Organic - a fading dream?
Ugh, this heat is unbearable. Forgive me for not posting often these days. The heat has a lot to do with it.
Terrific editorial over at Orion Online by Michael Pollan, author of Botany of Desire: Getting Over Organic.
…And we find ourselves with an organic transcontinental strawberry: 5 calories of food energy that use 435 calories of fossil-fuel energy to get to a supermarket near you. This is organic food forced through the industrial system, shorn of its holism. What has been lost is that one key insight about organic: that everything is connected. The organic dream has been reduced to a farming method.
I’d been thinking the same thing lately. When I spied organic Heinz ketchup on the shelf at a local Wild Oats market recently, I cringed, knowing it was just the beginning. Also, a lot of the small, localized companies that made organic food have now been bought out by giants (take Kellogg’s Foods buyout of Morningstar Farms for instance). It’s next to impossible these days to find food that: 1) is organic, 2) is fairly local and 3) is put out by a non-conglomerate. This is a main reason Jeremy and I grow a veggie garden each summer.
leblanc said,
July 30, 2003 @ 10:02 pm
well… i guess i see the argument, in that if Philip Morris (which owns Kraft) and all the other huge food producers buy up all the smaller indie organic companies, they’ll have a lot of political influence over the environmental regulation for organic food production, etc.
on the other hand, i think it’s great that major labels are putting organic food on the shelves, making buyers more aware who otherwise might not be.
there is a disconnect between source and consumer for ANYTHING you buy on a grocery shelf, though. it would be impossible, actually, to feed everyone in america with locally grown and processed food anyway. there are just too many people in most places.
there will always be farmers markets for those of us who live in urban areas. for those who don’t live in places that have local produce, i think it’s great that larger companies are stocking the shelves with organic food. it’s definitely not a move in the wrong direction if you ask me. perhaps i’m being optimistic.
Jeremy said,
July 31, 2003 @ 4:36 am
The problem as I see it is that organic use to imply that the food was grown/raised locally by small farmers/rangers. Now the term organic just applies to how the food was grown/raised.
The fact that we are facing this problem is in part the good news. It is a nice problem that organic is being used by the monster food companies. Now our job is to enroll people into buying food locally, when possible.