Organic

Brifrye writes, “Organic!” And then he wrote more. Who’s to say what’s organic and what’s not? Is organic even organic? Is it just a fad? Did it start with the hippies? Got any info on the matter?”

Well, there’s this thing called the government, and whenever there’s a label to be made and applied to something, they’re there. And in 1997, the organic food industry actually made enough money for the USDA to take notice, and with lightning speed, bureaucracy flew into action. By March of 2000, they had a plan to create four new labels for organic food. Wow, only three years! That’s really kind of fast. It just seems kind of slow to you because making labels is really easy for you. They have to coordinate it with lots of people.

In order for a farm to qualify as organic, they can’t use chemical herbicides, fungicides, synthetic fertilizers, or unapproved pesticides. They have to meet bureaucratastic requirements for labeling and record-keeping. They have to create buffers between their fields and other nearby dirty farms. Don’t all farms have dirt? No, but they mean like pesticide kind of dirty. Like chemical weapon kind of dirty. They have to have a long-term dirt management plan, and they have to keep even more records on all the products used in growing operations.

And they have to spend at least three years of doing nothing before turning a dirty field into an organic one. Government telling farmers to do nothing? That sounds like a subsidy. Maybe they could use that time to make more labels. It’s legitimate, because the land needs time to recover from the pesticides used previously. Once qualified and certified, they can use a neat organic label that looks like this.  This label looks like three years of work.

There are a bunch of big lists of what can and can’t be used in organic food production, and while most it’s harmless, some of it’s really interesting. Like hydrogen peroxide and ozone gas used for cleaning. [Stamping sound] Boric acid and copper sulfate used as insecticides. [Stamping sound] And sulphur dioxide used for underground rodent smoke bombs. [Stamping sound] So tasty. But you’ve got to admit; it’s better than eating DDT. Honestly, we’re making fun of it because that’s just what we do. But do you really want to eat something that has chemicals that are designed to kill other things?

Organic may be a really good idea. You remember those four different types of labels we talked about? Here they are. If a label says, “100% Organic,” then it is. If the label just says, “Organic,” that means 95% of it is. And if the label says “Made With Organic Ingredients,” it’s anywhere between 95 and 70. But if the label says it has “Some Organic Ingredients,” it might as well not even be on there. Did hippies invent organic farming? [Chuckles] Yeah. No, I don’t know, but probably. To really answer that question, we have to define what a hippie is, which is way out of the scope of today’s show.

Pesticides aren’t the only reason people choose organic foods. Environmental stability, worker safety, and reduced transportation pollution are all a big part of the equasion. Some people even claim that organic food has a much higher concentration of healthy nutrients than conventional store-bought counterparts. And add to that that some people think organic foods just taste better. And lastly, is it a fad? Well, only time and dedicated consumer spending will tell. I kind of doubt it, though. I think it’s safe to say, it’s not like the Atkin’s diet.

Yep, organic food will be with us for a long time, because inorganic food just isn’t catching on. Not like I’d hoped.

Transcribed by: Justin G.

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