mastererobert
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Joined: 6/5/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyTeazer
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ORIGINAL: lilsubl
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Organic produce is healthier. But why does it cost so damn much more than "regular" produce??? At least half again as much, often double or more the price. You don't have the added expense of buying numerous chemicals to treat the crops, you don't have the added expense of the time and labor involved to treat the fields, yet organic will "always" cost you more.
one of the reasons that "Organic" produce is more expensive is that less is produced in the same space...in other words, more of the apples on that "Organic" tree do get eaten by the worms...then you have the smaller end products due to lack of the chemical fertilizers & other goodies used to make the "regular" produce, ummmm, produce...so the farmer has less to sell from his acreage...then there are the outbreaks of e.coli from the manure used to naturally fertilize, or from the water used to irrigate it...some farmers have to plow under entire crops due to things like this...
the reason that i put "Organic" into quotes for the purpose of this post is that very little that we get in the marketplace is actually chemical free, because the chemicals used at the "regular" farm are spread through the water table & the air to the "Organic" farm.....
I agree with what you have said, lilsubl. I should have mentioned those points in My post, but it is difficult to capture 'all' of My thoughts, as My mind works 100 times faster than My fingers do!
Organic produce costs more because the total yield of the crop is less (than 'regular' produce), and the individual fruits and/or veggies are smaller, so the farmer has to try and recover as much of his original expenses as possible. But still......
I also know that it is not possible for produce to be 100% organic, due to the contamination of the air and ground water. And sometimes, an entire organic crop will be lost due to contamination, like run-off that carries e. coli in it.
LadyTeazer ---- definitely a WOW -- Wonderful Older Woman
I have also read that organic farming is more expensive because more of the actual cost of creating the end product (fruit, veggie, whatever) is passed on to the consumer compared to large-scale conventional farming. Yes, there are large organic farms, but many more are small farms. IIRC various tax breaks and subsidies from the government play a big role in determining the final cost at the supermarket and that smaller farms get less of these. So yes, chemical treatment (pest reduction, size increase) and economies of scale play a role in the cost gap, but politics also appears to contribute to the higher cost of eating well.
So....can we redirect the tax on unhealthy stuff to support smaller organic farmers and help bring the cost of eating healthy down for everyone? Also, while increased demand for organic/healthy food might increase costs temporarily, the industry is booming and costs should continue to come down long term as supply increases and production methods become more sophisticated/economies of scale kick in.
Last point before I cut this off to avoid ramlingpostitis, but recent research suggests that high soy product consumption might not be the best thing for you. Considering that many mass market "health products" (e.g. veggie burgers from your previous post) are high in soy, this is another reason to stick with the true health foods (real fruits, veggies, grains, etc) rather than the processed stuff.
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