Posted on 06/04/2006 11:08:53 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
The New York Times reports that Wal-Mart, the bane of all limousine liberals and aging hippies, has entered the "crunchy granola" market:
Beginning later this year, Wal-Mart plans to roll out a complete selection of organic foods — food certified by the U.S.D.A. to have been grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers — in its nearly 4,000 stores. Just as significant, the company says it will price all this organic food at an eye-poppingly tiny premium over its already-cheap conventional food: the organic Cocoa Puffs and Oreos will cost only 10 percent more than the conventional kind. Organic food will soon be available to the tens of millions of Americans who now cannot afford it — indeed, who have little or no idea what the term even means. Organic food, which represents merely 2.5 percent of America's half-trillion-dollar food economy, is about to go mainstream.
With organic food about to become as "mainstream" and "middle America" as Ford Explorers, Kraft singles and "American Idol," how long before the so-called "elites" find it no longer has the same "counterculture" appeal as Volvos, brie and NPR?
A trip through an organic foods market is better than going to a movie.
---
Sounds like a horror film...
;)
bookmark for later reading and printing.
>Care to try to define, in scientific terms, exactly what "organic food" is?
For me it does not have to be completely organic, even some natural/organic components ruin the taste or you health.
Good example is the adulterated cream - now they put locust bean gum from the carob tree or similar gum junk almost everywhere. It is HORRIBLE and sold at Whole Foods too!
BTW, they use these "natural" gums to develop Krohn Disease in laboratory animals.
Haagen-Dazs (expensive) and some flavors of Breyer (affordable) icecream are not contaminated with it (plain chocolate).<
Well, none of this scientifically defines what "organic food" is.
The last time I checked, all protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins were in fact all organic no matter where they came from.
Are carrageenan and locust bean gum "unnatural", despite plant origins? Are they "natural" in some contexts but not in others? Is it "natural" to combine cream, sugar, and a portion of a tropical orchid to make a food?
Only in that if something is naturally caffeinated there is no way to remove all the caffeine. Some bit will remain even if done chemically.
It is like there is no such thing really as a nonalcoholic beer, only a real low alcohol beer.
Of course you are correct. Not every notion/word we use is scientific. Science is only a small part of our life and language.
Are carrageenan and locust bean gum "unnatural", despite plant origins? Are they "natural" in some contexts but not in others?
Yes. For example when I was a child in Poland you could buy better tasting butter in the farmer market. But some dishonest farmers were adulterating butter with finely ground cooked potatoes.
So the market inspectors were using a simple reagent to test for the presence of the starch and giving high fines. Still both this butter and these potatoes were natural and "organic".
Adding gums to cream is a similar practice, unfortunately tolerated by the consumers and the law. I never buy such adulterated stuff as I hate its taste.
Is it "natural" to combine cream, sugar, and a portion of a tropical orchid to make a food?
It depends.
Excuse me now, I have to catch up before it's all gone.
My banana peppers, hot peppers and tomatos grown without any of that chemical crap have come in nicely. While you're scarfing down tasteless chemically-saturated crap, I'll be dining on sweet pepper steak with pesto...
>Well, none of this scientifically defines what "organic food" is. The last time I checked, all protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins were in fact all organic no matter where they came from.
Of course you are correct. Not every notion/word we use is scientific. Science is only a small part of our life and language.<
So, "organic" is in part of a state of mind?
>Are carrageenan and locust bean gum "unnatural", despite plant origins? Are they "natural" in some contexts but not in others?
Yes. For example when I was a child in Poland you could buy better tasting butter in the farmer market. But some dishonest farmers were adulterating butter with finely ground cooked potatoes.<
I believe your objections are emotional, and don't have a whole lot to do with food safety or stability.
>So the market inspectors were using a simple reagent to test for the presence of the starch and giving high fines. Still both this butter and these potatoes were natural and "organic".<
Because butter does not contain starch. On the other hand, it you cut it with lard or margarine, it would pass the test for starch.
>Is it "natural" to combine cream, sugar, and a portion of a tropical orchid to make a food?
It depends.<
So, which is more evil: ice cream made with orchid parts or made with ethyl vanillin?
"I'll be dining on sweet pepper steak with pesto..."
If you have to put that junk on a steak to make it edible you shouldn't have killed the steer.
If orchid parts are tasty I will like the first. Also I prefer real stuff to artificial flavors.
But do not worry, I would never try to take your scientific ever-lasting Twinkies away. Bon appetite!
See the very scientific Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations.
Those taste like crap... trust me...
my eating or living habits, which include lots of everything that the so called experts say will kill you and still am healthy and weigh the same as I did when I was in high school over 50 years ago.
>> I am 66 years old and have the bones of a 30 year old as per my doctor.
better give them back! ;)
Ok, I am for better food but that is nonsense.
We have never had a better standard of living or had a better chance at living longer then we do now and the "simpler life" was hard, nasty and very uncomfortable.
The only people who laud it are those who were fortunate enough never to have lived it.
Mother Nature has come up with some nasty chemicals all on her own. Just because it didn't come out of Dow laboratories doesn't mean it's good for you.
I like when the other caveman says, with much distain, that he doesn’t have much of an appetite. I can’t wait to get a chance to order Roast Duck with Mango Salsa at some chi chi restaurant. It sounds kind of good actually.
It’s one of the best commercials of late. I also like the Capital One commercials with the un-employed barbarians.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.