Organic

[xoxoxoBruce]

This could have gone in the food thread... or the parenting thread, for that matter, but here it is.
The Organic Trade Association (OTA) is the membership-based business association for the organic industry in North America. They've put together a list that's kind of scary.

Organic agriculture minimizes children’s exposure to toxic and persistent pesticides in the soil in which they play, the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the foods they eat.
Here are reasons why minimizing exposure to toxic and persistent pesticides is so important:

There is a list of 9 things that are happening to children because of the excess use of pesticides, along with the sources of their claims.
I think this is more important than ever because of the tremendous increase in food being imported from places that allow much stronger chemical concoctions than can be used here.

Caution: It's not just for pet food any more.

[Beestie]

My reply in Cloud's scary-as-hell post about Chinese food applies here as well.

Good info, xo.

[xoxoxoBruce]

As a side note, here's a BusinessWeek article from last October, on the current state of the organic food business.

As food companies scramble to find enough organically grown ingredients, they are inevitably forsaking the pastoral ethos that has defined the organic lifestyle. For some companies, it means keeping thousands of organic cows on industrial-scale feedlots. For others, the scarcity of organic ingredients means looking as far afield as China, Sierra Leone, and Brazil -- places where standards may be hard to enforce, workers' wages and living conditions are a worry, and, say critics, increased farmland sometimes comes at a cost to the environment.

This reinforces my concerns about not knowing where what you're eating is coming from.

A lot of those foreign markets are not monitored.
I was an organic farmer. It was a serious problem.

[Perry Winkle]

I've always wanted to be a farmer. After my grandfather got back from Korea he started farming and has been doing that and heavy equipment work forever. Me-thinks it might be time to start thinking about starting an organic farm. I seem to have lots of friends that would be helpful...

[Cloud]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Caution: It's not just for pet food any more.

you're just figuring this out now?

[xoxoxoBruce]

No.

[Aliantha]

Even if you grow your own veges and don't use pesticides and use natural fertilizers such as animal droppings or fish scales and seaweed, you still don't have an organic garden unless you've got no pollutants comming from anywhere including seepage through the soil, air pollutants and water pollutants.

If you live anywhere near the city you are fighting a losing battle to save yourself from pollutants although with that in mind, I live in the city and what plants and veges we grow for the table don't have pesticides used on them and in general, it's water from the tank used for watering.

It's difficult to protect your family in modern times, but I still think that any little thing you can do is better than doing nothing.

[Aliantha]

I seem to have won the grasshopper war without pesticides. I'm now what you might consider to be a mass murderer.

Did you know those bastard creatures were eating my chillis before they were even ripe. In fact, they seemed to prefer the flowers and new green fruits before they came into their true colour.

There are a lot of headless grasshopper skeletons in my side garden now and my new chilli crop is just about ready to be picked.

[busterb]

I'm on the way to spray some weed killer and some pesticides now.
Something is eating my new beans. Think snail or slugs?
When I find a better way I'll use it.

[Aliantha]

Try garlic in a spray bottle with water. It works pretty well. Also you can try planting things that bugs don't like such as marigolds among the lettuce. I'll see if I can find a site about 'natural' pesticides which might help.

[Aliantha]

OK, here's a couple of links.

http://www.ghorganics.com/page9.html

http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/susta...control/7.html

[TheMercenary]

"Organic". Highly over used. Highly marketed.

[Aliantha]

What do you mean?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

What do you mean?

The term "organic" as a marketing label is unregulated in the US. Many products with such labels are not really organic in the sense that many believe and idiots will buy them because they say they are "organic" when in fact the company is attempting to sell the product to the consumer on a false pretense. The history of mass marketing is actually a fantastic study. Group think is predictable. People often buy products based on the label and don't really stop to think about why they are paying money, sometimes extra money, for products they believe are in some way superior to other like things on shelf next to those they are willing to drop out an extra few dollars on. "Fat free" is another great example. Companies have begun to label things FF that have always been such. But all of a sudden it is a grand marketing tool that the mass consumers have absorbed in their attempt to eat FF or Organic or Green. The whole thing is a grand marketing scheme in MHO.