Organic Shmorganic

Seems like everyone is selling organic produce these days from the prestigious Whole Foods to the savvy shopper’s paradise, Costco.   Heck when Walmart gets into the business of organic produce, you know the day of reckoning has come.  Lets back up and figure out what ‘organic’ means in the first place.

Organic foods are those that are produced using environmentally sound methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives.1

And what about Organic certification?

Certified organic food in the United States is grown according to standards set by the National Organic Program of the USDA (US Department of Agriculture).  According to those standards, Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation. Before a product can be labeled "organic," a USDA accredited certifier inspects the farm where the food is grown to make sure the farmer is following all the rules necessary to meet USDA organic standards.

However the entire ‘organic’ discussion is fraught with contradictions.  There are numerous organic certifications but also seemingly equal number of tainted organic produce scandals.  On one hand we have Michael Pollan urging that we shop locally for our produce and then my friend in NJ promptly reminds me that their Farmers’ Markets operate only April through October.  They are at the mercy of the supermarkets for the rest of the year.  And what about the cost of buying organic which can be so prohibitive?  Amidst all this confusion how should one approach the basic task of buying healthy produce which is really all we want?

Tatsoi anyone?
Tatsoi (Brassica narinosa or Brassica rapa var. rosularis), also called spinach mustard, spoon mustard, or rosette bok choy, is an Asian variety of Brassica rapa grown for greens. [from Wikipedia]

My  local farmers’ market is devoid of the gazzillion salad greens you might find at the San Franscisco Ferry Building Market.  However I do come across  interesting finds such as tatsoi, broccolini, mango plums as well as some of the more ‘ethnic’ produce such as fenugreek leaves, okra, amaranth leaves.  Of the 15 odd produce stalls in the market, there are only 4 that sell certified organic produce and most of these guys don’t sell the ‘interesting’ ones mentioned above.  The farmer who sells Tatsoi does not have any certification but always claims that his produce is grown organically and is pesticide free.  Indeed I have on occasion found a caterpillar or some other pest feasting amongst the leaves so it must be pesticide free, right?  The first time that happened, my knee jerk reaction was to pronounce the produce as ‘spoilt’ but then I remembered the times when I have pulled out Swiss Chard from my little veggie patch and found it to be a haven for a few different bugs which had to be rinsed off pretty vigorously.  My produce was far from being ‘spoilt’.  Since my tatsoi guy does not use any fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, irradiation, etc., I asked him why he did not get organic certification.  He responded quite matter of factly, “because we don’t want to keep giving the agency $700-$800 every year for doing nothing.”  Therein lies the problem with acquiring organic certification.  It is simply too much of a financial and labor burden for the smaller farmers since in additional to the steep fees, there is a lot of paperwork and record-keeping involved.

Trust Thy Farmer!

How then is the average consumer supposed to be assured whether what they are buying is really healthy or not?  It is a tough call to make but my tactic has been to talk to the people who are growing the produce as much as possible.  Once you start frequenting the market, you start recognizing the faces, you see entire families of farmers working the stalls.  You notice that they are practising sound farming techniques like crop rotation, etc.  You would never find them just selling one vegetable.  In fact their stalls look like a scaled up version of what a backyard vegetable patch would yield - smaller quantities of many different vegetables.  These are the people who know exactly where and how the fruit or vegetable grows.  They are happy to tell you how to pick a good one from a pile.  They will tell you the truth if you will but ask them.  They don't make false claims and their goal is to make a honest living.  For example, at my local market, there is a fruit seller from Visalia, CA who has an amazing variety of fruits throughout the seasons - plums, peaches, grapes, pomegranates, oranges, pears, you name it.  When I spoke to him, he vehemently claimed that he did not spray anything and that his produce was pesticide free but admitted using fertilizer to amend the soil.  That precludes him from getting any organic certification.   Do I buy his produce?  Yes I do.  At some level, I have equated pesticide free to be healthy.  

Organic at Costco
What about the certified organic produce at the supermarkets or at Costco, what is known in the food circles as ‘industrial organic’?  It is a little bit of a complicated issue.  On one hand, I do place an implicit trust in the organic certification labels because at the minimum it assures me that there are no health damaging pesticides or herbicides involved.  However the large scale operations tend to be mono-culture, ie. specializing in one or two select crops, require organic soil amendments and drain local water resources. Added to that is the fact that there is almost always some kind of processing involved with the big organic operations, ex. triple-washing, bagging as well as transportation over long distances.  The success of industrial organic then is largely achieved by ignoring the sustainability and environmental issues.  All that said and done, how can you argue the affordability of buying a big box of certified organic spinach or organic apples at Costco prices?  I can’t.

Healthy?  Organic?  Is there is a difference?
I suppose we all have to make our choices somewhere or the other.  For me it has boiled down to a multi-step decision making for buying my healthy produce.  

1. Buy local certified organic
2. Buy local ‘assured’ organic or ‘assured’ pesticide free  (yes, it is a huge leap of faith but I choose to believe the farmers I have spoken to)
3. Buy supermarket organic from so-called small farms (believe it or not, there is organic produce in supermarkets that comes from local or relatively local farms.  Read the labels and skip the stuff from Chile for the time being)
4. Buy industrial organic
5. Buy conventional if it is not listed on the Dirty Dozen of produce

Somewhere here there should be the option of buying a share in a CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) where you get a box of certified organic produce from a local farm on a regular basis.  I have no opinions on CSAs just yet since I have not tried them but have plans of doing so in the near future.  

And last but not the least, there is the exemption which I call ‘buy no matter what’, ie. something I have to buy whether it is organic or local or whatever only because I am spoilt and won’t give it up no matter what (for me this includes mangoes and bananas amongst a couple of other items).  The trick is to keep this list at a minimum.  

The bottom line is that we want produce that is healthy without breaking the bank.  In an ideal world we would want it without having hurt the planet or infringed upon someone’s human rights but for the time being lets just worry about getting healthy produce, OK?




1 Allen, Gary J. & Albala, Ken, ed (2007). The business of food: encyclopedia of the food and drink industries. ABC-CLIO. p. 288. ISBN 9780313337253.