The organic bandwagon

Buying organic is totally en vogue these days. I think buying organic is great. Less chemicals in our food is a good thing. Now my information on all things organic is a little out of date. But waaaaaay back in my college nutrition class this is how it was explained to me. At that point in time, the jury was still out on if pesticides were harmful to consumers. There was no scientific proof that the amount we consumed was harming our health. BUT, the farmers and their families were the ones suffering from being exposed to large amounts of airborn pesticides. It was them getting diagnosed with leukemia and other types of cancer at disproportional rates. So for the sake of the farmers, it was a good thing to buy organic and support organic farming. If their health is at risk, why don't more farmers go organic you ask? It costs more to farm organically. The government gives subsidies for pesticides, but does not give subsidies for alternative methods (whatever those may be - I don't know). So if we are willing to pay higher prices for organic products, farmers will be more willing to farm organically. So my initial push to buy organic was to save the farmers and their kids. Now it just seems like a smart thing to do. There are so many more cases of cancer, ADD, ADHD, autism, etc, that you have to wonder how much of it is affected by environmental changes in the last couple of decades. Who's to say whether it's pesticides, preservatives, immunizations, microwaves, or the fact that we live in a plastic society. So my thought is to eliminate as much of all that crap as possible. There have been so many new products and inventions that were supposed to make our lives simpler, easier, & just plain better. But some where along the way we lost sight of health. And Earth. Everything is disposable. Are our lives so much better since we don't have to wash things anymore?

Oh back to organic. My main reason for even starting this post. I think it's good that people buy organic. But it's getting annoying how it's becoming some kind of status symbol. Like when you ask for a recipe and the person lists "organic" in front of each item. It's not like organic food tastes better. And it's not like because it's organic it's healthy. An organic candy bar is still a candy bar, only no crop dusters flew over the cocoa beans. People act like organic food has some special ingredient. It doesn't. It's just got less chemicals that supposedly don't hurt us anyway. Remember, the jury is still out on this.

Now go eat your organic ice cream.