[KennyBlanken]

I buy "high end" eggs not because they're better for me, but because there were fewer or less toxic pesticides put into the environment to produce feed for it, and there's less chance the chicken spent its entire life in a cage so small it can barely move (or on the floor of a barn so packed that, again, it can barely move.)

That's the straw-man people who attack organic food buyers with. "You silly libtard, buying organics because you think it's better for you!"

Nope. It's only partially about my health. In the case of a lot of organic produce, it's more about my not wanting to support industry growers whose field workers are exposed to incredible levels of pesticides.

There are exceptions. Canadian grain for example, which farmers drench in pesticides using them as a drying agent to reduce spoilage rates. They take advantage of reduced regulations around pesticide residue that was pushed through by lobbyists hired by Canadian grain producers.

So, I will not buy any grain based products that aren't organic.

I also won't buy non-organic spices or teas. Turns out that a lot of non-organic spices - like cinnamon - have very high levels of lead, but the organic versions have much less, or none: https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/hig...

What is particularly scary: a producer who sells in bulk targeting the restaurant industry (Badia) was one of the higher levels tested.

Anything made with central/south american fruit puree? Organic only. Why? Producers used to spike the weight of their shipments with lead in the bottom of the containers. The lead would then go through the processing machinery. Result? Huge numbers of latino kids getting extreme lead poisoning.

I won't buy any central/south american produced candy period, because manufacturers like to print the labels with lead-containing inks among other problems, and they repeatedly test high for lead, have for decades, because those governments don't care or are being bribed: https://www.nmhealth.org/publication/view/help/2154/

[maxerickson]

Organic farming uses larger amounts of less effective poisons. Modern poisons are highly targeted and require smaller amounts. Typically they target disruption of metabolic pathways that are specific to plants.

[hansvm]

"Organic" as a concept has fallen victim to regulatory capture.

If you douse your fields in copper compounds which aren't currently regulated as fungicides then you can keep your certification, no matter the quantity. Last I checked, ~80% of organic produce in the US had worse pesticide use than traditional farms (if you include things which aren't illegal yet, using rolling policy changes causing previous "organic" behaviors to be regulated as an indication of what the status quo is).

As a related concept, "GMOs" (selectively adding desired genes to a crop) can't be organic, but radiation and chems to increase the mutation rate 100,000x and then select the winning crops is organic.

I know you said health doesn't matter, but if you look at recent produce-induced health scares, the vast majority are e-coli from the fecal-oral route on your organic produce.

Not to mention, something like 3-8% of organic produce _still_ has the pesticides that are explicitly banned for use in organic farming. The same kind of people who spike a shipment weight with lead will also bribe an inspector and use pesticides. There's a lot of money sloshing around when you can charge twice as much for your crops.

That's not to say per se that you shouldn't buy organic food (when I'm purchasing from a large retailer, I do personally avoid it on principle, but that's a separate conversation), but don't let a particular buzzword short-circuit your critical thinking. You seem to be very aware of the kind of harm that can happen when you purchase products produced by megacorps in countries with low incomes and a culture of bribes. You, unfortunately, still need to apply that analysis to each product. The heuristic of "organic == good" doesn't apply in today's day and age.

[dmoy]

> I also won't buy non-organic spices or teas. Turns out that a lot of non-organic spices - like cinnamon - have very high levels of lead, but the organic versions have much less, or none

This is hit or miss depending on the substance. E.g. organic chocolate has more lead than non-organic chocolate, on average.

The lead amount has more to do with the very specific place that a given crop is being grown, not so much to do with organic food or not.

If you use organic farming practices on top of soil that's got a lot of lead in it, the resulting food thing will have more lead in it

[dmoy]

(in the case of spices, sometimes the lead is an additive, which is illegal regardless of whether it's organic)

[cinntaile]

You should probably buy non-organic eggs if you want healthier eggs. Due to the regulations regarding what they can eat ("natural" food), they will eat more dioxines and heavy metals. Synthetically derived ingredients skip this issue because there is no bioaccumulation of contaminants.