Green Options

Our recent guest blogger, Danae DeShazer wrote a thought-provoking piece on the dangers of considering organic food a cure-all for the ills of the food industry . Sharon Troy followed up with some detective work on plastic-wrapped “organic” potatoes at her local supermarket (which would have been hilarious if it weren’t so scary). I agree with much of what has been said, but I think we - in our enamor of locavorism - are too quickly vilifying the organic movement. We need to be careful not to reject last year’s movement simply because the next great thing has come along.

I think we do ourselves a disservice by allowing marketers to define our food descriptors for us. Anything, when over- or misused becomes less effective. Just because marketers use the term “organic” on a questionable item, does not mean that organic food is less good. I think we all know organic when we see it. If we took the term at face-value, we would not have been alarmed by Sharon’s photo of the shrink-wrapped potatoes.

So how should we evaluate our food options in the florescent-lighted, plastic-wrapped grocery stores of America? Grappling for answers after the jump.