Going Organic

After the news that the FDA said milk and meat from cloned livestock were safe for human consumption, I decided that my family needed to take the plunge and move from the more commercially available foods to those of an organic nature.

I've always felt that organics were better than your regular everyday food. Can it really be good for us to have pesticides, growth hormones, and antibiotics floating around in our systems all the time? But organic food is more expensive, even cost prohibitive for some.

This ruling by the FDA made me take a closer look at the expense of organics. I went to my local organic market, Wild Oats (recently bought out by Whole Foods), and did a little cost analysis of things I typically buy. The pre-cut and packaged pineapple was only $1 more, the vanilla I needed for baking was only around $0.75 more. The milk (around $3 a gallon at Kroger as opposed to $3 for a half gallon of Horizion Organic) and chicken ($10 for a bag of boneless, skinless breasts at Kroger vs. $7 for 2 organic, free range boneless, skinless breasts) were typically several dollars more. Most people believe that these areas (the milk and meat) are the two where most of the "nasties" come over, so it makes sense to me that it would be more expensive to produce these things "nasty-free."

The FDA has also said that the meat and milk of clone offspring have probably already been put into stores because they were "lost track of." Excuses, excuses.

Regardless, I wouldn't mind these things being marketed if they would just consent to label them. The same goes for the genetically modified produce, which I'm also uncomfortable with. Label them and I won't complain. I also won't buy them.