Those People Anti Organic Foods

I think there are some organic foods that are ripoffs.

You know, there is a 100% chance of death if you strictly eat organic foods

I generally buy organic carrots and potatoes....chem residues concentrate in soil, and root veg have prolonged soil contact.

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Why not?

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I don't buy organic because theres no proof that its healthier, paying a premium to buy organic is rewarding inefficient farming/land usage and ultimately organic farming can prove harmful to the environment.

There's really no conclusive data that says that organic produce is any better for you than traditionally farmed produce. Period...

Modern intensive farming is more efficient in that the amount of produce created per acre is often as much as 10 times greater than organic farming. As a result, if organic farming were to continue to flourish things such as forests may have to be sacrificed in order to keep up. Way to go organics!

What's more, organic farming refuses to use traditional fertilization and often chooses cow manure instead. Again, the implication here is that if demand for manure increases we must have more cows and as it works out cows are a major source of methane which has been proven to deplete the ozone layer. Again, wiping out forests and depleting ozone seems like a bad idea to me.

Only in America would things like organic produce take off. Like drinking a $6 Starbucks latte or wearing a Rolex watch buying organic is nothing more than a fad and perceived status symbol.

The only time I buy organic is in the rare instance that its actually cheaper.

I don't buy organic because of threads like this. I'm not joking by saying that.

I figure that if there is that much controversy about it here, it's not worth the extra money.

And I'm with Degas on this as well.

I got some organic gluten free brown rice a while back (Bob's red mill). It's been on the shelf in the pantry for a while.

I saw some dark specs and thought it looked like wild rice. They were beetles. The bag was still air tight, which means the eggs were in there and hatched.

I'll just stick to pesticides.

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By this line of reasoning, you should also avoid eating beef. I'm curious: do you? Cow manure is far from the principal source of nitrogen input for organic farming. Nitrogen-fixing cover crops (alfalfa, cowpeas, etc) are widely used, as are things like cottonseed meal, chicken droppings, and composted field leftovers (cornstalks, leftover pea vines, veg plants post harvest, some after "vermicomposting", aka being eaten by worms). Fish meal, algae derived fertilizers....there's a huge world beyond cow manure.

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I eat the hell out beef without even the slightest hesitation. The smaller the feed lot and more GMO corn she's been fed the better as far as I'm concerned.

This chicken crap and pea vine theory is all good and well, but inefficiently growing one crop to simply put it on top of another crop is just the kind of land use inefficiency I'm talking about. Find me an example where vermicomposting proves as cost effective and produces yields comparable to traditional fertilization methods and we'll talk. Let's confront reality here... if chicken crap, corn stalks and fish meal were more efficient than fertilizer then America's farmers would be all over it.

I get it, some folks are eager to drink the Jim Jones Kool-Aid as it relates to organics. I'm just here because the OP was looking for someone to give the contrarian viewpoint.

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This chicken crap and pea vine theory is all good and well, but inefficiently growing one crop to simply put it on top of another crop is just the kind of land use inefficiency I'm talking about.

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Ever heard of crop rotation? It's a standard part of even conventional (non organic) farming. Land use efficiency in farming isn't what you'd think...how you use it depends on available water, soil chemistry & composition, etc. Poor soils are a production problem worldwide--merely dumping fertilizers won't magically create productivity.

Have you read Howard Buffett's (Warren's son) book "Forty Chances: Hope in a Hungry World"? He's a farmer...intensive monocrop midwestern farming, right in the middle of the corn & soybean heartland. He's also a philanthropist, conservationist, and supporter of improving agriculture in the hungriest parts of the world. You mentioned efficient land use, and he funds several large-scale experimental farms (including a big one in South Africa), where various techniques are tested.

Nitrogen is nitrogen whether it comes for a bottle in the lab or a bull's arse. I'm not paying the premium for bullshite.