Organic food- do you believe in it?

Nala

Hi all,
After having a chat about this with a few friends today I'm just wondering do you believe that organic food is better for you or do you reckon it's just hype? Myself being a student I can't afford to spend more than I have to on food but my reckoning is that I am fit and healthy (touch wood) having never eaten organic food so I can't be going too wrong. Has anyone any opinions?

admiralofthefleet

hey karoma, are you going to move this?

Karoma

It's an invitation for opinions (yes/no, most likely) on whether people buy into the concept of "organic food". It can fit in Food & Drink, or conspiracy theories or...

It'll stay with us for now.
Find, and use the PM or Report This Post functions if you have any further comments or queries.

Sad Professor

I can't afford it on a weekly basis either but I definitely think it's better. If it's more healthy or not I really don't know but it does taste noticeably better in most cases. Non-organic chicken is practically tasteless IMO; organic is much nicer but its ridiculously expensive.

So yeah I do believe in it.

BlitzKrieg

Non-organic chicken is practically tasteless IMO; organic is much nicer but its ridiculously expensive.

Sort of the crux that. I love going home to my parents cause the food tastes great, I use to think it was just my mothers cooking (aww) but the last few times I'd done the cooking and the fact that my mom buys mostly fresh or organic ingrediants does have an impact (turned out I wasnt as awful at cooking as I had led myself to believe.)

Same time though my ex housemate would buy the same non organics as myself but pull out amazing meals from them, some of the best food I have ever eaten, course when he finally did have an oppurtunity to cook with organic it was just even more amazing, but the jump in amazing wasnt as huge as to warrent the extra cost.


Soo my final opinion on the matter is if you can cook really well though you might perfer organic it isnt as much of a downer as it was with someone who cant cook very well and is left making meals purely on the notion of sustaining rather then enjoying.


Though slightly offtopic does it make anyone else scratch their head that if its a healthier product then it will be more expensive. Sure it costs more to ensure its healthier but with governments and other such powers whining about unhealthy eating and obesity and so on, could a shift in vat onto unhealthy products and off healthier goods be a sensible action? Of course I am already going through 100s of reasons of why not right now (availability etc.) but still it irks me when its a matter of money that forces my hand away from healthy produce, rather then my own decision (creates a defeatist feeling in me.)

biko

Organic food is certainly better for you. Too bad it's more expensive too.
I try to get it when I can. At the moment there is organic milk is my fridge, the pastures for the cows have not been sprayed with pesticides that then goes into the milk.

Mossy Monk

i'm not bothered tbh. both are good imo

monkeyfudge

I've never liked the term. Surely all the food you eat is organic unless you are prone to consuming metals and plastics.

Fanny Cradock

Funny you should say that as some fertilisers use heavy metals.

DublinWriter

Organic is purely a very emotive term when it comes to food and can be/is used for some pretty dodgy marketing practises. For example, what exactly is the difference between regular honey and organic honey? Free-range bees?

Not many people know that monosodium glutamate is a naturally occuring substance, therefore it's 'organic'.

Black Swan

Need a "Sometimes" buy organic food choice on poll? I sometimes do, but comparative price shopping affects my decision.

kizzyr

I grew up in the country and my Dad grew lots of our food: apples, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, tomatoes, turnips, potatos etc etc you get the idea. My uncles also farmed and so gave my mum milk, beef, lamb etc so all in all pretty much everything that we had to eat was organic and it was delicious and had a full and proper taste. Now that I don't live with them anymore I try where possible to buy as much "natural" food as possible but am lucky in that my folks still grow lots of stuff, too much to be honest and end up giving some of it to me.
Snippet of information that may make you think, or at least wash your food before you eat it (I'm always shocked at the amount of people that don't) an apple is sprayed no less than 17 times from first bloom to when it reaches the supermarket.

Faith

I always try to buy organic food where I can, and always organic and free-range when possible if the products come from animals. I just feel that they're healthier and taste better.

phantom_lord

I don't believe in the stuff at all.

toiletduck

don't believe in it. i don't really care

Kojak

phantom_lord wrote:

I don't believe in the stuff at all.

Same here. As long as you'd get plenty of reasonable food at a good price, I don't think it matters whether its organic or not.

petes

kizzyr wrote:

I grew up in the country and my Dad grew lots of our food: apples, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, tomatoes, turnips, potatos etc etc you get the idea. My uncles also farmed and so gave my mum milk, beef, lamb etc so all in all pretty much everything that we had to eat was organic and it was delicious and had a full and proper taste. Now that I don't live with them anymore I try where possible to buy as much "natural" food as possible but am lucky in that my folks still grow lots of stuff, too much to be honest and end up giving some of it to me.
Snippet of information that may make you think, or at least wash your food before you eat it (I'm always shocked at the amount of people that don't) an apple is sprayed no less than 17 times from first bloom to when it reaches the supermarket.

Same here except on a smaller scale. My dad would grow a good few vegetables in the garden. Tasted great. Although I do have a preference for things that are sour, so the gooseberries and the like would be eaten way before they were ripe. I had many a stomach cramp afterwards. Still went back for more though.

fits

DublinWriter wrote:

For example, what exactly is the difference between regular honey and organic honey? Free-range bees?

I *think* if honey isnt organic, the bees can be situated by high nectar-yielding plants such as oilseed rape, this doesnt really happen with Irish honey, more a feature of the imported stuff. The bees are also fed sugar-water mixes over the winter rather than leaving them a supply of honey for themselves.

If you're buying honey, it is well worth your while spending your money on local honey from small producers. The larger companies import their honey from places such as China and it isnt necessarily 100% pure. It also takes like poo compared with the real stuff.

I am happy to spend money on organic chicken and pork. It tastes far better than the regular stuff. Considering the conditions in which intensively farmed chickens and pigs are kept, thats not really surprising. Other than that I try buy local and fresh before organic. I would buy milk from local farmers if I could, rather than getting it two weeks later after being ruined by the big dairy production companies. Most lamb is raised in a pretty natural/organic manner in Ireland so theres no real need to buy organic there if you're buying Irish. I dont know why anyone buys food from the other side of the world if they can get a local equivalent anyway.

phantom_lord

phantom_lord wrote:

I don't believe in the stuff at all.

But then again I am a poor student....but nah, can't ever seeing myself paying well over the odds for that fad stuff.

kizzyr

petes wrote:

Same here except on a smaller scale. My dad would grow a good few vegetables in the garden. Tasted great. Although I do have a preference for things that are sour, so the gooseberries and the like would be eaten way before they were ripe. I had many a stomach cramp afterwards. Still went back for more though.

Me too, I was a fiend for picking and eating apples before they were ready. Always spent a day regretting it:( There were also the wasp stings from hanging around the plums for too long too and the hives from eating too many strawberries having been warned not to:o
Isn't it funny that when you describe a childhood like now most people think you've lifted it straight out of Enid Blyton:)

marcsignal

don't know much about the organic food issue, but i worked in pest control with Rentokil and Terminix throughout the 90's where we frequently had to fumigate grain silos to kill grain wievels.
To do this we had to use hydrogen cyanide tablets that slowly dissolved. We had to stand on top of the grain in the silo and probe the grain with sections of hollow pipe until you had probed to the depth of the silo, and then pop in a few tablets as we pulled the pipe sections back out again leaving the tablets behind in the middle of the grain. Naturally we were fully masked up with respirators and duck tape around our wrists to seal ourselves up as much as possible. It killed EVERYTHING in that silo, insects, rats, mice, the lot, not a pretty sight to witness on sunday morning overtime with a hangover.

Although that particular chemical didnt have a residual effect, we used to spray other store rooms etc with residual insecticide which lasted for 8-12 weeks, throughout the food manufacturing industry, killing any insects walking around that area in the following weeks.
Crops are sprayed by farmers with similar chemicals and i honestly believe that is a contributary factor to cancers and other illnesses in people etc. It can't be healthy to be eating that food, but apparently it has to be done to sustain and protect our food supply, and we're ALL consuming it

Thats the only reason I think organic food would be healthier, it's a shame it's so much more expensive than regular run of the mill stuff.
until they can find some way of mass producing food on an organic basis, i'm afraid we're stuck with it

bummer isn't it

xzanti

Never really put much thought into it tbh, maybe I'm just blinded by the price of 'normal' produce compared to the organic stuff.. Although I heard from somebody recently that battery hens and chickens that are not organic are being pumped with steroids to the extent that thier knuckles burst :eek: So I think I may start buying organic meat, out of sympathy for the poor birds more than anything else cause the meat itself has done me no harm thus far.. Poor chickens

fits

xzanti wrote:

Never really put much thought into it tbh, maybe I'm just blinded by the price of 'normal' produce compared to the organic stuff.. Although I heard from somebody recently that battery hens and chickens that are not organic are being pumped with steroids to the extent that thier knuckles burst :eek: So I think I may start buying organic meat, out of sympathy for the poor birds more than anything else cause the meat itself has done me no harm thus far.. Poor chickens

You can get really nice whole organic chickens for about 10 euro, roast it and it'll do for two meals for two people. Cheaper and tastier than normal chicken fillets.

ScumLord

I eat organic meat by default. I always go to my local butcher who gets allot of he's meat from local farmers. The difference is unbelievable and is much cheaper than any supermarket I've been to. I've often bought a half a pound of rashers (the rashers are so good, and thick, put supermarket rashers to shame, even the best most expensive rashers in the shops don't come close to the size and taste of butcher rashers) 2 chicken breasts and a steak for €8.

Organic veg is the same you can have a guy drop off a huge bag of fruit & veg for €15 including everything you could possibly want. You just can't get through the bag in a week.

I couldn't eat ordinary chicken after seeing the way they live (I've seen these chickens up close) their disgusting, disease ridden mutants. Buying in supermarkets is also killing farming in this country I don't want to support the big corporations they just make fools out of their customers.

fits

ScumLord wrote:

Buying in supermarkets is also killing farming in this country I don't want to support the big corporations they just make fools out of their customers.

Fair play to you. I love buying direct from farmers with the knowledge that my money is going straight to them rather than into the ever-expanding coffers of Tisco. After tasting the delights of free range saddle-back pork chops recently, I am *never* going back to regular pork chops.

Sarky

I despise the term "organic" when used like that. "Non-organic" food is made up of the same damn stuff, It's just as "organic". The word's being used to scare people into thinking that food not grown by hand and fertilised with real, honest, healthy animal sh*t is dangerous and unnatural.

Jimoslimos

kizzyr wrote:

Now that I don't live with them anymore I try where possible to buy as much "natural" food as possible

It could be argued that unless you eat wild nuts and berries all cultivated crops and farmed animals are "unnatural". Farming is a quite a recent development in human history. Point is not all pesticides, chemicals, etc are inherently 'bad' but on the other hand it is essential to know the long-term effects on human health and environment.

marcsignal wrote:

don't know much about the organic food issue, but i worked in pest control with Rentokil and Terminix throughout the 90's where we frequently had to fumigate grain silos to kill grain wievels.
To do this we had to use hydrogen cyanide tablets that slowly dissolved.

Hydrogen cyanide is a naturally occuring chemical (doesn't make it good for you though )

fits

Sarky wrote:

I despise the term "organic" when used like that. "Non-organic" food is made up of the same damn stuff, It's just as "organic".

I agree with you to a certain extent, if one was being pedantic, that word was certainly ill-advised, and I just cant fathom how anyone came up with it.

Sarky wrote:

The word's being used to scare people into thinking that food not grown by hand and fertilised with real, honest, healthy animal sh*t is dangerous and unnatural.

I dunno about that. BUt a lot of organic fruit and vegetables do seem to taste better, if thats attributable to less pesticides and artificial fertilisers being used is debatable. I personally would much rather my vegetables were fertilised with horse poo than 10 10 20 (or whatever they use), but I know absolutely nothing about growing vegetables at a large scale.

Tar.Aldarion

I'm agnostic towards metal.


Organic food tastes nicer. I believe!!!1
(Yeah, it's better for you)

thelordofcheese

yes, i believe that Organic food created the entire universe, and then sent it's only son, the organic potatoe to die in a deep fat frier for all our sins.
Only by accepting the sacrafice of our most holy potatoe can your immortal soul be saved from an eternity of swimming in pesticides.

Budd

Faddish crap. A good way of relieving middle class twits of their disposable income.

Non-organic food is better. The extra fertilisers makes them grow better.

DublinWriter

kizzyr wrote:

Isn't it funny that when you describe a childhood like now most people think you've lifted it straight out of Enid Blyton:)

With lashings and lashings of (organic) Ginger Beer.

'Organic' is basically a marketing term. I tend to let my taste buds guide me. For example the rich flavours of a Ballanun/Irish Apple Company/Copella apple juice taste so much better to me than a Tropicana/Squeeze chemically simulated 'apple' juice.

And the reason organic chicken seems more expensive is because the weight hasn't been made up by water.

marcsignal

Jimoslimos wrote:

Hydrogen cyanide is a naturally occuring chemical (doesn't make it good for you though )

Yes that's right, didn't Entomoligsts of old used to put Laurel Leaves in the bottom of a closed jar and then leave it in the sun to 'sweat' the Hydrogen Cyanide out ? they would then trap insects in the same jar killing them without damaging the body for their display cases ?

or something like that ??

sorry i'm drifting off the subject totally here.:)

brianthebard

DublinWriter wrote:

Organic is purely a very emotive term when it comes to food and can be/is used for some pretty dodgy marketing practises. For example, what exactly is the difference between regular honey and organic honey? Free-range bees?

Not many people know that monosodium glutamate is a naturally occuring substance, therefore it's 'organic'.

Eh no, sodium glutamate is naturally occuring, monosodium is a different chemical, and most certainly not organic.


If people find organic food too expensive, look for free range. In dunnes at the minute there's 25% off organic food this week (don't like to advertise them, but there you go) and their free-range chicken fillets are only about 50c dearer than the same battery hen alternative.

kizzyr

DublinWriter wrote:

With lashings and lashings of (organic) Ginger Beer.

'Organic' is basically a marketing term. I tend to let my taste buds guide me. For example the rich flavours of a Ballanun/Irish Apple Company/Copella apple juice taste so much better to me than a Tropicana/Squeeze chemically simulated 'apple' juice.

And the reason organic chicken seems more expensive is because the weight hasn't been made up by water.

You just can't beat Enid can you:D
I agree with you up to a point. If people see the word organic on their food they are convinced that they are eating really well and are super healthy without looking any further. What I was really getting at though was my experience of home grown foods with nothing added to them tasted nicer than a lot of the stuff that we see in our supermarkets now that are all perfectly shaped and glossy.

The Sweeper

Organically produced food isn't necessarily more healthy than food produced using pesticides. The choice to eat organically prepared food shouldn't be led by the misconception that there are somehow more vitamins in this leaf of lettuce than that one.

I strive for as much organically produced food as I can access affordably. It's not necessarily because I think it's healthier. Basically, I believe the use of chemical pesticides only came into force because of the food needs post World War II and nowadays there is really no need for the excessive hyper production of food that occurs in Western Europe.

Pesticides can contaminate ground water, endanger marine life and in some cases directly endanger people. They also work in a similar way to anti bacterials, creating more and more resilient strains of the things they're supposed to kill. I buy organic food because I support the sustainable farming practices involved and the higher respect for animal welfare. I also buy it because higher demand generates higher supply and I hope to be able to buy more and more locally produced goods.

This is not an entirely altruistic goal.

I won't buy apples that have been grown in New Zealand. Why the hell should I have to worry about the prospect that my ability to travel the world will be restricted when public air travel is limited due to atmospheric pollution when people think they need to fly apples to Western Europe from New Zealand?

Oh - and the deal with organic honey is supposed to involve apiaries positioned on land that is certified organic so that the bees aren't collecting pollen from plants treated with chemical pesticides. There also restrictions on the insecticides that beekeepers can use to keep bee-unfriendly insects away from hives.

ScumLord

I've done the Reps course (organic farming) I don't have or ever intend to have a farm I got roped into it. Organic farming does make a huge difference not only to your food, the standard of living of the animals but it's also good for wildlife and the general health of this country. Organic farmers have to run their farm a certain way, including making wildlife corridors (I think their called) to create habitats for wild animals, after doing the course and seeing the way non-organic farms are run I think all Irish food should be organic. Which is the way it's going.

I think it's hard for people who live in a city to fully comprehend how food gets to their table and just how farming effects the country. Like it's already been pointing out farming one way over another affects more than just the taste of the food.

greenkittie

Screw this organic crap.. Genetically modify all the food and end world hunger.

Tar.Aldarion

My small gods! You genius!