When I started to figure out what it meant to eat better for myself,
I asked the same question.
If you’re anything like me, you didn’t come from wealth or readily available healthy food access. You had to come to learn what it meant to eat well. As you learned, you eventually arrived at what it meant to purchase those expensive green-label products that you always avoided– organic goods.
Purchasing Organic is often one of the early stages of one’s journey to eating well. When I started purchasing organic, I carried a good conscious in my kitchen, knowing that my food was free of chemicals and that my body was receiving the best.
Oh boy. I’ve discovered a lot sense then.
Here’s the straightforward way to understand what “organic” actually means according to the philosophy of the Real Organic Project:
Nutrients come from and return to the soil in the cycle of life. So, soil is the mediator of all nutrients.
Observing the process of this nutrient cycling means to cater to and steward the thing that makes it all possible: the soil.
So, any practice that neglects, bypasses, or damages the soil can not be considered as organic. (Synthetic fertilizers, pesticides [herbicides, fungicides], factory farming (confinement prevents grazing; it dismisses the natural cycle of nutrients)
Truly organic farmers “feed the soil, not the plant”. Through the husbandry of animals and stewardship of the land, organic farming observes and mimics nature.
Here are 3 rules to know about purchasing organic:
#1: Organic functions as a branch of a company, not a company’s philosophy.
Demonstration of organic ownership presented on https://organiceye.org/
Organic Eye are self-proclaimed industry watch-dogs. They constantly investigate and report on the organic industry and they love to expose bad players.
Smack dab right onto their homepage is an eye-opening graphic that reveals who “owns” certain organic products.
Here are some notable ones from the graphic:
Kraft Heinz owns Primal Kitchen
General mills owns Larabar
Kellogg owns Pure Organic
Tyson owns Hillshire Brands
Unilever owns Tazo Tea
Hormel owns Applegate Farms
A company that sports the organic badge on its products may not believe in what it means for something to be truly organic. But, they do believe in the business behind making money. Don’t be fooled, Big Food will never conflate the two.
Organic products create price-tiers that partition customers.
How to make money using the organic label:
Slightly change something in your food production process that grants a food (ultra-processed or otherwise) the okay for the organic status.
Put the label on the item and give it some different eye-catching colors, add some green. Add a deflective ingredient claim: “No Fructose corn syrup!”.
Price the item higher. *note: in the case of non-animal products: rarely, if ever, does an organic version of a product truly cause tighter margins that necessitate a higher price tag.
In other words, in many cases, it’s not the specialty care of a product that jumps the shelf price, but the organic label itself and the perception it creates.
Usually the production process hardly shifts for an organic product. It shifts just enough to acquire organic certification. So that premium price we pay for? Compare it to the convenience fee you pay for when you’re getting your tickets online for an event. We’re technically supposed to be covering the cost of the ticket supplier to offer the online service. With organic products, we’re paying the cost of Big Food to offer the service of slightly changing their food production (regardless of it the change actually costs more).
Organic Animal products may be different as the most legit mover of price difference between organic meat and non-organic meat will be the difference in feed costs. Organic feed is going to be more expensive and is not as heavily subsidized by the Government.
Just like that, you’ve partitioned your customers. Now, you can sit back and profit. Health conscious folks will reach for the organic products and penny-conscious folks will reach for the non-organic. You just cast a wider net to bring in the dollars of two audiences.
Organic doesn’t mean the same thing to you as it does the higher-ups of companies.
#2 Farms don’t own ‘organic’, companies do.
‘Organic’ exists as a mere word primarily, but Big Food are the primary engineers behind what the word is associated with. Meaning, the industry defines the term “organic“ through it’s influence over both the USDA and its influence over market customers.
“Organic” to the end consumer usually just means there weren’t any chemicals used in the making of a given product. Even though a given product may be aligned with that truth, who says that’s what organic truly is? Big Food. Big Food does.
We see this in the case of eggs. Because chickens are given organic feed and not rendered antibiotics routinely, the eggs qualify for organic labeling. But that doesn’t mean the birds are given sunlight, a proper diet of grass and bugs, or space to graze.
There are more boxes to check than making sure something wasn’t sprayed with pesticides.
The end-consumer perspective is skewed by an egregious degree.
The snacks below, do they feel like a healthier buy? Why?
The industry has lofted the USDA organic label to the height of "healthy". But organic does not equal healthy.
#3 “Organic is a market term” - Dave shields of Pastured Life Farm out in Florida
Organic industry can only hold so much power over the snack foods though. Reasonable consumers understand that they’re buying a processed snack at the end of the day.
But when it comes to meat and animal products, the organic label is functioning as a marketing term for at least 50% (my modest estimation) of products in your average grocery store.
It’s hard to honestly regulate and inspect Big Food “organic” producers.
In 2024, the USDA posted a notice that described some of the shortcomings of the claiming and labeling of foods. The term “No antibiotics ever” is an especially interesting case. Third party testers found 15% of tested farms in this study had un-allowed antibiotic drug residues. I can’t access the number of farms tested, so I’m unsure of just how many farms that failed that test. Could be 5, could be 50.
Consider that, under organic law, it is allowed to administer antibiotics to an animal that is in need of that specific type of care. The caveat is that, if an animal is administered antibiotics under, it can no longer be labeled as organic. —Answer me this, whose sorting out the chicken to make sure the antibiotic-ridden ones are sent down the right conveyor belt?😂
You just can’t get as granular when it comes to regulating these industrial farms. We’d have to rely on routine third party testing, which is not currently enforced to my knowledge.
Once you get to a certain size as a food producer, tiered priced marketing becomes as easy as the push of a button. But the end product is hardly significantly different.
Why buying organic does not support small farms
I wished buying organic supported small farms, but the truth is that if it exists in the supermarket, you’re not supporting anything small.
Now hold your horseradish for a sec, I’m not looking to conflate “small” with “good”. You can be big and good, I spent a past newsletter highlighting those that are grass-feeding and pasture-raising at scale. And when you get that big, it makes no sense to not go into retail market.
With that being said, the chances of you actually backing up the economy of farmers that do things right by buying organic at the supermarket are about 0.001% to 5%. The gap there depends on the product. I’ll give you a hint:
If a company only has organic versions of its stuff, then they may have a higher chance at their values being more aligned with the end consumer. If they offer organic and non-organic options, like in the case of Happy Egg, then they’re likely using organic as a marketing term only.
With all that being said, I still prioritize buying organic. I still feel a peace of mind I get knowing that at least a USDA certifier had to inspect a process of a food producer to grant them the stamp. Do I think the USDA or even individual certifiers can’t be influenced? Do I think USDA organic certification is the best system? Heavens no to both.
The truth is that every player isn’t a bad player. Especially for the non-animal stuff. If there’s a choice between regular balsamic vinegar and organic, I’m paying extra for the organic vinegar. I’m either getting something genuinely better, or I’m right where the industry wants me😂.
I’ll throw you another tip. This one brought to you by the same farmer that said organic is a marketing system: “Inspect what you expect.”
The truth is, the most you can do in a supermarket is google a company really quickly and see what’s up with them and their values. If they align with yours, you may be more informed.
But that’s fairly low-level inspection. You run into many of the same packaging issues we’re encountering market-wide today. Companies can easily greenwash a website.
The best form of inspection is going to a real farm and seeing for yourself. 1% of shoppers will do it. But, 100% of those shoppers will enjoy greater certainty.
Conclusion
But bad players shouldn’t spoil the whole game. Outside of certain farm products in like a Whole Foods or a Sprouts, majority of regular retail organic animal products are purely marketing attempts.
Everything said here is generally in consideration of buying in the retail market (grocery stores). When you actually go to talk to a local farmer, they will be doing beyond organic practices and still opt out for USDA label. Not only is the cost not worth it for the market they sell to, but their customers know that a real manure using, grass-feeding, rotationally grazing farmer is better than any USDA certifier.
Keep your wits about cha’
Ain’t nuthin’ here generated or written by AI
Best,
Johnny