Organic food?

[The Grand Nudger]

1. I agree with you that companies will market products as "organic" even when they are not because it is of little cost to them to do so and of little consequence if they are caught lying. Let me say that I am also sorry to hear of your plight. I think we probably agree on most of what we are talking about.

It's almost impossible to be "caught lying" with regards to marketing. When people have a poor understanding of what it means for something to be organic, more specifically certified organic, then the job of the marketer is even easier. It's true that it costs next to nothing to print a word on a box, but for a company to make the organic claim and not run afoul of law the product does, indeed, have to meet the requirements set forth by the NOP. There are things allowed by the NOP that some people don't feel ought to be, sure. Are the producers or marketers lying in those cases? No.

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For example. Frozen Organic Dinners. These things often have some pretty novel ingredients in them. Turn it over and ask yourself how anything "organic" can have 3 items on the plate but 70 constituent parts (only 3 of which bearing any resemblance to an actual food item)? Why are corn byproducts listed? Do all of the ingredients have to be from a certified producer? Turns out, no. The majority of the ingredients are just GRAS additives associated with the process of creating a frozen dinner. They're only marginally less processed than a hungry man meal and just about as nutritious. They're also well within the standards set forth by the NOP.

There's really very little incentive for any given company to lie and claim that their products are organic when its so easy to actually offer an organic product - from the point of view of a processor. You can make it with most of the same ingredients you already had lying around, using the same equipment and process that you used the day before boxing up "non-organic" meals.

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2. My stance is simply based on common sense and parsimony. Even if pesticides are harmless, why would I add them to food if I don't have to?

No reason that I can think of. Producers (be they organic or "traditional) face the same choice daily. Why spend the money on the pesticides, licenses, and labor if you don't have to? There are some situations in which a producer might get away with not applying -any- pesticides, but probably not for long, and definitely not on any appreciable scale. Unless you grow your own food and thusly know exactly what -you've- done to it...you're eating foods that have taken a bath in a variety of pesticides and other toxins before it ever reached your table. This goes for the organics just as much as any traditional crops.