Go shopping in any large supermarket in a Western country and you are likely to find yourself bombarded with enticements to purchase ‘organic’ produce. In so doing, you are made to feel as if you have added a personal contribution to the welfare of our dear green planet.
Those slightly higher prices surely are a justified donation in support of hard‐working local farmers, struggling to compete with predatory agri‐business. Why, their produce has probably been brought to the shelves directly from the field, lovingly delivered on the back of someone’s bicycle saving all the waste and pollution of air‐shipment from some slave plantation in another hemisphere.
Not to mention the care that you have taken to protect your own health, along with that of your family, dinner‐party guests, and so on. Those malformed carrots, liberally smeared with muck and marked by injuries sustained from a hand‐held farm implement, just look so much more real. Why would anyone other than a brainwashed ignoramus ever purchase anything from the regular produce shelves?
The fact that one of the criteria demarcating organic products from the ‘inorganic’ variety is the complete absence of any genetically modified ingredients, should nevertheless give us pause for thought.
But, is it really true that organic food is infused with natural vitamins and ethical values and free from extraneous toxins? The answer can be inferred from looking carefully at the laws that govern the use of the term ‘organic’.
Read the full, original article: Poison running through my veins
