August 10, 2009

Is organic better?

Because of my schedule, I can't photograph and post our CSA delivery until Tuesday morning. So until then, I'll leave you with this...

You may have heard or read lately about the issue of whether organic food is really any better for you. Check out this article at The Huffington Post: In Defense of Organics if you have any doubt that organics are better for your health and the environment. Do you think Big Agriculture might have a vested interest in spreading confusion about the issue, misinformation, and outright lies? I'll leave that for you to answer for yourselves...

If you have any other news or articles to share on this topic, personal experience, or your considered opinion, please visit the Comments section to be part of the conversation.

2 comments:

Krista said...

I've always know that organic is better. How can it not be better for people and the environment. What are your thoughts on organic vs. local? If you can't have both, which do you value more?

Angela said...

Krista-
We are lucky enough to have both local and organic delivered in our CSA.

I think organic, local food is better on all kinds of levels- for health, for the environment, and that's related to supporting local farmers. It's also much more delicious. So it would be hard to ever convince me that we should turn back. I think it's reached a critical mass with the public and more and more people will demand local and organic food, which will bring the price down.

Before we joined a CSA, I would buy a mixture of organic and regular, depending on price. Some foods I don't think are as crucial to buy organic, and we can't really afford to buy all our produce at Whole Foods, but luckily we can afford the CSA. That's very encouraging to me, because I strongly believe that organic and local should be for everyone, not just the wealthy. And if we can afford local and organic on an $80/wk budget for two of us, I think most people would agree that's a pretty low budget (although not as low as some!)

And regarding your original question, I don't often have to choose between local and organic- but at the Farmer's Market occasionally they don't have the "organic" certification and I choose local Farmer's Market produce over organic supermarket produce.