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A question for those of you who care about ecological aspects of ERE, and who can afford it: do you buy organic variants of the food that you don't grow on your own (i.e. hard to grow staples like grains, legumes)? If not, why? On the surface, it means spending more (and the ERE rule of thumb approach suggests that it is bad), but on the other hand, it's obviously more sustainable than non-organic.

I do when I can make a difference cheaply: small price delta and/or large effect.

Eggs are a good example. Quite a few I source nearby from known-good sources: my parents, a neighbour, ... At the supermarket I try to get free-range ones. Fifty cents extra for ten eggs? So be it.

Free range or home-grown eggs are not organic though - the chickens are getting feed that was grown using pesticides and artificial fertilizers. TBH, I haven't seen organic eggs here in Poland yet.

No.

Organic is not "obviously more sustainable" because the criteria for being organic has more to do with what fertilizers and pesticides can be used. Some organic growers food might replace those methods will less sustainable methods like use of plastic ground covers or electricity for greenhouses in order to stay within the labeling rules. Overall, it's therefore not a given that an organic farm is more sustainable in terms of total resource use/global footprint.

Healthwise, organic food contains more micronutrients. However, when it comes to eating vegetables, I lean more towards quantity than quality. At the same price, I'd rather eat two non-organic apples, say than one organic apple.

I'm somewhat uncommitted on the "buy local food" thing. I do think food is a strategic resource, which is why I have a garden in my backyard, but I also think that not at local places are good for growing food and that global transport of goods is a good idea.

My "ecological strategy" is to eat as low on the food chain as it is convenient. This means "flexitarian" which basically translates into a vegan base diet with meat or a couple of eggs maybe once a week. I do use cheese as a condiment or on bread several times per week. Due to the convenience factor, I never drink milk (it's been 30 years or so) because I'm too lazy to pick up fresh stuff. This is quite easy to manage both personally and socially. (I was a strict vegetarian for a few years and it was always a problem with clueless social events. Maybe this has gotten better.)

Overall, (eating) food is not something that interests me a whole lot. I prefer to spend as little time and effort as I possibly can on it. It's just calories to me and I valuate my calories on a "price"*"effort"/"good-enough" basis.

jacob wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 15, 2024 6:42 am

Organic is not "obviously more sustainable" because the criteria for being organic has more to do with what fertilizers and pesticides can be used. Some organic growers food might replace those methods will less sustainable methods like use of plastic ground covers or electricity for greenhouses in order to stay within the labeling rules. Overall, it's therefore not a given that an organic farm is more sustainable in terms of total resource use/global footprint.

There are other factors than resource use. There's growing evidence that insecticides are causing a insect apocalypse. Who knows what will it do to the ecosystems an eventually to us. And, we're also using herbicies and fungicides. Regular spraying of soils, on a planetary scale, with coctails of poisons seems like a dangerous idea.

Similarly, artificial fertilizers cause rivers, lakes and some areas of sea/oceans to become deserts, due to algae growth and subsequent depletion of oxygen. Some of these ecosystems are so damaged they're not coming back in their original form (e.g. the Baltic is basically just a hole in the ground with saltwater in it, and not much biodiversity).

How to weight that against (on average) increased use of energy and plastic? I wish someone did a research on that...

zbigi wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 15, 2024 8:33 am

How to weight that against (on average) increased use of energy and plastic? I wish someone did a research on that...

I'm pretty sure someone does. Indeed, likely the answer has been known for years and perhaps even decades already. However, like with many other wicked problems, it's not getting effectively and consistently translated into "common behavioral knowledge". For example, about 2/3 of global food production goes to feed stock for the meat and dairy industry. In that sense, "organic" is a bit of a red herring in terms of solutions. Agricultural run-off is much more effectively solved by a global change in human diet away from animal based foods which would immediately take 2/3 of the world's farmland offline. However, individuals will rationalize that such a change will be immediately and personally uncomfortable ("I can't live without steak, blablabla...") for them, whereas e.g. the resulting dead ocean floors happens out of sight and thus out of mind (it doesn't trigger a visceral emotional response when biting into a hamburger) for the majority of humans. The values and behavior are determined accordingly resulting in the aggregate results we have now. Humans generally support good causes but only to the extent it isn't personally inconvenient for themselves instead of others/elsewhere---and definitely not if their personal sacrifice is absorbed by other humans taking advantage of it. It is what it is.

The main problem with organic food (apart from the price) is the yield is lower than traditionally grown crops. This means you need to set aside more land to grow the same amount of food which in itself is bad for the environment. I'd rather we farmed more intensively on a smaller area of land.

There isn't that much quality arable land left that isn't used already. The amazon rainforest that is burned down for agriculture is being converted to pastures or, at best, crappy land that needs tons of fertilizer. Which indicates that, even with intense farming, we are already using most of Earth's arable land. If people turned to organic, we'd probably still use similar amounts of land, but much less of it would go to animal feed.

This gave me some further food for though (pun not exactly intended).
Using Kant's caterogical imperative, if everyone were to switch to organic food and the only food available to buy would be organic, its prices would not much lower than what organic costs today. That would price significant portion of global population out of surviving, leading to great misery and following social unrests across the globe. So, the choice is basically - protect the biodiversity, or protect the people. I'm closer to people than to other species, so I care about their misery more - but, on the other hand, once destroyed biodiversity is lost forever, while humans are like cockroaches - we'll adapt and survive no matter what, so any plight is temporary (in the scale of a generation or a few). So, organic or no is basically a conundrum without a clear answer to me.

zbigi wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 15, 2024 12:00 pm

There isn't that much quality arable land left that isn't used already.

There are still large parts of Africa which have potential (and they will need it with their population growth).

I suppose if there is a big enough squeeze on food production then the price of meat will rise and people will start shifting back to a traditional diet. Just like how people buy more economical cars when the price of oil peaks.

We mostly buy organic. In general less pesticides is better for our health, esspecially looking from a population based perspective, and for the environment, water reserves etc.
It is more expensive so we rarely buy meat anymore and that outweighs the smaller yield many times. It is also a more sustainable yield as it takes better care of the land and are not dependent on fertilizers made from fossil fuels.

Concerning safety the Danish prof Grandjean is one of the top researchers:
"Moreover, experience has shown that the safety claims of companies are not always reliable. “An example: until 2020, the use of the pesticide Chlorpyrifos or CPF was widespread, including in Belgium. It was approved more than twenty years ago, based on an industry study that concluded that the product was completely safe. However, several studies showed that children have lower IQs when CPF occurred in their mothers’ urine during pregnancy. We therefore requested access to the original laboratory reports. These clearly showed adverse effects on brain development, contrary to the company’s claims that there was nothing to worry about.”

Not long after the publication of these results, CPF was banned in the EU. “But we can’t turn back the clock … To put it very mildly, I am not at all comfortable with the fact that chemical substances are approved on superficial or misinterpreted data and that later – often decades later – we realize that children have suffered and continue to suffer from exposure to them.”
https://stories.kuleuven.be/en/stories/ ... -grandjean

Bonde wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 17, 2024 5:39 am

In general less pesticides is better for our health, esspecially looking from a population based perspective, and for the environment, water reserves etc.

On the other hand, pesticides and other *cides eliminate/reduce plant diseases (fungus/mold/...) that may be bad for our health despite being "natural". I don't have any recent quantitative data on which is worse: corporate irresponsibility or nature's callousness? I read an article in Nature or Science decades ago suggesting it wasn't all that clear cut that organic was necessarily better from a health perspective.

In any case, "better" is not just one number but several (private health, public health, overpopulation, land shortage, topsoil loss, fertilizer run-off, nutrient resource limits, ... ) and people may disagree on which is more important/valued.

@jacob
I agree that it is a very difficult field to get clear cut evidence. My humble judgement is that organic is better overall. Is it perfect? No. There are many factors and impossible for most people to make a deep dive into all of them. That's also why I am not religious about it. We also buy conventional stuff.

I am in favor of a quite strict/cautionary approval process and that level of evidence for the safety of chemical should be high. It slow down innovation but also protects us from "cheat codes" that end up costing a lot more than the up front savings.

E.g. one study found a 7 point IQ differences for pre-natal exposure to organophosphate pestides between children of mothers' in the lowest quintile vs. highest quintile of pesticide plasma level. The study could be an outlier.
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1003185

Here is a review indicating that pesticides are not good for neurodevelopmental health:
"All but one of the 27 studies evaluated showed some negative effects of pesticides on neurobehavioral development. A positive dose-response relationship between OP exposure and neurodevelopmental outcomes was found in all but one of the 12 studies that assessed dose-response."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24121005/

Pesticides and herbicides are just another element in the long line of variables (machinery,seeds and fertilizer) that trap farmers and tie them to big industry. Insects/plants adapt to the pest/herbcides, requiring the farmers to apply more and more each year to achieve the same result. This weds them to the product and style of growth as any attempt to reduce or switch to something less toxic would likely result in a significant loss of their crop. In the meantime, herbicides like glyphosate get into the soil, water, eventually transferring into plants and animals, and ultimately humans through consumption. The product is also effective in doing what it advertises, and results in large scale ecological contamination and destruction of all kinds of life.

Glyphosate (aka Round Up) and the others 'cides have been linked to cancer, endocrine and reproductive disruptions, damage to the microbiome, and liver/kidney issues. It is interesting to note that widespread use of herbicides began just a few years before the start of the modern obesity epidemic, as well as the concurrent decrease in fertility/sperm counts. I don't think herbicides are the sole environmental toxin that's contributed to the issue (see plastics/PFAS) nor the sole cause for obesity (see ultra-processed food). But the evidence of their damages and the lack of evidence showing otherwise gives me significant concern and enough to err on the more cautious side.

In addition to not having glyphosate or any of the other 'cides, organic food also has higher minerals and vitamin content than non-organic food. They tend to also have significantly lower toxins, like nitrates and heavy metals, than non-organic food.

With that in mind, I think that the best option is to grow your own, followed by organic (local if possible but not all local is organic!). If that's not possible due to whatever reason and you are going to eat affected produce anyways, at the very least you should consider buying organic for the dirty dozen. This will minimize your exposure to the produce most heavily impacted by pesticides.

ETA: As we've discussed elsewhere, how you spend your money is just another way of voting for what world you want to see. Organic is not a perfect solution on a large scale and can be fraught with it's own ecological issues (see plastic hoophouses greenhouses across warm weather growing areas like California and Spain). However, conventional agriculture is far from sustainable and has a laundry list of issues (topsoil loss, nutrient loss, pollution etc). For me, I'd rather see a world with more organic food and practices. I think that puts us in a far better place instead of ignoring the externalities and suffering in the long term.

theanimal wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 17, 2024 7:39 pm

In addition to not having glyphosate or any of the other 'cides, organic food also has higher minerals and vitamin content than non-organic food.

Is it true that organic food doesn't use any 'cides? I was under the impression that organic 'cides were permitted, but synthetic ones were not. So strychnine: yes, but zinc phosphide: no.

You're correct, organic permits the use of approved 'cides.

Thought about this thread today. We eat a mix of organic and conventionally farmed veggies mostly from our local farmer’s market.

I capture and keep grasshoppers I find in our rose garden. Kind of a children’s hobby I never outgrew. I’ve lately raised up some beautiful grasshopper nymphs for the last month on green tops, melon rinds, pear cores and other scraps.

Today I walked out to the kitchen and they were both dead. It was very disturbing because I grew them for over a month and it was rewarding to see them get bigger and stronger on our scraps. They shed their exoskeletons and developed a nice light green color. Now they’re dead.

They died hours after I fed them cantaloupe rinds from a new farmer’s market vendor. They usually love cantaloupe rinds. Now they’re dead in hours. Legs up dead.

I know that the pesticides aren’t supposed to hurt us. But this was disturbing. Took them in hours. That couldn’t be good. I tossed the remainder of the melon. Conventionally grown, not organic. I guess some organics contain natural toxins to ward off bugs too.

The underlying assumption by those who sell/market organic food is that buying organic food makes the customer feel better about themselves, despite the actual health benefits of consuming organic foods being at best, negligible, at worse, non-existent. Speak to any food manufacturer or distributor and the use of the word "organic" is murky. The FDA does not regulate the word on food labels. I don't understand all the nuances, but if you are raising cattle or crops, the USDA has some oversight. But if I wanted to manufacturer "Henry's Organic Nutter Butter Double Chocolate Health Bar" I think I'd be OK unless they find out the reason all the fat kids are losing weight by eating them is because I laced them with methamphetamine in which case I'll be subjected to the governmental clipboard army.

I don't know if organic food has any health benefits, but as Henry notes the term has become a rather ambiguous marketing term. Circa 2000 organic became a verbal talisman against the perils of consumerist society, with everything from organic toothpaste to organic architecture (essentially anything which vaguely resembled gaudi) been mass marketed to consumers. Kind of like how later the prefix 'sustainable' and 'eco' magically rendered things good and more sellable.

Just my two cents that from my experience the locally-grown organic vegetables and limited fruits are superior to mass-distributed stuff. (I felt this way growing up eating out of our garden.) For me, I can feel the difference after eating these vegetables. It’s like a sugar hit after a couple cookies but not glucose.

While I was crewing this summer, our diet was exclusively from Walmart. This is the crappiest I have eaten ever. Midway through the person doing the shopping changed. He went for the cheapest of everything and created a kids menu (Think hotdogs, hamburgers, tacos, spaghetti, etc.) that rotated each week. I gained 5# (I am stronger but doughier.). My bloodwork showed high LDL and low uric acid. I attribute the changes to the quality of food and SAD.