The Problem with Industrial Organic

I've always intended to read Omnivore's Dilemna, but I could never quite find the motivation to get me into such an informationally dense read. However, now that we're fully participating in the 100 mile diet, the Omnivore's Dilemna has provided much thought-provoking fodder.

Before embarking on the 100 mile diet, I was - like many of us - "greenwashed" into thinking that smacking the word Organic onto a product meant that it was in some way far healthier and much more sustainable than its commercial counterpart. However, I've come to learn that the industrial organic industry is just that...an industry. While many of the organic brands we've come to know by name today, such as Cascadian Farm, EarthBound Farm and Horizon, were once small, local businesses that were separate from industry, today they are unfortunately part of the organic industry. These companies started small, but then to keep up with demand, were forced to go big. But unfortunately we as consumers need to be educated on what industrial organic means.

In Omnivore's Dilemna, Pollan says that it takes 57 fuel calories to put 1 food calorie of EarthBound farms' baby greens on a table in Boston, Mass. The lettuce is grown organically in California but processed commercially and shipped across the country. Much energy is wasted in the transportation and packaging process. Similarly but different, much of the commercial organic milk we consume comes from cows who are treated no differently than non-organic-milk producing cows except for that they are given organic hay.

So what's a consumer to do? For starters, don't be greenwashed. Do your research. Find out where companies get their ingredients, and how organic those ingredients really are Second, consider purchasing local as frequently as possible. Local gives you an opportunity to get to know your farmers and products, and significantly diminishes the energy needed to transfer the products from farm to table.