Do You Eat Organic?

I noticed the box of bunny shaped graham crackers we bout this week says it's organic.

Does that count? ;)

Sure, because the bunnies weren't fed any antibiotics or hormones.

All I can tell you is we lead a very healthy lifestyle without spending the extra $$ on "organic" things and we have yet to grow a third eye or a tail or anything.
 
Some yes, some no; depends, certainly. I'll buy local over organic certified anytime. I'll buy jello, goldfish, etc. in the original brands because the kids are really attached to some products. Non-fish meat I almost always buy from a local place. Fish and shellfish I honestly have no idea where they come from and I really should. In this regard, I'm a terrible consumer. We also *try* to eat at all local farm to table places; our family fave across the street lets us know where almost all ingredients originate and it's a mere cheap bootie gastro pub kinda place. But, we also have nights where the kids are doing something special and its late and we'll get fast food/delivery/take out. I'm not perfect. I try to throw some fruit in with that, but I ain't always proud. That gastro pub I mentioned though? I can feed the kids (and their daddy and I can have a cocktail - we walk; don't judge!) for almost the same as a happy meal and not feel bad in regards to what I fed them. They LOVE the place and sometimes quite honestly, I'm lazy.

My mom farms and we can a good bit and the summer is plentiful; but you can't rely on it. Last year was crap here for tomatoes, whereas we'd usually can a couple hundred quarts of tomatoes, tomato juice, and other tomato products. We had plenty from years past, but that is a factor in my life too.
 
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I buy organic milk, non organic expires within a week while organic lasts a month. Milk shouldn’t last forever but it also shouldn’t expire in a week.
 
Thank you for researching that in order to correct me. I was mistaken in my use of the term 100%. As explained in your articles, meat is considered to be hormone and antibotic free at or below certain minimal levels, above which it cannot be marketed. And as for the first article about the beef, the "raised without the use of antibiotics" label is quite ubiquitous here in Alberta cattle country where much of the meat in our grocery stores comes from local farms/ranches and local processing plants. It would, however, be wrong to imply that all meat everywhere in Canada is raised without ever having been exposed to antibiotics.
 


Nope and I am not going to. I am more interested in sourcing then I am in pretty words.

Also, most food and diet documentaries are HORRIBLE. Super crazy biased and horrible science. I only watch things like that if I want a good laugh.
 
Sure, because the bunnies weren't fed any antibiotics or hormones.

All I can tell you is we lead a very healthy lifestyle without spending the extra $$ on "organic" things and we have yet to grow a third eye or a tail or anything.
Wait for it...:rotfl2:Personally, if the third eye sprouts in the back of your head I'd consider it a benefit! ;)
 
Whenever I can I do. It is not "hype" to want to eat things that have not been sprayed/injected with chemicals.
My body is a temple that I am not always nice to - hello yummy wine, hello yummy nachos - so eating things without hormones, or antibiotics or pesticides makes my body happy.

Organic doesn’t mean it hasn’t been sprayed with chemicals. The chemicals just need to be naturally occurring. Rotenone (which is highly toxic) was a pesticide that could be used on organic crops. Pyrethrin is also allowed.

http://npic.orst.edu/ingred/organic.html
 


Organic doesn’t mean it hasn’t been sprayed with chemicals. The chemicals just need to be naturally occurring. Rotenone (which is highly toxic) was a pesticide that could be used on organic crops. Pyrethrin is also allowed.

http://npic.orst.edu/ingred/organic.html
Is one of those made from nicotine? I just heard a long discussion about that on talk radio the other day stating how effective and enviro-conscious it is. (Subject to debate of course. The discussion was in the context of commercial bee-keeping.)
 
From the Canada Beef article you linked, page 2" While the use of medically important antibiotics for growth promotion in cattle has always been limited, it is now being phased out completely in Canada. The transition is anticipated to occur by December 2016 and is supported by Canadian farmers and ranchers who recognize the importance of careful use of medically important antibiotics."

Bolding is mine

Updated link:
https://canadabeef.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/3430_CANBEEF_factsheet_ANTIBIOTICS-DEC2017.pdf

ANTIBIOTICS AND FEED EFFICIENCY While the use of medically important antibiotics for growth promotion has always been limited, this practice will no longer be permitted after December 2018, a requirement that is supported by Canada’s farmers and ranchers. There is an exception for a class of antibiotics called ionophores. Ionophores are feed additives used in cattle diets in small amounts to increase feed efficiency and weight gain. While ionophores are technically classified as an antibiotic, they are not used as antibiotics in human medicine. Ionophores work by controlling a type of parasite that can infect cattle and also allow beneficial bacteria in the animals rumen to become more efficient. An additional benefit is that cattle fed ionophores may produce less methane gas and also produce beef using less feed which is helpful from an environmental perspective. Antibiotics in cattle will continue to be used judiciously and with veterinary oversight to treat sickness and to prevent disease.
 
Nope, when it's farmer's market time here (April through Sept.) I try to buy my fruits and veggies there but frankly our little farmer's market is a joke and unless you want tomatoes, there really isn't much to choose from. Organic is too expensive and I just don't really see the difference, I spray insecticide on my roses so it would be kind of silly.
 
Like it's supposed to. Produce that doesn't spoil makes me wonder why. Not natural at all. Food isn't meant to last forever.
Lol. I don’t need my produce to last forever. A few extra days longer than the organic produce works for me though.
 
I don't know if it's organic, but we shop sometimes from local farm shops. It's tricky with the dogs in tow, as they think they've died and gone to doggy heaven with all the different smells around them!
 
Is one of those made from nicotine? I just heard a long discussion about that on talk radio the other day stating how effective and enviro-conscious it is. (Subject to debate of course. The discussion was in the context of commercial bee-keeping.)

Pyrethrin comes from chrysanthemum. Rotenone is from jicama. I don’t believe nicotine is allowed any more, although it’s a really effective insecticide. Organic isn’t necessarily about food safety, but about a philosophy on not using synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.
 
I always buy organic everything, mostly make my own everything from scratch. We are lucky here that there is a lot of organic cafe's restaurants, farmers markets. That's the best part of living in California, the freshness of the local foods, produce, grass fed meats, pasture raised organic eggs.
The price is outrageous though. Anyone else buy organic?

Nope. I don't make it a point to shop organics and won't any time soon. The problem is organic has become little more than a cynical marketing ploy.
There are several different organic pesticide and herbicide compounds allowed on organic crops and some of these substances are as bad or worse for you than the artificial ones. Organic yields of several crops are up to 50% less than the same crop conventionally farmed. This wastes water. And if you're in a state like California well uh water shouldn't be wasted. It also wastes farmland as the land isn't yielding what it could and yet suffers the same damage. Oh but wait. There's more. It would suffer the same damage were it not for organics requiring more tillage and soil prep burning more fuel and causing more topsoil erosion.
So in sum. Not much if any safer, worse for the environment, more expensive for my wallet. No thanks. Don't need it.

Let's go to those pasture raised eggs. You would think oh this is from joe's little farm and there are chickens running around a pasture all day. That's nice. But you would be wrong. There are virtually no enforceable standards as to how long a chicken has to be outside to count as pasture. A chicken can live the vast majority of its existence in a cage, be allowed to run on a concrete floor for awhile and spend less than a minute a day actually seeing daylight and count as pasture. The requirements are a joke and full of so many loopholes as to make the label useless.

Now let's go to grass fed beef. All cattle at some point eat some grass. And in fact grass is mostly what they all eat for a large portion of their lives. The difference comes in when it's time to prepare them for market. Here again there are loopholes so as to make the label useless. If grass isn't "practical" they can feed it grain. And of course they get to still label it grass fed. And again there really isn't an enforceable standard. Now when people see grass fed, they see alfalfa, fescue, and kale salad with a nice raspberry vinegarette. Uh no.


This is how to make grass pellets.

So that grass fed beef might actually have some grain in its diet or quite a bit and they still can label it grass fed. Further, cattle fed only grass take longer to prepare for market and produces lower volumes of meat at a lesser quality. That's more water, for the feed, more fuel, and more environmental cost. But CW4D, that grass fed beef I get is every good as the other. Yes it sure is (and I'm no being sarcastic.) It really is as good. And it is less bad for you too. But what you're not seeing is the beef that didn't make it to the super market because it flat out wasn't good enough.
So once again, a bit better for you, not appreciably safer though, and worse for the environment and more expensive for my wallet.

Bottom line. If you have a local farm near you where you can get certain things and see how they do things and know exactly what you're getting, well do that.
But if you're buying these things at the super, you're probably not getting quite what you imagined you were when you read the label and you're paying extra money for it too.
 
Nope. I don't make it a point to shop organics and won't any time soon. The problem is organic has become little more than a cynical marketing ploy.
There are several different organic pesticide and herbicide compounds allowed on organic crops and some of these substances are as bad or worse for you than the artificial ones. Organic yields of several crops are up to 50% less than the same crop conventionally farmed. This wastes water. And if you're in a state like California well uh water shouldn't be wasted. It also wastes farmland as the land isn't yielding what it could and yet suffers the same damage. Oh but wait. There's more. It would suffer the same damage were it not for organics requiring more tillage and soil prep burning more fuel and causing more topsoil erosion.
So in sum. Not much if any safer, worse for the environment, more expensive for my wallet. No thanks. Don't need it.

Let's go to those pasture raised eggs. You would think oh this is from joe's little farm and there are chickens running around a pasture all day. That's nice. But you would be wrong. There are virtually no enforceable standards as to how long a chicken has to be outside to count as pasture. A chicken can live the vast majority of its existence in a cage, be allowed to run on a concrete floor for awhile and spend less than a minute a day actually seeing daylight and count as pasture. The requirements are a joke and full of so many loopholes as to make the label useless.

Now let's go to grass fed beef. All cattle at some point eat some grass. And in fact grass is mostly what they all eat for a large portion of their lives. The difference comes in when it's time to prepare them for market. Here again there are loopholes so as to make the label useless. If grass isn't "practical" they can feed it grain. And of course they get to still label it grass fed. And again there really isn't an enforceable standard. Now when people see grass fed, they see alfalfa, fescue, and kale salad with a nice raspberry vinegarette. Uh no.


This is how to make grass pellets.

So that grass fed beef might actually have some grain in its diet or quite a bit and they still can label it grass fed. Further, cattle fed only grass take longer to prepare for market and produces lower volumes of meat at a lesser quality. That's more water, for the feed, more fuel, and more environmental cost. But CW4D, that grass fed beef I get is every good as the other. Yes it sure is (and I'm no being sarcastic.) It really is as good. And it is less bad for you too. But what you're not seeing is the beef that didn't make it to the super market because it flat out wasn't good enough.
So once again, a bit better for you, not appreciably safer though, and worse for the environment and more expensive for my wallet.

Bottom line. If you have a local farm near you where you can get certain things and see how they do things and know exactly what you're getting, well do that.
But if you're buying these things at the super, you're probably not getting quite what you imagined you were when you read the label and you're paying extra money for it too.
That is one good thing about living in California, we get to see the animals & the farms.
We only buy grass fed/ grass finished beef.
I love raw milk here too, I've been drinking it from a local farm it's much healthier for you than pasteurized milk. & the taste, I can never go back.

I'm sure it will be a different story when we move to Florida, I'll have to look carefully where to buy food for us.
 
I buy organic milk, non organic expires within a week while organic lasts a month. Milk shouldn’t last forever but it also shouldn’t expire in a week.
Non-organic milk here usually is good for about 3 weeks after purchase. I would be suspicious of "organic" milk that lasts a month. It HAS to have been processed (super heated or something )somehow to get that kind of shelf life.
Having said that, we started buying that Fairlife ultra filtered non-fat milk a few months back. The jug I bought Sunday has an expiration date of August 16th!!! Yup, I buy milk made by Coca Cola because I love milk, but I don't need all the sugar.
 
Pyrethrin comes from chrysanthemum. Rotenone is from jicama. I don’t believe nicotine is allowed any more, although it’s a really effective insecticide. Organic isn’t necessarily about food safety, but about a philosophy on not using synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.
Thanks. This "philosophy" seems counter-intuitive. Many areas of life have competing/conflicting priorities though, I guess. I would think a natural product (flower juice!!) with limited toxicity that allowed for an increased viable crop yield without a larger foot print or water consumption would be a no-brainer. :confused3
 
That is one good thing about living in California, we get to see the animals & the farms.
We only buy grass fed/ grass finished beef.
I love raw milk here too, I've been drinking it from a local farm it's much healthier for you than pasteurized milk. & the taste, I can never go back.

I'm sure it will be a different story when we move to Florida, I'll have to look carefully where to buy food for us.

Everything I described describes California too. It's even worse out there because they have an agribusiness organic lobby that defends these practices with an almost religious ferver.
Raw Milk? Yet another scam.

The facts.
1. Pasteurization does not eliminate or destroy any nutrient that milk is a good source of.
Fats, lactose. These are unaffected.
Proteins and minerals, these are unaffected.
Vitamin A. Actually increased by pasteurization.
Vitamin's B1, B12, C, and E are indeed reduced by pasteurization. But no matter. Milk is not a good source for these to begin with.
Vitamin D, contrary to myth of the raw milk advocates, it was never in there to begin with. Pasteurization did not eliminate it. It was fortified along with several other things way back because of rickets.
Lactobacillis. Our bodies produce it naturally. We don't need to get it from Milk.

2. Without qualification, Raw Milk is more dangerous than is Pasteurized. About 80% of reports of tainted milk caused sicknesses, hospitalizations, and death to the CDC involve Raw Milk or products made with it. Just 20% involve Pasteurized. And Pasteurized share of the market dwarfs that of raw. It isn't a huge risk., nor even a big one. It has been so far a small one. Will it remain so if raw milk gains any sort of share in the market though? Given that it has such a small share of the market vs pasteurized, and is responsible for 80% of tainted milk problems, I do not think it will remain a small problem in that case and the true risk will come out. In any case it's a risk that doesn't have to be taken given virtually no benefit.
3. Raw milk has not been scientifically shown to prevent, nor cure any disease. None.
This whole idea that exposing one to more stuff makes the body immune is well not a good one. That is essentially what Vaccines do. If Raw milk truly inocculated against the things its advocates say it does, some enterprising company would have made a vaccine with it long ago.
 
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No, we don't. And we're pretty sensitive to eating healthy - like we eat lots of quinoa and freekah and vegetables and such and much less meat then we used to. BUT I still always have a bag of Tyson Chicken nuggets in the freezer for when half the neighborhood shows up and wants lunch.

I do imagine that we are health conscious enough that if we could afford it we would probably buy more organic, but that's not gonna happen right now. It's enough to worry about saturated fat and sugar and all that, there's only so much my brain can take.
 

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