I also think the whole 100 mile diet thing is bunk. It’s simly not possible in calgary. I would be limiting my family to beef, chicken, spinach, arugula, eggplant, chard, red peppers and cukes. Tomatoes around here are all produced in energy intensive greenhouses. In winter, potatoes, beets, rutabagas, parsnips and carrots. No fruit or fruit products other than strawberries or saskatoon berries. Fish? I wish. Also, not to mention all the economic damage we’d be doing to all those peoples in places like Costa Rica where all your banana’s come from. Or all the fruit produced in BC in the summer? Think local, buy local is a very bad policy in the global economy, and I believe it does far more harm than good. All it will accomplish is local starvation in one place, and local waste in another.

The milk cows also are not ‘organic’ but this farm has consistently won prizes for the milk being cleaner then the farms around. (Did you know cows lie down in their straw beds and dirty their teats and they are not wiped by most farmers before the milk unit is applied?) Well my dad of course does that.

I don’t think organic means anything, farms are not regulated enough…

Until the “Organic” world is better managed, supervised and standardized, I believe that the prices we’re paying is just a big hoopla and nothing else.

Are the organic veggies better for you? in the long run, I’m sure that they are; I come from a small village and we bought our veggies and milk from the local growers and yes, I believe that they were “less contaminated” with pesticides but that was back then… now everyone wants to have a better crop and better margin of profit and the only way you can do that is by making sure your crops are healthy; hence the pesticides…

Probably your best bet will be to grow your own veggies in your back yard, keep a couple of hens for your eggs & by having a cow, not only will you have fresh milk but also great manure to make everything grow!! :)

I hate to say it but I also avoid food originating in China. I am not sure that the food inspection standards are what I would like them to be.

Anyhow…thats exactly like Organic food. You will never really know if its the same stuff packaged in a different way, then being called ‘organic’.

I’m very aware of corporations’ tendency to misuse words like “organic,” “green,” “sustainable,” and so on. But resources to help stay educated are readily available; all it takes is the investment of time. For example, to understand the process of organic certification in Canada, people might want to start with the Canadian Organic Growers site.

A distinction needs to be made: I’m unquestioningly in favour of organic farming, but I’m skeptical of all marketing. Government regulations are very specific about labeling requirements – and there are some worthwhile changes to them coming in June. I think it’s reasonable to be vigilant, but not cynical. It’s no good throwing the baby out with the bath water when one discovers that a system isn’t perfect.

When we first went 100% organic, our bills were much higher than they are now. As time has gone by, we figured out the system. For example, it is much cheaper as well as better for the planet to buy free-range eggs (from organically fed chickens) locally (our sources are our farmer’s market and our independent butcher.) Eating seasonally, buying in bulk, eating less meat, growing some things (esp things that are pricey at the grocery- organic berries, shallots, things like that), getting the deep freeze, cutting back on anything in a box, joining our CSA have all been ways to mitigate the higher cost of that initial choice. It has taken years, but you know what? Our lives are improved, and it has been a meaningful process of discovery for our family.

One solution that I advocate is to reduce your meat consumption – either by a bit or up to 100%. Try reducing to 3 portions a week. Check the Canada Food Guide. You might be shocked at what a ‘portion’ is.

Reducing your meat consumption will likely save you money. It will also lessen your environmental impact, avoid the killing of those animals, and reduce the growth hormones that you are likely eating. Win, win, win.

If everyone on Earth lead the average North American lifestyle which includes a North American diet and thus copious meat consumption, we would require 6 Earths to support us all! Global starvation right now is not a problem of insufficient land, it’s a double problem of a few people using most of the resources and an inability to transport food from where it grows well to where there are mouths to feed. Simply – reducing meat consumption reduces the number of Earths we would need because cows are about 10% efficient at turning vegetable calories into meat calories.

There is a reason industry has latched on to the word “organic” and uses it to label so many different things with so many meanings. In common use “organic” has positive connotations. That doesn’t necessarily mean the product does as well. Caveat emptor as always.

Have we noticed a difference? Not always, but yes, we have. For example, we tried organic milk, which here in Calgary costs roughly twice that of regular milk. Instantly, we noticed a decrease in ailments we always thought were lactose-intolerance-related. If our side effects were not being caused by lactose intolerance, then what the heck is in regular milk that causes gas, diarrhoea and bloating?? I shudder to think.

And I do agree with the overall thought that eating organic is only worthwhile in the context of lifestyle. If that lifestyle includes tobacco products, illegal drugs, heavy liquor consumption, fast food and all-day coffee, then I would say that the easiest and cheapest route to better health would be to address all that low hanging fruit before spending extra on organic tomatoes.

MMMMM organic tomatoes…

As for the treatment of animals. It is important..to a degree. The guilt is only in your mind.

I.e Last year we bought a 1/4 cow, pasture fed non-hormone injected. Overall, it was actually cheaper than meat at the store. Tastes the same, and alleviated my ‘guilt’ for eating meat. We even got ‘introduced’ to the cows, about 20 of them, and the farmer pointed out the one that would be next. A bit morbid and a bit funny, them being oblivious and all.

If I was a cow I’d like to go that way…eat well outside, frolick with other young cows (wink), wander about, and then in the end meat new people.

We’ve been buying all-organic for about 20 years. On the personal level, we reduce the influence of toxic chemicals introduced into our bodies. How much is that worth? Well, to each their own.

On the broader level, chemical fertilizers have left topsoil effectively dead, effluent runs off into lakes and streams and gets into the food chain, etc. Information about this context is out there and easily and freely available. It’s made an impression on me.

As for population, it’s important to consider that it’s not just numbers of people, but those numbers consume. It won’t come as a surprise that North Americans consume many times more of every kind of product, including food, as the average person living elsewhere, and who are not in the extreme position of starvation or discomfort. But now people in developing nations, who have enormous populations compared to ours, want to live like we do. Well, no technology can cope with that looming demand. Organics produce less, on a varying basis per crop, but the drop isn’t overwhelming. The trick seems to me to involve maintaining or increasing local production, rather than shoving more chemicals into the soil of massive farms to ship half way round the world. It’s kind of common sense, really.

Many posters have remarked about organic labels being meaningless because it’s just marketing and/or the organizations aren’t monitoring the farms. I respect skepticism – it’s always a good thing. So far though, these remarks haven’t come with supporting sources. With respect, I don’t see a reason to accept those opinions any more than accepting unsupported opinions about financial matters.

What we need to look at is consistency, not anomalies. When there’s a bias, there’s a tendency to find relatively infrequent problems and use them to bash the whole idea, no matter what the subject is. Or to hold an industry to a perfect standard, instead of seeing it as a work in progress.

Where I do share concerns with a lot of the posters is with the retail end of things. When Whole Foods bought out our local organics chain here in Vancouver, I expected prices to reduce at least a little due to economy of scale. Well, that’s not happened – and I resent what I consider price gouging. So at least with produce, I support buying at the local farmers’ markets, where my money goes direct to the farmer, not to a big-box retailer. For meat, I use a butcher specializing in free-range and/or organic meat. For fish, I use a fish-monger. Big box stores don’t offer anywhere near the service or the expertise or the connections to local producers like these folks do. For some products it’s impossible to avoid the big box, but that’s life!

Cheerio – great site, by the way!