At a recent cocktail party featuring my favorite Northern Italian wines a guest came up to me and asked the question I always dread. It was this: “OK chef, (guest stops to take a gulp of Barolo) what are your views on organic foods, favorable, neutral or unfavorable? (another gulp). As I started to answer the guest drifted off to talk to someone else. Not being offended I decided to recite my answer standing right where I was in the middle of the floor and began speaking to no one in particular.
My words spewed forth effortlessly as I assumed a classic Aristotelian posture. Right arm raised, forefinger pointed up, and left arm holding my waist as if I wanted to make sure my toga didn’t fall off. I began by informing the absent listeners that my overall attitude is neutral, with a discernible bias toward the non-organic side of the equation. Almost instantly the pro-organic guests stopped their conversations and began to circle slowly around me with menacing frowns on their faces.
I braced myself and held my hand outward palm up, the same gesture Cicero liked to use when telling the unruly Roman Senate to back off. I then got going in earnest this time holding up my finger as if to say “wait till you hear this!” I then reached into my imaginary robes and drew out some papers, waving them before the crowd much like the famous WWII video of Neville Chamberlain announcing “peace in our time.”
The two papers are evenly split. One suggesting that organic food is a better choice for dinner tonight, other suggesting in no uncertain terms that organic foods do not pass the cost/benefit test so why waste your money? Now the kicker. Both papers come from unassailable and respected sources. The “pro” paper is a Q&A piece found in a newsletter published by the Mayo Clinic called Women’s Health Source, August 2010 .
The “not so fast” paper, cum footnotes and references, comes from a blog on the Scientific American website which advances the notion that the organics movement is precisely that – a gathering of like-minded folks whose attitudes are based more on unshakable faith and less on science. Needless to say the blog generated a host of criticism from the “pro” people, however the author, Christie Wilcox, a Ph.D. candidate in cell and molecular biology at the University of Hawaii at the time, says she is standing by what she wrote.
In a nutshell (a non-organic walnut shell) the shorthand case for both is as follows:
The Believers
1. Organic foods are healthier safer and more wholesome to eat, a statement that the U.S. Department of Agriculture considers to be true “for the most part.”
2. Organic farming does not harm the environment.
3. Organic foods taste better.
The Contrarians
1. The health and safety claims lack solid studies to confirm them. As for nutrition, according to the Mayo Clinic article studies have found no difference in nutritional quality. The Food and Drug Administration also says flatly: No difference! Hmm…are they not talking to their colleagues at Dept. of Agriculture???
2. Organic foods are not totally free of fungicides and pesticides. Even though the organic agents are touted as safer than non-organic substances in fact their effect on humans is totally unknown so far.
3. Organic foods flunk the cost/benefit test, i.e. their claimed improved taste and safety is far outweighed by their cost. (How about $3.99 for a bunch of three tiny organic beets at Harris Teeters?)|
4. Organic fruits and vegetables are somewhat smaller in size and don’t last as long in the kitchen, further aggravating the cost burden.
5. Most if not all commercial fungicides and pesticides that were shown to damage the envirnoment in some way are banned and no longer being used.
And so on.
At the conclusion of my dissertation I noticed small red projectiles headed my way coming from the gathering hostile crowd. Yikes, rotten organic tomatoes!!! I ducked.
No doubt this is an oversimplified version of a complex debate. Facts and figures probably will not materially change any opinions on either side so I say let’s just go about our business in the kitchen and be friends, ok? Meantime as I gazed out the kitchen window last summer I watched my latest crop of San Marzano and Roma tomatoes fighting off the cutworms and blossom end rot despite my dressing them up with every garden chemical known to man.
Next season I’ll try organic gardening, what the heck.