Maggie's Farm

Chipotle may well have been the victim of sabotage. Someone doing funny stuff with the stock price? Also, like the other food chains with problems, the common thread is having food processed in a large facility and then sent out to stores. (remember all those huge amounts of hamburger recalled, gigantic meat processors, repeated incidents...)

Furthermore, I think the article on organics misses an important point about our food nowadays which is that more and more of it is coming from sketchy suppliers overseas. Foreign fruits and vegetables (whether conventional or labelled "organic") are NOT as healthy as American grown. Even if one doesn't buy American produce (as I do) to employ one's fellow citizens, and American farmers, one might consider doing so because our own regulations about pesticides, labor laws, etc. tend to discourage workers pooping in fields, and the use of now prohibited pesticides. I spent part of my childhood in the Third World and fruit there was still sprayed with arsenic, vegetables fertilised with human poop, etc.

My personal preference is for organic. However most people cannot afford it. And shaming people is loathsome. As far as why not eat organic here? First, it is WAY more expensive. For a young family, it is more important to buy your family lots of fruits and vegetables, than to buy only a few organic ones. Second, many organic pesticides and fungicides can be just as toxic as conventional ones.

I personally have grown some 60-75% of my family's fruits and vegetables organically at home for a quarter century and I don't use any pesticides or fungicides (conventional or organic) at all. As the article rightly notes, there is a much lower yield when you do this, and there are ethical issues involved in growing less food than theoretically possible in a hungry world. If the population grew significantly or if there were a zombie apocalypse, one would have to just use chemicals to increase the yield, kill the evil bugs, kill the mold, and feed maximum people per acre. At some level, the urban single yuppies snarking and being "green" often forget the starving Third World people in need of their daily bread...We greedy fat Americans do not fall into that category...

I happen to think organic IS more nutritious, and my own organic produce tastes better to my family. But it's a luxury. I tend to think one should reserve it for loved ones, and for pregnant women, young growing children, sick people, the frail elderly people, and others who need to be built up. Ordinary, healthy people with good immune systems can probably do just fine on conventional non-organic if money is an issue.

It's MUCH healthier to eat American-grown conventional produce than imported organic produce (fresher, no mystery growing conditions or lying foreign producers). Not to be xenophobic or anything....