Why we don’t eat organic.

This topic was actually started by my daughter. She got in the truck yesterday after school, I proceed to ask my usual questions “how was school? Did you have fun? Was everyone nice to you”. She happily answered them all, then asked me “Mama are we allergic to organic, is that why we don’t eat it?’

Not gonna lie here, it totally caught me off guard, but I figured I’d just give her the straight to the point answer, which is;

We don’t eat Organic food because of the marketing and the way they sell it. I told her that MOST organic, not all, companies say that we (conventional farmers) use and do harmful things to grow our food to sell their products. Not much to my surprise that she said “well thats rude and we don’t do bad things, daddies corn is my favorite food!”. She’s more than right, we don’t do anything different to our food than we do to the food that leaves our land. We take pride in safely and effectively using the land we have to produce crops that are used in food, or sent to livestock animals which may turn into food as well.

I have friends that grow organic, and I fully support them and they fully support us! The whole Organic vs Conventional war was started by big companies selling their products. There is no nutritional difference or taste difference, its the same vegetable or fruit, only grown differently. There is no good or bad method, there are just different methods, which is great, it gives consumers more options! Companies are making BILLIONS off of portraying that Organic is this whole different, healthier type of crop, which is false. Large companies also portray Organic is a small farm, when they can be just as large as a conventional farm, and both can also be family owned and operated (99% of U.S. farms are family owned).

A lot of Organic food is grown using conventional farming techniques, because lets face it, we are all farmers just trying to reach the same outcome.

The argument here though is the marketing, because at the store when you see the word “Organic” you think of all the things you’ve seen on tv or social media, have heard on the radio, etc and you remember all these great things they say about it and how they use scary words like “GMO’s, Pesticides and words you can’t pronounce” (yes I literally heard on the radio a company priding themselves by not using ingredients you can’t pronounce) to keep you away from the “other” products. The fact is, those “other” products are just the same as its counterpart, the Organic in this case, and you should not feel that you have to buy Organic to keep yourself and your family healthier. For all we know that same farmer that grew that organic lettuce may also grow conventional lettuce, all with the same care and safety in mind.

In the end, its all up to the consumer. I’m glad we live in a country with options in our food supply, but as for me and my family, we will just eat what looks good and not fear what big marketing says!