The lie that is "Industrial Organic"

As I discussed last week, in the book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” Michael Pollan is trying to discover where our food comes from. In the first section of the book, he tries to track his food through the industrial food chain, looking at how corn is the basis of most of our food today. In the second part, some of which I will discuss today and some part in the next post, we see Michael Pollan going organic. He goes to Whole Foods, buys organic vegetables and meat. But one day he realizes that he should discover where the organic food comes from and if it really is different from industrially produced food. Where does his journey take him? Follow along!

The journey starts because of Rosie, the chicken. Who is Rosie you might ask? Well one day while shopping for groceries at Whole Foods, Pollan starts reading the labels on various products, especially the poultry/meat products that made claims about free range, sustainable farmed meat. Among one of these was a farm who’s label even included the name of the chicken you are about to eat, Rosie. Now as awkward as it is to know your food’s name, it did ignite the desire in Pollan’s heart to go see where Rosie came from. And so began the journey of Industrial Organic.

Industrial Organic? What is that? I always thought Organic meant farms, self-sustained, not using chemicals, but with Industrial Organic, is that even possible? Is the term Organic just to make us, the consumers, happy? Turns out, partially the term is just to make us happy. But under all circumstances, organic is certainly better than industrially produced food. Now I’ve told you the fact but let me explain how Pollan got to this fact. Pollan decided to visit various organic farms, including some large farming companies that dominate the organic food industry. What he discovers is that these farming companies are similar to industrial farms in the sense that they own large acres of land that produce a single crop every year. To maintain these crops, even these farmers use pesticides and chemical fertilizers; however, they use chemicals that have been declared “organic” by the government. Many small farmers believe that this is just a play on the word organic by the government but Pollan believes that this is still better than industrially used chemicals.

From here on, he decides to visit Rosie’s home. As he gets to the farm where Rosie came from, he realizes that the use of words such as free range and sustainably raised, are not exactly the perfect description. The chicken in the farm were not allowed to go outside for the first five week because of the fear of them catching a disease. After that they only had two weeks because they were slaughtered the seventh week. In the two weeks these chickens had, they were allowed access to a small area outside the hen house, accessible through a tiny door. What Pollan observed was that none of the chicken went outside because after remaining inside since birth till the fifth week they never understood the outside world and probably did not even know that they could go outside. So much for free range right. These chickens were also given organic corn feed, and as I discussed in the previous blog, corn is certainly not what chickens eat.

Hence we realize that with Industrial Organic, it is safer than industrial farming because the chemicals and the feed aren’t as harmful, but the whole idea of organic is not what we imagine it to be. It is just a big play on words. But that is all about industrial organic produce, what about smaller farm? Farms that are operated by small farmers on a more sustainable level? Well, that’s what you will find out next week in my next blog post, so make sure to come back and read about more of Pollan’s interesting discoveries.