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Better Choices

Local vs. Organic: I Choose Organic – Here’s Why

For several years, the local food movement has been gaining some serious momentum. Supermarkets are pushing locally-grown food and restaurants insert “local” into their menus as often as possible.

I have a good friend of mine who proudly and constantly tells me that he is eating local food all of the time. When I hear this, I just kind of shake my head. Why do I have this reaction?

While this issue is very complicated and the circumstances of every single piece food is vastly different, there is a lot more to this than many people realize and “local” isn’t necessarily better.

Yes, local food means that it has traveled a lot less (within 150 miles seems to be the accepted range) than something that has been shipped across the country.

Local also “supposedly” means that the food has been produced in a sustainable manner rather than from some industrial food operation.

But how do we know this? We don’t. There are no standards for local and there is no certification for local. There are, however, strict standards for organic and USDA organic certification.

Unless I am at a farmer’s market where I can look the farmer in the eye and ask him about his production methods, I just don’t know how local food has been produced.

How do I know that the farmer 20 miles away isn’t spraying his kale with toxic pesticides and polluting our water?  I don’t.  And this matters to me as I am gravely concerned about the abysmal quality of our water supply.

Furthermore, a New York Times op-ed piece by James McWilliams pointed out that lamb shipped from New Zealand to England caused much less impact to global warming than British-produced lamb.

Does this mean we should abandon “local”? Not at all.

This was simply one example and other examples may prove “local” to be much better for the environment.

MY TAKE

If I can buy local and organic, that is what I do and it is the best of both worlds.

I want to support local food as much as I can and will buy food at farmer’s markets where I have an incredibly high degree of confidence that the food is grown “cleanly”, even if it is not certified as organic.

However…..

1) Local food doesn’t necessarily mean better for the environment. In fact, it could be worse.

2) Local food doesn’t mean organic.

3) Supporting organic production and organic farmers is very important to me.

It goes without saying that local vs. organic is not a cut and dry argument, but I prefer organic over local because there are standards and I know what organic means.

A message from Tradin Organic

How Tradin Organic is Helping Coconut Farmers in The Philippines

For more than a decade, Tradin Organic has been working with local partners in The Philippines to bring a diversified range of organic products to the market, such as coconut oil, tropical fruits and even cocoa.

The company is helping to support local farmers by assisting them with technical support and organic certification, in addition to paying Fairtrade premium on top of the organic premium.

Learn more.

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Living Maxwell

Better Choices

Organic Restaurants – A Very Important Question To Ask

I get asked all of the time by people “how do I know that the food that I am eating is organic?”

Well, when we buy food in the supermarket, there is an organic certification process managed by the USDA. Those organic food products have the organic seal.

Yet, what do we do when we go to restaurants?

While there are very few restaurants that have actually been certified organic (there used to be one in NYC called Gustorganics), most of them are not.

In this video, I share with you the one question that I always ask when I go to a new organic restaurant. The answer gives me a good idea about how serious they are about organic.

A message from Tradin Organic

Why Tradin Organic is Prioritizing Regenerative Organic Farming

At Tradin Organic, we believe that regenerative organic farming is key to growing healthy and nutritious food ingredients — for now and for future generations.

And in Sierra Leone, we have grown the world’s first Regenerative Organic Certified cacao.

Learn more.

Living Maxwell

Better Choices

Another Reason to Eat Organic – Conventional Meat Contains Twice as Many Superbugs

Aside from the fact that conventionally-raised animals can be pumped with synthetic growth hormones and can be fed genetically-modified grain that has been sprayed with super-toxic pesticides, there is now another scary reason to avoid conventional meat: superbugs.

In results from a just released study, Consumers Reports found that 18 percent of the ground beef samples from conventionally-raised cows contained dangerous superbugs resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics used to treat illness in humans. This is compared with just 9 percent of ground beef from samples that were sustainably produced.

Consumer Reports purchased 300 packages – 458 pounds – of conventionally and sustainably produced ground beef from grocery, big-box, and natural food stores in 26 cities across the country.

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Living Maxwell

Better Choices

How to Get Kids to Eat Organic Greens

Now that many of my friends have young children, one thing that I hear from all of them is that “My kids won’t eat any green vegetables.”

This doesn’t surprise me in the least because (a) most kids would rather have french fries than spinach or broccoli; and (b) they have to be taught to like greens at a very, very early age. The good news is that there is an easy solution.

Juicing.

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livingmaxwell: a guide to organic food & drink