Comment by DougWebb
9 years ago
Many of the "simple ingredients" that people used 100 years ago aren't really available anymore, at least not in the US. That would somewhat true even with traditional breeding and cultivation, but over the past 100 years we've greatly improved our understanding of how breeding works, the rate that we can modify plants and animals, and with GMOs we now have a lot of direct control over the outcome. We just don't have the same plants and animals that we had 100 years ago anymore.
You say you stick to organic/natural. Well, it's all "natural", even GMOs, if you're eating plant and animal products directly. (Eg: stay away from additives and highly processed foods.) "Organic" is a bit tougher; you want it to mean that the plants and animals were raised without getting stuffed with chemicals and antibiotics, but there's a lot of wiggle room there because 'food' is made up of chemicals, and many foods and chemicals have some antibiotic properties.
In the end, if you're not growing the plants and breeding the animals yourself you don't really know if the "organic" label on them means what you want it to mean. And except for heirloom varieties, (and maybe even those) the plants and animals you're raising are still the product of the past 100 years of breeding, which usually focused on attributes other than making them healthy to eat.
Organic is pretty easy to get information on. https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/organic-standards
From what I've been told, there are definitely some things you can do that would increase sustainability that would cause you to lose your organic label. E.g. substituting a biodegradable material that doesn't list its ingredients could cause you to lose the label when using plastic wouldn't.
What about people that are living in more rural parts of Europe?
There are a lot of small time farmers there that still grow the same sheep/cows/animals their grandparents grew 100 years ago.
They grow the same veggies on the same rotated soil that was grown 100 years ago, the same way.
Sure it may be a niche but if I'm living around there and eating that food, I think it's pretty darn close to what our ancestors were eating a century ago.
I'm specifically talking about the US, and in particular the majority of the US population. My understanding is that the rest of the world tends to be somewhat better (not as much industrialization of farming and breeding) and of course there are still farmers all over the world who are still using traditional methods.
Agreed!
However it's still probably better to eat organic than something which doesn't even pretend to be safe. It's all relative in the end.
I hope one day I can control the sources and attributes of all the food that I eat. However till then I will try to do my best with my available time and money.
"simple ingredients" ... like the coke in Coca Cola?
People downvoted you, but that's not a bad example. Cocaine is an early (modern) example of the food industry taking a natural product that's been used forever, coca leaves, and processing it to produce a much more dangerous food additive.