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Organic food is not just about you

Some cows… waiting for sheepSo I’m sitting in the kitchen watching TV and doing some work. On the TV is a documentary that follows the same rules as about one fifth of all documentaries on at this time of day… is A better than B? Is C a rip-off when compared to D - exploding the myths about ‘E’ - You’ll get fat as f**k if you eat ‘F’… you get the picture.

This particular show features a science person (or is that a person of science?) who is filling up her shopping basket with food stuffs only if advertising claims, or claims about their greatness can be scientifically quantified/proven. As you would expect most food products come back from the test with a ‘we don’t really know’ result. Which is fair enough, but what I have a problem with is the investigation into organic foods. It seems to have raised the same bullshit discussion that usually pisses me off.

Question: Is organic food any good?
Reasoning: can it be proven that organic food is better for you, more nutritious or tastier than non-organic foods?

I couldn’t care less. Organic food is no worse for you, it probably won’t taste significantly worse than non-organic food, I don’t buy organic food because I believe it will make me a super-human, I buy organic food (but not exclusively) because I think that intensive farming practice needs reigning in. Massive mistakes have been made in the past when the effects of pesticides have been misjudged not just on humans but on other animals and plants. I like the idea that people can move away from the idea that if something produces bigger, fatter juicier food - do it. Like grinding up sheep bits to feed cattle - BSE anyone? Organic production methods would not have allowed this - cows eat plants, not sheep (ha ha, imagine that though, a couple of cows standing casually at the edge of a sheep field - perhaps whistling and trying to blend in - before pouncing - udders swinging as chunks of fleece fly out of the chaos). Simple.

Organic produce is not solely concerned with taste and nutrition, it is concerned with better food production practices. It is not about engineering food to taste better and it is not just about your enjoyment of food.

It is probably also worth mentioning that I have just eaten a whole bar of Green & Blacks cherry chocolate (yum yum yum), and I am beginning to shake a bit.

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