"Organic"? Ugh.
a) Poster is DONE. Printed, laminated, etc. HAH. Take THAT, honey bees (and your susceptibility to european corn borer insecticides)!
b) Bones tonight made me twitchy and irritated. Because, seriously? "Organic, pesticide free, sustainable produce!" is an oxymoron. People need to learn these things, not be fed more crap by the media (yeah, Bones, I'm talking to YOU).
(and, believe it or not, I'm very environmentally conscious. I'm an Environmental Biology student!)
But organic food does NOT automatically equal "good" food.
"Certified organic" means that they CAN and WILL have used pesticides... they are just pesticides that got their idea (ie, main ingredient) from something in nature (ie- a toxin that a bacteria produces). Arsenic comes from nature. Cholera toxin is a bacterially produced toxin. These are "organic" by definition, but are NOT "good" things!
Agricultural areas are NOT natural habitats, and that's why they are so plagued by pests... if there was a giant FIELD of chocolate, wouldn't you just flock to it? Because organic food has less defense, it has a much larger tendency to be "ugly" - insects eat it/lay eggs on it/etc, and so nobody will buy it in a supermarket - to make a profit, those fruits/veggies are sent to be canned/bottled (mmm... tasty maggots!). If you don't use pesticides at ALL, the number of damaged items increases like crazy (Especially onions. I think the figure was something like 80% of onions grown without pesticides are tossed). Those fruits/vegetables that are totally destroyed by insect pests/fungi/weeds/etc are then thrown out. That's a HUGE amount of waste, and very little ends up being actually eaten.
We cannot sustain the planet's population on organic produce alone. I'm sorry, but it's true.
Just... don't worship the word "organic". It doesn't mean much.
...Can you tell? Misinterpretation of the word "organic" has become a HUGE pet peeve of mine.
I'll stop lecturing now. >.<
b) Bones tonight made me twitchy and irritated. Because, seriously? "Organic, pesticide free, sustainable produce!" is an oxymoron. People need to learn these things, not be fed more crap by the media (yeah, Bones, I'm talking to YOU).
(and, believe it or not, I'm very environmentally conscious. I'm an Environmental Biology student!)
But organic food does NOT automatically equal "good" food.
"Certified organic" means that they CAN and WILL have used pesticides... they are just pesticides that got their idea (ie, main ingredient) from something in nature (ie- a toxin that a bacteria produces). Arsenic comes from nature. Cholera toxin is a bacterially produced toxin. These are "organic" by definition, but are NOT "good" things!
Agricultural areas are NOT natural habitats, and that's why they are so plagued by pests... if there was a giant FIELD of chocolate, wouldn't you just flock to it? Because organic food has less defense, it has a much larger tendency to be "ugly" - insects eat it/lay eggs on it/etc, and so nobody will buy it in a supermarket - to make a profit, those fruits/veggies are sent to be canned/bottled (mmm... tasty maggots!). If you don't use pesticides at ALL, the number of damaged items increases like crazy (Especially onions. I think the figure was something like 80% of onions grown without pesticides are tossed). Those fruits/vegetables that are totally destroyed by insect pests/fungi/weeds/etc are then thrown out. That's a HUGE amount of waste, and very little ends up being actually eaten.
We cannot sustain the planet's population on organic produce alone. I'm sorry, but it's true.
Just... don't worship the word "organic". It doesn't mean much.
...Can you tell? Misinterpretation of the word "organic" has become a HUGE pet peeve of mine.
I'll stop lecturing now. >.<