A Live Green, Live Smart™ Briefing
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Organic and whole foods are losing their counter-culture identity and finding their way into middle-class shopping carts at a rate that has increased by 20% in the past ten years, and is predicted to continue double-digit annual increase over the next decade.

What’s the big deal? Consumers have become increasingly interested in the personal and environmental health issues surrounding their dinner table choices.  Aging baby boomers are looking for ways to extend life and stay health. Young parents are wary of the increasing incidence of asthma, food allergies, autism and hyperactivity in children.  Teens and young professionals already accustomed to healthier lifestyles are gravitating to organic brands and and identities. 

The regulatory term “organic” identifies products grown without pesticides or artificial fertilizers, without genetically modified organisms, hormones, antibiotics, or irradiation. There are three USDA-certified Organic labels:

• “100 percent Organic” means all ingredients are organic – produced without artificial fertilizers, pesticides, or additives such as hormones and antibiotics.
• “Organic” means 95 percent of the product is organic.
• “Made With Organic Ingredients” means at least 70 percent of the product is organic. 
  

Every state in the U.S. now has some certified organic farmland, and organic products are now sold in 73 per cent of conventional grocery stores around the nation.  In a 1997 study titled “The Evolving Organic Marketplace” done by the Hartman and New Hope Industry group, the top five reasons consumers give for choosing to buy organic are:

• Healthfulness (80%)
• Availability in regular supermarkets (69%)
• Environmental friendliness (67%)
• Price (64%)
• Convenience of preparation (53%)

Hop down to your local supermarket and you’ll most likely see double in the produce aisle, one bin of organic tomatoes, say, and one of conventionally grown tomatoes.  While there is no definitive research to prove one way or the other the superiority of organics versus conventionally grown foods (the number of variables in such an experiment are so many that some researchers feel it would be an impossibly daunting task), consensus among major groups such as the USDA and the Organic Farming Research Foundation is that there is no added nutritional value in organic foods, but there is a significantly lower amount of pesticides and other toxins found in organic foods.  In fact, a 2002 study by the Organic Material Review Institute showed that only 13% of organic produce contained pesticide residue, whereas 71% of conventionally grown produce had residue.  

And some organic produce is more cost-effective than others if your effort is primarily to avoid chemicals at an affordable price. The Consumers Union of the United States says it pays for you to buy organic when choosing apples, peaches, spinach, milk, and beef; but asparagus and broccoli showed undetectable pesticide levels in conventional growing methods, and organic seafood caught in the wild is not certifiably “organic” in the way fish grown in commercial farms can be labeled.

When you buy meat, dairy, and eggs, check for cage-free and free range labels – but be suspicious.  Truly cage-free and free range animals need less antibiotic than conventionally farmed animals, because they are not crowded together in confinement that increases the likelihood of disease and infection.  Truly grass-fed animals use less soil, pesticide, water than grain-fed animals.  Antibiotic-free animals do not pass along these bio-accumulated substances to humans, in whom disease organisms are growing resistant to antibiotics.  But be wary -- the requirements behind these terms are vague, and the animals may not be receiving the idyllic treatment the labels suggest.

When shopping for organic foods you may notice that they’re typically priced higher than conventional products, sometimes two times as much. While some of this price difference is due to supply and demand, it’s mostly due to the decreased yields of organic products versus conventional. But as farmers get better at farming organically and as demand for these sustainably grown products grows, this price gap will close.

And there are benefits that are hard to put a price tag on when you consider the deleterious effects that can be avoided by increased use of organics: the reduction of chemicals in your food and your body makes for better health and peace of mind; less water pollution and soil erosion means less need to restore these resources, because organic farmers use crop rotation and cover crops to improve the quality of soil, helping it to retain moisture and nutrients.

The growth of interest in organic foods will benefit the marketplace in many ways, not the least of which is to get producers and vendors to pay attention to the fact that consumers are watching what they eat – and where and how it’s grown.  And that’s a trend that can only improve the state of the planet.