<p>No - you misunderstand. Organic citrus is the only one I'll cross the line over. I could give a rip about cosmetics - I want produce that eats well. But the average consumer won't buy an ugly orange. I sat next to a guy on Thursday at the Toyota dealership that used to work sales for Libby Foods (they were a big canner 30 years ago). He told me his boss would get these grocery store product managers together and blind open Libby canned peaches and Del Monte at the same time. The Libby peaches were were bigger, prettier, and sweeter - because Libby standards of quality were higher. The Del Monte stuff still outsold Libby 4 to 1 because DM had a marketing budget 4x as big. Lesson - once it's in a can nobody can tell quality except for the marketing budget. </p>
<p>Back to the question:</p>
<p>The presticides are used to kill insects. Often, the insects start chewing away on the produce/fruit, making it unsalable because nobody wants to buy produce that's already been eaten. Sometimes, the insects won't hurt the crop but thier excrement leaves a sticky residue on the crop that makes it unsaleable - e.g. the silver leaf whitefly that ruined the produce business in Imperial County about 15 years ago. Other times, insects spread (vector) desease from plant to plant that kill plants - they get viruses sometimes too. Other times the insects will attack the plant, destroying it and all the crop it produces. </p>
<p>Fungicides are used to kill fungus (mold) on certain crops. Grapes need fungicides (even organic ones) because it's not safe to eat grapes with mildew on them.</p>
<p>Herbicides kill other plants. Some weeds are noxious, others just compete with what plants you are trying to grow. In a lot of cases, a hoe or shovel or a tractor mounted culivator works just as well, but sometimes you can't for a variety of reasons (economics/labor/weather/etc.).</p>
<p>Antibiotics work the same way in humans and animals. They use it for desease control. It is not a good practice to get your animals sick and let them "work through it" because when they get sick enough for your to notice they usually die. They can't tell you they have the sniffles and are getting worse. On that note, do you know why everybody doesn't free range chickens and they still put them into commercial chicken coops in high population numbers like this one?</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.ehponline.org/members/2004/112-10/manychickens.jpg" /></p>
<p>Desease control! Chickens aren't smart enough to not eat their feces. This is the main way avain flu is spread - via thier feces. They keep these birds indoor thier whole life cycle, and they are able to clean the coop out of chicken poo at the end of the cycle - to break the cycle of desease. Free range chickens...........can't be cleaned out this way.</p>
<p>The controls to get into one of these operations is mind blowing. When you drive in, your vehicle is sprayed with a solution of water and bleach top and bottom. Then, you must go into a 'clean' area where you get protective boots/suits/masks so you don't track anything in or out of the coops. The coops are double doored to prevent any bird escaping or getting in. The whole flock is innoculated with antibiotics to prevent the spread of desease. In an indirect way anyone who eats free range chicken is doing thier part to promote bird flu. These growers don't want sick birds - they lose a cycle and they are out of business. One kid gets sick from badly processed chicken (where the real oppourtunity to screw up is - the chicken processor) and these guys pay the price. They certainly don't want to cause it.</p>
<p>Cotton, for example, is a crop that is easy to grow organically. Provided you can make an economic model where you can survive on 1/2 to1/10 the normal production because the predator insects you can't spray for destroy your crop while it's on the plant. That's why those sheets are so expensive. Someone is paying the risk premium.</p>
<p>Anyway, if you want to eat organic, it's absolutely your choice. I'm not going to give you grief for it (I know more than a couple 100% organic growers) but given the choice, I'll take the pesticide laden, antibiotic fed, non free range, whatever produce challenge every day. It's all safe. When I select foods, I have one critera above all others - taste. If it tastes bad, I don't want it. If you think you can taste the pesticides in the fruit you're getting, I got bad news - you can't! These compounds are colorless and oderless up to the point somebody adds stuff into them so the end users won't do something stupid like mistake them for another colorless and oderless fluid (water). What you probablly have is stuff that's not good quality. But there's lots of reasons for that (transportation is one, the price point desired by the store is another) and we'll have to keep that topic for another day.</p>
<p>Hope this is helpful.</p>
Anyway, I'm still scared by that study. What if that's true? </p>
