The only reason for me is cost. Organic is no healthier in regards to nutrient content, however I am not happy with the amount of pesticides and fertilisers used on our produce. At the moment I use a fruit and veg wash which is suppose to get the residue off, but it won't get the chemicals out which seep into the fruit and veg. I am starting to grow my own organic stuff though, so maybe I will be able to afford to buy what I can't grow from organic shops.

Presumably in its use of more land which could presumably be left natural if it weren't taken up with agriculture. I don't actually agree that organic is overall worse for the environment, but following the efficiency argument its the only point I could see that makes any logical sense.

I think the reduced efficiency of organic methods would be more than made up for via shifting away from corn/soy based meat ag, but that's a different argument.

Organic is worse for the environment. With fertilizers and pesticides more produce can be grown than would otherwise be able to.

Cost...

I do where we can afford it and buy from my local fruit and veg shop who buy organic and local wherever possible, but can't afford to buy all organic. We tried foodconnect, but sadly it would have almost doubled the cost of the food bill to buy it all that way.

I can't see how organic could be worse than how fertilizers and pesticides are destroying our soil and environment. I'm not going to say it's better but it's a big problem.

But the effects of fertilizer and pesticide on local wildlife species, in waterways, oceans, and groundwater has to be counted too, not just productivity.

cost
availability - not much organic at our local supermarkets
freshness - what is available is limp and gross
also that I have read a big study proved organic is infact not better for you

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/org...y_produced_food

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-f...90730-e331.html

That's only comparing the nutrient content. I think most of us know organic is no better for nutrients. I eat some organic foods because they are chemical free. I am allergic to some chemicals so it's good for me. Organic fruit and veg is better for that reason as well.

I do find some organic stuff tastes better. I'm not sure why that is? I have a heap of tomato plants in this year, and while they aren't as perfectly shaped and bright red as the store ones, they taste sooo much better.

Cost and availability...

The fruit market I go to is already very expensive and i'm not interested in spending anymore.

By and large the cost and the availability. I do try to -

We grow as much as possible at home, all organic.

However, what we don't grow, we have to buy, and we don't buy organic, for a few reasons.

- we live rurally, it's almost impossible to get
- cost

Cost cost and more cost.

We do what we can, though, eating mostly local produce, and hope to get back to growning a fair percentage of our own, too. Next paycheck, we're ordering a bulk load of organically fed meat from a local farm, but that's largely due to it being cheaper than meat in the store.

I refuse to believe organic isn't better for you.

Oh, my homegrown vege's, esp tomatos, definitely DO taste betterr. No doubt about it. But even when I've purchased Organic stuff, it isnt' as nice as my very freshly picked homegrown stuff

Apart from salad vege's, I tend to just use frozen most of hte time these days. Less wastage by far and I think snapfrozen is often better then "fresh"

Tamm

I'm not convinced that the chemicals they use to grow "organic" f&v are much better than those used on non-organic.


I think the best F&V& herbs are those grown yourself, you know what goes into them.

We grow our own without pesticides. So... that keeps us in greens most of the year and seasonal tomatos, strawberries, snow peas etc.

other than that i buy what is in season and is cheap. we don't have much choice when it comes to organic so i do my best.

i wish i had more space to grow more myself but i am learning slowly what works best in this garden and have been staggering planting to have less waste and better coverage.

I don't buy organic because I have no reason to. Organic stuff tastes exactly the same as non organic and has no health benefits.

I try to buy fresh, locally grown if it is available (or steal stuff from my Mum's veggie gardens ) because it tastes better, but I honestly don't care a bit if it is organic or not.


Science says otherwise. Refusing to believe something in the face of fact seems weird.

To me organic is where taste and environmentalism overlap, but alas tangent only very slimly with my budget.

That said I don't think all organic is equal.

Cost and availability

Agreed ... I buy organic when it is in my price range but otherwise, as fresh as possible and in season wherever possible has to suffice.

We're healthy despite this

I don't buy everything organic, but do try to buy the dirty dozen organic.

There seem to be a few different ideas at work here. Of course, a tomato or lettuce grown in your garden and picked fresh will taste better than something you buy in a shop, organic or not. What's more, the types grown for commercial purposes (so that they survive shipping, and look the way consumers want) may not taste as good. Indeed, very often they don't.

But, as people have said over and over, cost and availability are the keys. Cultures that rely on 'organic' food are the poorest people on Earth, except for rich Westerners who have been guilted into thinking that it is a good idea.

Quite simply, only the very rich and the very poor can have any truck with inefficient and wasteful food production. The health and food quality of the rest of us relies on conventional food production. And, I resent the appropriation of the term 'organic' which is positively Orwellian. All food is organic.

The alleged superiority of 'organic' food in nutritional terms has been disproved over and over again. Even if there was a marginal difference, as PPs have demonstrated, its unaffordability would reduce, not increase, the quality of most people's diets.

Because I am one of those "do as I say and not as I do" parents who HATES eating fruit and veg :s

because I don't know if they are gay or straight organic couples.

Since when did you care about "teh environment"?

It's much more important to me to eat organic meat and eggs than fruit and veg because there are more compounding factors involved and more environmental concerns.

But I do buy both. My reasons:

Nutrition. Good nutrition is more important to me than anything. If the organic produce is old/out of season/imported I will buy seasonal non-organic fresh produce. There is a lot of info out there on the fact that food retains its nutritional value depending on how recently it was picked. It's even sometimes better to eat something frozen than something that's been sitting around for ages.

Environment This is a big reason to buy organic, but not if it means the produce has come from further away. I take into consideration the impact of something being trucked all over the place (or worse, coming from overseas) and I'll buy a local, non-organic orange over an organic Californian orange any day!

Taste!I will go back and buy more of something that tastes great. If the supermarket has great non-organic strawberries at the moment, it's hard not to buy more next time. Mostly, I shop at a local greengrocer and will buy what they recommend to me. They sell both organic and non, so they will generally recommend what's good and not just what's organic.

Value Sometimes I just can't justify the extra cost if it's something exorbitantly expensive. Often I will weigh it up and go without if I'm not happy with the non-organic alternative.

OpportunityI really like to support retailers and growers who care about what they do and are providing a fantastic product. If I get the opportunity to buy something really special that's just come into season or isn't a common variety (or comes from someone local), then I am more likely to buy organic. This may not necessarily be expensive - but it will make me deviate from my normal habits.

Difference of opinionI care about eating organic where possible, but my husband doesn't care if something is organic or not, so if he shops, he buys from a retailer he knows has good quality produce that isn't a "rip-off". If he wants to shop, then we eat what he buys. Mostly that is non-organic produce.

It basically comes down to cost. The price is very prohibitive. But i always make sure I wash any fruit or veg before consuming. I

The taste of home grown fruit and veg is not because it is organically grown, its down to the variety. The variety that the home gardner grows is not the same as the farmers grow in mass production. They pick their varieties for hardiness and quantity not tatse.

And to be honest we will never get to 100% organic because it just takes more land to grow. As you need down time and then you need to supplement plant ( meaning plant an enrichment crop). Its just not viable to sustain the quantity that society needs. How ever much we wish.

Caring about the environment is not the same as regarding Greenpeace press releases as gospel. Indeed, quite often it is the opposite - 'organic' farming being a classic example. It is a nice hobby for rich cultures, and an unsatisfactory way to feed poor ones.

If using more land and energy to produce less food is good for 'the environment', then you're right. I don't care about it.

And minus is correct. As in my PP, varieties that are great in your home vegie/fruit patch often taste better, but unfortunately they can't feed large numbers of people on a daily basis, because they bruise easily, produce intermittently or just don't look the way people want to buy.

Nobody is stopping people from growing their own, buying from local producers etc. But, let's not elevate it to a religion, where stepping out of line is heresy. If you want to eat seasonal, organic fruit and veg all the time, go and live in a village in north Africa. There will certainly be someone who would be glad to swap places with you. The fact that you have a choice of maybe 4 or 5 fruit/veg including your staple (when you can get them) shouldn't be a problem, surely? It's all about the environment, plus it must be healthier. Pity about the mortality stats there.

cost and quality. i cant taste any difference.
but i do grow my own bits and pieces, and buy from local farmers where possible.

I don't mean nutrition wise. I mean health wise.
How can something chemically laden possibly be better or equal to something not chemically laden?

The term chemically laden is inappropriate and shows a lack of understanding of maximum residue limits allowed in this country.


These maximum residue limits for chemicals are set by regulatory bodies based on acceptable daily intakes, no observable effect levels and safety factors of more than 300. The result is that chemical levels are either below the level of detection (ie below 0.005 parts per million) or do not exceed a level that has been scientifically proven to be safe if you eat it each day for the rest of your life.

As a scientist I know that not everything that can be tested has been tested. People are still getting cancer. For the most part we still don't know why. Why are people getting asthma? More allergies? We don't know the answer to these things and until we do I will be cautious with our lifestyle choices. Buying food that hasn't been sprayed with pesticides may not protect us from these things, but I prefer to err on the side of caution. i.e. the precautionary principle.

Our use of fossil fuels has allowed us to farm intensively without care for the soil. We've just applied more and more fertiliser and sprayed away anything we don't want. This can't and won't last. Oil is running out. Supplies of superphosphate are running out. What we call conventional farming will not last. Organic farming and in particular, going back to actually caring about the soil is where farming is heading. It must. Much of the new research in agriculture is heading towards organic methods. Anyone who is insisting that "conventional" farming is the only way is a dinosaur.

I do agree with a pp though. I am concerned about some the chemicals which are passable in organic farming.

I don't because of cost and avalibility. Plus a lot of the time the organic stuff just looks manky compared to the cheaper, non organic stuff. I get my fruit and vege from the markets and most of the food is fairly local.

I also prefer to spend my extra shopping budget on free range eggs, pork and chicken. I care about animal welfare but don't give a crap what you do to a vegie

What do you mean by 'chemically laden'?

Everything on this planet is 'chemically laden'. Plants and animals are compositions of chemicals. Both plants and animals produce chemicals that resist diseases and pests. Very often, the 'chemicals' that doctors or farmers use are based on the things that living organisms already produce.

'Laden' means weighed down. How is a tomato or a potato bought in the supermarket 'weighed down' with 'chemicals'?

It just doesn't make sense. But, it is the kind of emotive language that covers up a complete lack of scientific basis in favour of 'being green'.

I have two problems with this view, which is part of the reason why I choose organic where I can.

Firstly, FSANZ allows over 80 chemical pesticides that have been banned in other countries for years or decades. They continually mumble about tightening regulations and placing the same bans, but ultimately the removal of some of these from Australian shelves is consumer driven (ie we stop buying them so there is no longer a market).

Secondly, while there are maximum safe levels and most fresh produce falls below these levels, my personal concern is for the 'cocktail' effect. It's safe for me to eat a cucumber because it has less than the max allowable pesticides, or eat a tomato, or a capsicum, but what if I put them all together in a salad? The problem is the wide range (over 300) of pesticides used in Australian commercial farming, and the uncertainty of the effect of combining these chemicals with each other and ingesting them regularly.

As for the environmental argument, scientists at Cornell have claimed that despite the huge usage, pesticides only save around 10% of food crops, and that the public health and environmental damage don't make them worthwhile. They aren't the messiah many people think they are, and are slowly destroying agricultural land. The herbicides and pesticides used kill the micro-organisms in the soil, which can then no longer protect the plants who in turn are attacked by bugs and disease more often, requiring even more concentrated chemicals. Lack of crop rotation and intensive farming practices strip the nutrients from the soil, so more and more chemical fertilizers are needed. Eventually, nothing will grow on this land.

And the stupid thing is, most of the crops grown under these practices aren't staples to feed the developing world; they are corn and soy which are in every processed food we eat and are a major cause in first world obesity. We produce far more than we actually need, and these types of farming practices aren't necessary for us to be sustainable.

You may be a scientist but I would suggest you are not one involved in agricultural research. Because if you were, as am I, you would realise that 95% of farmers in this country care very much about their soil and the overall sustainability of their land.

As jfl has said previously, the land needed to grow produce without the use of pesticides would mean the world population could just not be fed (not even if you got rid of all the Amazon Rainforest). Regulations are so tight in this country with regard to the onus of proof for chemicals being safe to the environment, not harmful to humans or wildlife and efficacious that it is just scare mongering to suggest otherwise.

I think for a lot of people this would be the case unfortunately. The offerings of "organic" fruit and veg at Woolworths and Coles are dreadful.

The other issue with organic fruit and veg in the big supermarkets is that it frequently comes packaged, which I dislike intensely.

I also don't like the food miles that are associated with some of the organic produce I've seen on the shelves.

I don't, but I would if the quality was superior. The reasons I don't is because 1) I haven't found the quality to be superior, 2) the flavour is not superior, 3) the cost is just nuts, 4) I grow my own.

Neither of these statements are even remotely true.


That is a big problem for me too. I'm lucky in that my parents are organic farmers so I have access to a lot of local organic produce, but I will not buy organic fruit and veg from the supermarket that has been individually packaged and shipped for miles. This is the unfortunate reality many people face.

The basic rules of ethical food shopping are:

If not local, family farmed; if not family farmed, organic; if not organic then fair-trade.

Environmentally and economically speaking, the consensus seems to be that local is superior to organic. I tend to agree.

Yes, local is definitely my preference too.
Sure, they spray it..but I wash it well.

I too am uncertain about claims to do with cancer rates and things such as chemicals in our food.

On one hand, I wouldn't be at all surprised if evidence came out that related certain cancers to certain chemicals.

On the other? I'm not sure that cancer rates overall have skyrocketed as much as we like to believe. I think SOME cancers have, due to known causes, for sure.

But overall?
We are living longer, so that's going to mean more diseases like cancers naturally. The longer we live, the more likely we are to get anything bad happen to our health
We now keep statistics and actually monitor various cancers...
We now have much better detections and classifications for cancers...so cancers taht people died from in the past, well, they may not have even ever known or had diagnosed the primary cancer...they just wasted away and died

And the big one, we talk about it! We know that "uncle Jim has X cancer"..whereas, a few generations ago, this sort of thing was mostly just not TALKED about, all very secretive and hush hush! My mum is 90 and her and dad always said, taht when they were growing up HEAPS of people, old, young and in between died of "mysterious" illnesses and it just wasn't the done thing to talk about it. Even kids, they just disappeared never to be seen again

So whilst, I dont' dispute facts about cancer rates related to anything, I'm also mindful that our science and healthcare methodologys, our tracking and our research has improved dramatically...so I keep an open mind.

Tamm