestyle choices implies that the majority of people do care about how their actions impact the world, and with a nudge in the right direction they will run towards doing what all benefit the majority as well as themselves. So the question remains, to eat organic or not to eat organic?
The decision to buy organic can be a hard one to reach. After all, the product is more expensive and generally there are fewer places you can dash into to purchase your chosen foodstuff. So when you do make that decision to go organic, and you plunk down your hard-earned cash, you want to feel like you can truly enjoy that organic orange will a light conscious. Truthfully, to many people the question posed above may serve no moral dilemma whatsoever. Organic food is eaten to ensure that the body is receiving the most benefit that it can from the produce being consumed, without taking in any of the harmful pesticides that used to come standard with your fruit. However, the vast majority of those who eat organic not only for their own personal benefit but also for the benefit of the planet and their fellow human beings do struggle with the decision of where to make these sorts of necessary concessions.
Growing up in a household where coolers with Tupperware containers trumped paper bag lunches with Ziploc baggy-sealed sandwiches every time, there was never a question that the family would eat organic. However, this decision was made with regards to the ecological soundness of the world in which we lived rather than our respective health, although that was a pleasant side benefit. [Please get no misconceptions regarding a blind familial altruism. This was a household in which, in the mid-1990s, every pot and pan in the kitchen was discarded in favor of miserably heavy cast iron products in order to eliminate all the hazards that were being revealed as culprits of heating plastics and aluminum.] However, there was always the doubt hanging around the dinner of just how good for us or the earth that organic spinach was. The questions stem from the fact that there are many rules in the world of conventional and organic foods that are not enforced, so consumers have a hard time making any informed decision at all about organic foods versus conventional foods and just how good for you, never mind the earth, one is compared to the other.
For instance, as Mike Adams alerts in an article for NewsTarget.com on September 17, 2007 as posted on the Organic Consumers Association website, there is no enforcement of the rule that “foods are accurately labeled with their country of origin.” He does not continue to state, “Nor is there any requirement to disclose which foods were grown with pesticides, herbicides or other chemicals banned in the United States (and U.K.) but still legal in other places like central and South America.” When put thusly, the issue of organic versus conventional food seemingly an easy one: one must go organic in order to be healthy at an individual level at all, never mind the impact that eating conventional produce can have on the fate of the earth itself! These decisions can never be made in fear or in haste, however, because idealism is a mindset quite often smothered by reality. Indeed, the head of the household often warned that the best state of affairs would be if we grew our own produce in our own backyard. We would all nod dutifully as we spooned forkfuls of organic spinach into our mouths and silently stared at our cement back-yard.
For therein, within reality, lies the problem. It is my belief that people want to do what is best for the earth, for such steps will inevitably benefit the individual as well. However, the reality of life seldom allows such grand gestures to take place. There are cement backyard and there are no backyards. There are those who could buy organic produce to feed their family for one night or could buy pre-packed or McDonald’s dinners for the whole week. Even those who would lug organic home-made soups to the table in cast-iron pots occasionally had to concede to the purchase of conventional spinach bought on those hectic days where it was either that or going without greens for dinner at all. The fact is that even the strongest principles have to be tweaked with the curveballs that life throws at you. The sticking point is that you work at doing what you know is right most of the time.