ORGANIC GRUB – WHAT’S THE REAL STORY?
With all this hoopla about Earth Day and natural foods and organic foods, I decided it was high time for someone to set the record straight. And since I wasn’t going to Rome this week – no, I was not invited to attend the conclave – although there had been some talk of my becoming emperor, but that title has been reserved for Henry Kissinger.
So I guess I’ll assume the task of discussing organic foods, what they are, what they aren’t and what they should be.
If you type in a keyword search on the internet, you’ll probably get something like 157,489 hits, but of course the search engines (I use both MSN and AOL) no longer want to scare the hell out of you, so they now just show five pages at a time. So that there is always forever and forever more five more pages. In any event, I went to my favorite source of basic data, the US government. The “National Organic Program” on the USDA’s website seemed to have more information than I wanted. So I clicked on the link for “program standards” figuring that would be fairly simple and understandable. How soon we forget governmenteze!
Now I was confronted with Introduction, Definitions, Applicability, Production and Handling, Labeling, Certification, Accreditation, and Administration. That was the left hand side of the page. The right hand side gave me the choices” Regulatory Impact Assessments, Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, Regulatory Flexibility Act Analysis, Civil Justice Reform Analysis, View Regulatory Text Only, View Entire Standards (pdf), View Standards in Spanish (pdf), in Japanese (pdf), in French (pdf), English Translation Table, NOP Spanish Audit Checklist and NOP English Audit Checklist. Whew! I wasn’t going to go near anyone of those. I guess all this means that the federal government has official standards as to what the term, “natural” and what the term “organic” means. And a few thousand other terms in between. I did find one definition I sorta liked and even almost understood. “Organic production. A production system that is managed in accordance with the Act and regulations in this part to respond to site-specific conditions by integrating cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity” Yeah, OK.
So this means stuff that is grown or raised in such a manner that it is good for Mother Earth. It means when you read a label, if you knew what the standards were, you might understand the label. But does that mean the food product tastes good? Does it mean that it is either cheaper or more expensive than non-organic foods? And does it mean that you should buy it? To all of those I answer no. It might taste good, it might be cheaper and it might even be good for you. But whether you should buy it is really up to you, the consumer.
There is some foo foo stuff being sold on the premise that it is healthy and good for you. But that doesn’t make it so and that doesn’t make it “organic and natural”. So folks, eat what you like. If you find something that is “organic” and it tastes good, great. If not, a greasy bugger from you neighborhood eatery may not be healthy, but it sure might be yummy. And always remember, Fox’s Rule Number 1: Eat Dessert First.
NMMNG Jay Fox’s column can be viewed at his website, www.jayfoxcpa.com, along with the past two plus year’s of dining columns. You will also find all kinds of good tax planning advice, financial calculators and the latest in tax news. In his real life Jay is a CPA. He just writes this column for the money.