The truly annoying part is that these sorts of statistics aren't hidden away. They're not covered up by some evil corporation. They're not shady or recorded by some party that's obviously just itching for an excuse to attack organic foods. You can get online and find this stuff out as easy as you could find statistics on baseball players.

Yet the people who push organic foods will probably never even see it because they're not looking. It's almost as annoying as the people whose argument against genetically modified foods revolves around random statements like it'll turn you green and your hair will fall out.

What I love about these exposés on organics is that the people who drive demand for organic food are often the loudest voices when it comes to environmentalism. I seriously think it comes from thinking pesticides = evil, mechanization = evil, etc. and just following that to the point of insanity. It's all too easy to start with a poor generalization and follow it to a bad conclusion if you're not willing to keep an open mind.

What was about Using SUV's? I mean, those are bad.

Because environmentalists universally loathe SUVs, I like to use them as an analogy when talking about recycling or organics. This is because often when you point out that much (though not all) recycling actually uses more resources than it saves, the common response is something along the lines of, "But we should do it anyway because [it makes us more environmentally aware] | [someday the recycling will be more efficient] even though it may be harmful to the environment right now."

Which boils down to "We should do it because we want to and it makes us feel better, consequences be damned." Which is exactly morally equivalent to why someone drives an SUV.

So if you hate an SUV driver, you shouldn't act like one.


though there is truth in identifying organic as a lifestyle choice, labeling it as evil is as counter productive as buying into the lifestyle

This may be true. I choose to label it as evil for a specific purpose: When I do so, it so shocks people who believe in organics that they rush in to rebut it, and in the process they are exposed to some information they probably weren't previously aware of. They won't change their mind at that point, but I may have planted a seed in a way I wouldn't have if I'd posted something wishy-washy.

And I choose to label it so because I honestly believe that if left unchecked, the expansion of the organic movement could kill more people on the planet than any previous disease or war. This is because if all arable land were turned over to organic farming (as many people into organics would no doubt like to see), so many people on the planet would starve it would be inconceivable.

Fortunately I don't believe we'll ever get that far, because market economics (and perhaps human decency) would put a stop to it long before then. At least I hope so.

I was actually reading an article in Reader's Digest the other day which stated that organic food has no known health benefits over non-organically grown food. Nor does "organic" necessarily mean "pesticide-free".

Deadron wrote:

And I choose to label it so because I honestly believe that if left unchecked, the expansion of the organic movement could kill more people on the planet than any previous disease or war. This is because if all arable land were turned over to organic farming (as many people into organics would no doubt like to see), so many people on the planet would starve it would be inconceivable.

Not at all likely to happen IMO, for a variety of reasons.

It's not like there's a shortage of food in the world as a whole... it's just not in the right places so a lot of it goes to waste. So the extra land usage in itself is not such a big problem.

Your quotes from that article are somewhat selective. Here's a balancing one:

The report for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs found "many" organic products had lower ecological impacts than conventional methods using fertilisers and pesticides [...] that was counterbalanced by other organic foods - such as milk, tomatoes and chicken - which are significantly less energy efficient

And as the article says, there's still dispute over whether organic's improved biodiversity, soil condition, and water use (which the report did not take into account) outweigh the other costs. So it's not as cut-and-dried as you're making out. There are pros as well as cons.

I stand by my claim that food bought in the organic store here tastes better than food bought in the supermarket. Is this because it's organic or are there other factors in play? I honestly don't know for sure. But while the organic store has food of a higher quality, and people can afford it, they will continue to shop there.

Perhaps anti-organic campaigners should be pressing the supermarkets to buy locally and thus reduce the amount of time their fruit and vegetables spend in storage and transportation. Then the food wouldn't be so crap and they'd sell more.

This kind of analysis is great to see. I mean, that willingness to analyze, anyway. Statistics are more provocative than they are useful, though... the actual studies are what's important, knowing what products and techniques were tested and what "energy" means and so on.

What usually gets skipped in articles about these things are the "downstream" costs. It may take a lot less energy to produce an organic tomato, but losses to the fishing/shellfishing industries caused by agricultural runoff are pretty damn expensive. Unfortunately, people aren't used to looking at the world in that way.

I think a lot of people are aware that the organics industry is in its infancy, and that for most products it's not viable as yet. By "viable" I mean being worth the costs that go into it... rather where we are with things like fuel cells for cars. But we need to keep putting money into that research, because clearly we can't go on the way we are.

Similarly, typical agricultural practices will leave us with no soil and no ocean life beside huge mats of algae if we continue in that direction. I may display more concern because of my background -- I work for the Sea Research Foundation, and I'm laboring on a geosciences degree -- and I'm not exaggerating when I say that the long-term consequences of industrialized farming are serious and they are freaking scary. Obviously, having no more soil and no sea life would rather decrease how much food the world can produce. So when we say that typical non-organic agricultural techniques produce more food, the qualifier is "for now." They're painfully unsustainable at the rate we're practicing them.

Vexonater wrote:

All I have to say is this: Organic food sucks, eating meat is natural, and if you ignore an environmental problem for long enough, things will reach a point at which someone will find a solution to it.

Ignorance and dependence at work.