Organic fanatic

ARE ORGANIC FOODS always better? As noted hair-splitter Bill Clinton might say, that depends on the meaning of "organic" and also of "better." Those meanings are changeable and slippery, but there are ways of getting a firmer grip on them, and one of the – yes – better of these is a book, published this week, called A Field Guide to Buying Organic, by a pair of Minnesotans, Luddene Perry and Dan Schultz (Bantam, $14 paper).

The authors are sympathetic to the organic-food movement, whose immediate roots they trace to late 19th-century Germany and whose deep historical basis is the use of compost (the world's first and most durable recycling program) to feed soil that would otherwise be depleted by agriculture. But they are not naive about the multiple motivations of organic food shoppers, nor about the changes that have been brought to organic farming practices by agribusiness, which knows a profit center when it sees one. With organic food production becoming an industry of national scale, Perry and Schultz foresee, not too many years along, "some kind of synthesis of conventional and organic farming practices," and while "this synthesis will water down organic standards, a small positive effect on the agricultural system as a whole will result."

Meanwhile: Are foods labeled "organic" worth the extra money? The answer is almost certainly yes if one's purpose in buying them is to cast a vote against conventional agriculture and its many depredations of environment and ethics. But the issue becomes considerably blurrier as to taste and even as to human health. Many of even the most rigorously certified organic foods (produce, in particular) contain measurable residues of various pesticides, while some conventionally produced foods are no more likely to have residues of pesticides or other undesirable chemicals than are their pricier organic counterparts.

In this connection, dairy products are tricky business. No milk, whether organic or conventional, can contain any trace of antibiotics, per government regulations, but both kinds can contain pesticide residues. "Organic" cheese is dicey; there is plenty of organic milk to make it, but traditional rennet has been almost entirely supplanted in recent years by a genetically engineered substitute called Chymosin, whose presence in organic cheese is a matter for speculation. Organic butter, on the other hand, might well be worth the cash, since butter is a form of animal fat, and fat is where animals store environmental contaminants. Butter, the authors note, "is second only to fish in harboring PCBs." Organic might not be perfect, but at least in the case of butter, it is probably better.

Paul Reidinger paulr@sfbg.com

Contact Paul Reidinger at paulr@sfbg.com.