Organic, my arse

[Cambridge]

So I went into Trader Joe’s today and they’ve been out of their traditional pasta for, like, four or five months, and as they do when you get to the check stand, they ask, “did you find everything you wanted?”

This time I blurted out, “no, you haven’t had your regular pasta for months.” This surprised me cause I'm normally very passive in grocery stores…the customers who can make noise in grocery stores are Gilbert mommas who have a dozen kids.

So the clerk says, “we have a full stock of organic pasta.” To this—and I don’t know why except it’s the truth—I responded, “’organic’ is code for ‘tastes like s***’.” The clerk then got all humble, which wasn’t necessary cause I was just being an arse myself.

But this is the way I feel. How many agree with me? “Organic” means the store charges twice as much, and it has half the quality and taste. Anyone else noticed this trend? Now the stores are pushing this by not having the regular stuff available. Probably a response to the fuel crisis, so that qualifies this entry for the ‘politics’ section.

[Bushwalker]

Nah, not all "organic" labelled food tastes like crap...

Plus it has its place for those who want to avoid synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, and GMO ingredients, in their foods;

But it definitely is being used more and more often as a marketing ploy to jack up prices more and more..

As are such other meaningless terms as "no cholesterol" (see that on products like honey, and fruit and vege's - which never had any cholesterol to start with - as cholesterol is produced within an animals body (including humans themselves!)..); and "nu-lite" and "low-fat".

[KiltyCol]

There is certainly a lot of deception in the food industry. The commercial experts must spend a lot of time putting a profit value on each possible excuse, as to how much it will enable the price of food to be increased.

Should the old expression " Nero fiddled as Rome burnt" be revised to "Politicians debate as world starves".

[The Chairman]

Its only organic if you pick it yourself or have someone pick it for you.. Supermarkets say their produce labelled organic is the best for you therefore making you pay more for it but I think its the biggest scam ever.. Just the fact that you buy it from a supermarket tells me its not organic...

[Cambridge]

Its only organic if you pick it yourself or have someone pick it for you.. Supermarkets say their produce labelled organic is the best for you therefore making you pay more for it but I think its the biggest scam ever.. Just the fact that you buy it from a supermarket tells me its not organic...

Too true, TC. It's all an economic scam.

[The Chairman]

If you want to eat organic produce ( some people do ) you should..

Pick your fruit from an orchard...

Pick your vegtables from a farm..

Buy your dairy produce from a farm

Buy fresh bread daily from a bakers

Buy meat from a farm or butchers

Buy alcohol straight from a brewery

Fly to Asia , Africa ,South America and India to buy herbs and spices..

[Cambridge]

If you want to eat organic produce ( some people do ) you should..

Pick your fruit from an orchard...

Pick your vegtables from a farm..

Buy your dairy produce from a farm

Buy fresh bread daily from a bakers

Buy meat from a farm or butchers

Buy alcohol straight from a brewery

Fly to Asia , Africa ,South America and India to buy herbs and spices..

I could probably get fresh bread from a bakery in North Beach in San Francisco, but who knows about the grain that went into producing it? Meat straight from the butchers…donno whether they were fed growth hormones. Alcohol? Marry a woman who owns a brewery…John McCain is smarter than all of us.

[The Chairman]

Its strange for a country that has to rely on import to all of a sudden produce organic foods....or is the case of " Organically Grown " in "Brazil".

[Cambridge]

Its strange for a country that has to rely on import to all of a sudden produce organic foods....or is the case of " Organically Grown " in "Brazil".

Actually, the US only has to import vegetables in the winter…from South America. The Central Valley of California feeds almost a quarter of the world in the summer.

Wisely, Europe has not allowed genetically altered food, for fear of the unknown. I mean, who knows what you will produce…the Andromeda Strain? And of course, when you add peanut genes to corn, for example, you unknowingly trigger allergies for thousands. So, the only thing that Californians can do is eschew genetically altered food for “organic” food.

The problem with this is that although you might think you are eating the “pure” thing, it’s not that simple. The US permits genetically altered food. Imagine a cornfield in farmer Green’s field with genetically altered corn. Now, imagine an organic cornfield across the road in farmer Jones’ field. How do you prevent the mixing of pollens? You can’t. So, organic is bulls*** in the US. And, as I said, organic food tastes like s***.

[boingo]

The word "organic" is misused. All food is organic. Unfortunately current food labelling in Australian doesn't make companies use the correct term "Organically grown".

[Bushwalker]

Boingo - There is legislation going through Parliament that will control the use of such terms as "organic", "organically grown", "Australian Made", "Australian Grown", "all natural" and the like...

Another big problem in this area is re-marketing - where produce is redirected through a port, deliberately mislabelled as produce of a country with better reputations and sold on as something better than it is.
One example is junk honey from China or Mexico being repackaged and sold on as Aussie or Canadian - by the time they eventually catch the culprits it can have done a lot of damage to reputations at the end-markets.

Malaysia uses this same lurk to sell-on endangered timbers that they have raped-and-pillaged from other S.E. Asian and Pacific_nations as "Malaysian" timbers - despite the fact that Malaysia has next-to-no forestry on their own soil, they are the biggest timber producers in S.E. Asia !!!

Such re-marketing strategies could also prove a future problem for those people trying to avoid GMO crops; as well as low grade and contaminated produce.