Go Organic or Eat Local?

I eat organic fruits/veggies grown on my own property by my own hands with my own shovel, my own water, and my own soil with a bit of cow dung from down the street, which just so happens to be where I get my beef pork and lamb as well. All grown organic in my community. Nothing is quite like running down the road to the ranch, pointing to the animal you want in your freezer, and picking it up in packages a week or so later. It ALWAYS tastes sooooooo much better than any cut I get from safeway. Plus the money I spend on the product goes to a local family just down the road.

I eat organic fruits/veggies grown on my own property by my own hands with my own shovel, my own water, and my own soil with a bit of cow dung

When you are using everything of your own... you should use your own dung

_{(post is not to discuss what you are doing, but what everybody should do)}

Exactly! And the answer to that is Composting toilets - some good models out there that are simple to use and will produce good soil.

[Local markets, community gardens, and family farms are getting more attention nowadays, due in part to concern about the environment and the economy.] Are the above underlined words the main reason for attention? My first concern is safety of non-organic foods. If they are safe, there is no reason for organic foods. Has it been shown organic is healthier than non-organic?

The same can be said of free range chickens. Are they better than caged chickens?

I think you should buy the best cut of steak you can buy at the supermarket, then run across town (or wherever you need to go to find a good ranch/butcher shop) and buy the same cut of steak from a local butcher shop that is providing free range (maybe even grain fed if you really want a good steak) beef. Prepare them exactly the same, and do a taste test, I think you will find you answer.

I have always grown my own produce (grew up on a farm), the old fashion way, with dirt, poop, bone-meal, sunshine, sweat and water. I can guarantee without a doubt that if given the opportunity to do a blind taste test with one of my tomatoes on one plate, and a GM Tomato grown in a tomato factory from the supermarket on the other, you (and anyone else) would in no doubt choose my plump juicy red vine ripened tomato every time as the taste winner. We have a tomato taste off here in the old town which gets semi-national coverage, some of the fruit entered is out of this world, and organic.

I have had some of the worst meat/produce in my life from the supermarkets, It just has no flavor. It's grown fast, and big, with little/no respect for the real flavor.

I'm not saying that just because something is organic or locally grown it's going to be better all the time, cause lord knows there are a LOT of people out there who just don't know how to grow a good plant for the life of them.

An interesting fact:

I spent a couple years with a Turkish family. They would not stop complaining about the quality of food in the US. They always said it looks great, and is big, but tastes like nothing. They said all the meat back in the east (which was natural) had 10 fold the flavor of what we eat in the states. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with geography? who knows, I just heard it as a common complaint about bland ingredients here. Could It be that most of our produce comes from areas where nothing is supposed to live? We did turn our deserts into artificial agricultural oasis.

Plus, in the end, It's just rewarding to grow your own food, just makes you feel good.

The same can be said of free range chickens. Are they better than caged chickens?

a Yankee by birth, a Mississippian by choice

?? not that you're a chicken but are you better off

Please name a non-organic food; as far as I know, if it comes from a biological entity, it is organic, though salts, minerals and metals naturally occur on them, even if they grew where the man's foot has never set hand.

Yahlasit

guest, its organic if the government tells you ir organic. Stop acting like you have a mind of your own.

"Organic" Is making use of terminology recognized by government and consumers alike to be of a certain level of quality.

Grow my own veg but have only limited space so mainly grow only that which I know really does taste much better fresh from the soil, e.g. new potatoes, peas, sweetcorn, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, outdoor tomatoes. There really is a BIG difference in flavour if you select the right varieties. I also grow some salad stuff to save cash, but I can't say it tastes that much better than shop-bought. I also get free-range eggs from a local farm - same price as barn eggs from supermarket and better taste.

Have my own preferences for meat supplies but can't seem to find anywhere that sells bacon that's worth the name. What's happened to the taste of bacon? It tastes nothing like my mum used to serve me (admittedly 40-odd years ago!).

Until an outbreak of e Coli breaks out. Then all you organic nut munchers will be screaming.

In an orchard where a good part of the orchard growers also raise other animals. to fertilize the orchard they spread the waste there. When I was working in the orchards shaking cherries (I was hauling pallets from the orchard to the cooling pads on the farm) it was common to pull a dried up animal waste from these pallets. these practices have been refined even more where less workers are involved for this quality check.

I am sure the growers change there spreading schedules to end a little bit earlier in the season prior to shaking.

This practice has been going on even before your great grand father was born.

One more thing that was a problem, the area was pretty commercialized for vacationers. the problem at the time is when the vacationers would visit before harvest, they would sneak into the orchards and pick green cherries, and eat it. Then blame everything else for their case Montezuma revenge.....except their stupidity.

bon apetit

Then all you organic nut munchers will be screaming.

Wow. So growing your own food makes you a nut muncher? Taking what few pleasures this mortal life has to offer, and enjoying them(I'm talking about loving good food here).

I suppose you just don't care how your food tastes?

Human fertilizer has and still is being used by billions of people all over the world. That's about as organic as you can get.

The ultimate recycling program?

I'll opt out of using Human waste... I lean towards chicken and cow waste, with bone meal added for the big tasty veggies/fruit. They go crazy for bone meal.

Growing my own food is 90% for the pleasure of it. It's just a feel good thing to eat what you grow, have your hard work pay out. But the Icing on the cake is the extremely high quality of the food.

This year, I'm living in the city, which makes things much more difficult. I only grew 3 tomato plants, a bunch of potatoes, onions, Carrots, Garlic, rosemary, oregano, basil, thyme, spearmint, parsley, cilantro, and sage. My neighbors never complained, even when my plants took over the common area in the building. What was interesting, is after my mini-garden took off, I saw others attempting to grow their own mini gardens as well. I just Enjoy having the herb garden for cooking, even If I cant have the big garden to feed the neighborhood.

When I was a boy I ran a produce stand. My mum and I grew all the produce with our bare hands. What I couldn't eat or sell, we took down to the local mission/church/food drop... or give away to anyone who needed food. We always grew enough food to feed a small army, It just made us feel good. I was always amazed at how many people would come by the house, and tell us how great the food was, and how much better it was when compared to the supermarket. I'm sure much of that was fluff, but it just felt good.

^{BTW: I am not what anyone could even begin to stereotype as a "hippie", or "nut cruncher". In fact, If you saw me walking down the street, or driving my rig, you would think the exact opposite.}

I just like good food.

I agree with you on good food. I try to buy my vegetables from the local oriental grocer. When I lived in San Francisco, I could buy the freshest vegetables, fish, chickens and meats in Chinatown. The Chinese insist on the best quality food. When you buy a chicken or fish, they kill it and clean it right on the spot. The only other place I saw that done was in the orient. They maintain that a fresh killed chicken tastes better than a store bought one. I'm sure they're right.

My father was Chinese and he would buy his chickens, fish, turkeys live and kill them at home. My mother who was not Chinese, wouldn't eat if she knew the food had been killed in the house.

So growing your own food makes you a nut muncher?

can be construed as that, but I really did mean it that way....only organic.

see post #8 and #15

I have a farming background. we ate what was in season...and overindulge in it. strawberries, apples (on a cold October day, when you bite into it it pops), corn, peas, raw milk, meats.

I should have been more specific. But have you seen what an organic apple looks like. There is a difference between fresh fruits and vegetables and organic fruits and vegetables. And having grown your own you do know that.

But some of the new breeds do not have the taste and consistencies as the heirloom varieties. no I care what my food taste like, and their is a difference.

But as far as organic, I would rather not go there.....unless I have to.

And because you grow your own food does not make it so called organic, what ever the government specification for organic is.

Growing your own food there is a difference, just can't throw around terminology so loosely.

Eat local, yes....eat organic? even that is commercialized buzzword that no longer has meaning

I dont grow nuts... ^{(Well, I grew two)}

But, yes I agree, the term "organic" has lost its meaning.

Over the years 'organic' has become a marketing label and has lost a good part of its meaning. We grow our own garden, raise our own chickens, turkeys, goats and cow, and catch salmon and steelhead from the river flowing through our backyard. And, after that, if we need to buy groceries, we buy local first and organic second. We are lucky to live in a area where we can go to a farm and see the quality of food and its production. An organic label on some package of food only means the food producer filled out the right forms. There is no real enforcement of organic standards.

I agree 100%. The word "Organic" has no real meaning anymore. However, the word "Local" still holds some value (at least for me). Keep the money as close to home as possible when buying products. "Home grown" is always the best.

"There are two things money can't buy: True Love and Homegrown Tomatoes."

The pollen of the commercially grown GM plants is carried by wind into the non-GMO fields and then what have you got?

I actually live within a county which has banned the commercial growing of GM foods. Although, I found it audacious that a organic rape seed farmer in Canada was successfully sued by Monsanto for "allowing" his crops to be pollinated by a neighboring GM field and using the resulting seed.

Too bad an ambulance chasing attorney was not there, there have been a counter suit by the farmer against Monsanto for contanminating (raping, no pun intended) his crop.

And those attorney's are there

In some countries the ideal of being innocent before proven guilty is a foreign concept.

I think that we need to be aware about the process to grow the organic food, as it can use some organic materials that can even contaminate the food. So, I think that we need to merge the technologies to produce organic and the large scale agroindustrial food, so that we can sum the benefits from each other, including the low prices of the agroindustrial foods.

For some food information, please acess http://www.t-pizza.com where you can find some recipes, sauces and information about food, and related tools and processes.

Thanks for reading.