Tips & Advice Archives - Organic Food Lovers

Why Organic Food Costs More

This is probably the most contentious issue when it comes to any kind of organic product. Why does it always cost more than conventional? Shouldn’t something grown or raised with fewer chemical additives also cost less? This question doesn’t just come up for organic food, but also clothing, cleaning and paper products and any other household items. Why does organic cost more?

There are several reasons for this, all linked together.

When you grow any kind of produce (or raise livestock for that matter) you are going to reduce your losses by using chemicals. Whether its pesticides to repel insects, or antibiotics to keep animals healthy. These things are done to provide the farmer with the least amount of loss each season. When you take that away, losses will typically go up which means their profit goes down. Good rigorous organic techniques can help but its not always enough. This means that growers and farmers have to charge more for their wares.

Along with this is that it will take more time to manage crops without the added protection you’d get from the chemicals. Using natural pesticides usually means they need to be applied more often, for example. Trying to manage weeds without herbicides can take a lot of time as well. All of this means that it costs more in manpower hours to produce a crop. Again, that raises the price.

Artificial fertilizers will greatly boost the productivity of crop plants, so an organic farmer will end up with a smaller harvest when compared to a conventional farmer. So for an acre of planting, the organic farmer may end up with less even if they are able to keep the insects at bay.

And you can’t forget the age-old concepts of supply and demand. Since the demand for organic products is small (ironically, it’s small because of the cost in most cases), farmers have to charge more to earn a living from the smaller number of sales.

As more and more people are choosing organic foods, the costs will come down due to the increased demand. Manufacturers are able to reduce their costs when producing anything in larger quantities, and the same goes for most organic food products though not necessarily for actual whole fruits and vegetables themselves. But overall, the greater the production level, the lower the costs will be.

The costs should also come down as more farmers investigate organic growing concepts and get better and utilizing them instead of resorting to sprays. The learning curve isn’t too steep but it can take a while for the ideas to develop and improve enough to become as productive as old conventional methods.

All of these reasons work together to create an environment where organic foods cost more. Thankfully, the demand is still growing which will slowly but surely improve the market and costs will naturally come down to where it will make sense to buy organic whenever you can.

Preserving and Storing the Organic Way

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Since buying or growing organic produce tends to be a seasonal affair, you will want to be able to preserve your fruits and vegetables to use later in the year. There are several great food preservation methods that you can use to keep food for many months, all still retaining the organic standards you are looking for. The most common are canning, freezing and drying.

Canning

Canning is a bit of a misnomer since you are really storing your food in glass jars rather than cans. You can can things like pickles and tomatoes (high acidity) foods in just a boiling water bath but for all other foods, you will need to invest in a pressure canner. Food is packed into proper canning jars, made by Ball or Mason (not old jam jars) and heated under pressure long enough to kill any bacteria. When they are removed from the canner and cooled, a vacuum is created which seals down the lids.

This is how many past generations preserved their foods and though it takes more work than these other methods, the sealed jars can be stored anywhere once finished. Your food retains much of its nutrients but the texture will be softer since everything you can gets a good cooking in the canner.

Freezing

Freezing is the simplest method here but does require the ongoing use of your freezer to keep everything nicely frozen. This can be a problem if your home is subject to power outages. Some vegetables can just be cleaned up and frozen just as-is but you will get better preservation if you blanch most first. That’s a quick bath is boiling hot water to stop the natural enzyme actions that would degrade your food, even in the freezer. When thawed, your food will be the closest to fresh of most preservation methods.

For large gardens, you may need to invest in a second chest freezer if you want to use this method to preserve most of your harvest.

Drying

Drying is not ideal for all your fruits and veggies but it can be a great option to use as part of your overall preservation plan. Like canning, you can stored your finished foods without any special conditions (unlike freezing). All you need is a dehydrator, which isn’t much more than a small heater with a fan. Most commercial dehydrators will hold several trays of sliced food and have them thoroughly dry in an afternoon or overnight. For large harvests, you will want a large unit or even build your own drying racks.

Food that is dried for preservation needs to be completely dry or it can become moldy while in storage. Depending on the type of food, that can be tough and leathery or even dry enough to snap when bent. The food will shrink quite a bit once dehydrated making for better storage. The downside is that the consistency of the food once it’s rehydrated isn’t as good as the other methods

None of these methods involving using artificial or chemical preservatives, making them perfect for the organic shopper or gardener.

Reading Organic Labels

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When shopping for organic or healthy foods, do you even know what you should be looking for? Not all labels are created equal and you can easily get fooled into buying something because you think it is healthier than it really is. Knowing how to read a product label is very important when shopping for organic products.

The most important thing you want to look for on a label is the words “organic”. This is the one labeling item that is strictly regulated and has a great deal of meaning behind it. When you see things like “natural”, “all-natural”, “environmentally friendly” or “green” these things may have no meaning at all. That doesn’t mean these products are all scams, but the terms themselves are just marketing concepts and may not reflect a truly authentic statement about the product.

Single ingredient food items, such as eggs, fruit or vegetables are either organic or they’re not. It’s pretty simple. But processed food products that have many ingredients can have various levels of “organic-ness” and have to be labeled accordingly.

Any product that is completely organic can be labeled as “100% organic” but if it has 5% or less non-organic ingredients then it will be marked as just “organic”. The non-organic ingredients have to be approved by the National Organics Program. Products with 70 to 94% organic ingredients have to be labeled as “made with organic ingredients” and they won’t have the distinctive USDA organic seal. These products can list three of their organic ingredients on their labels though. Anything with less than 70% organic ingredients cannot label themselves as organic.

Now all of this really only applies to food products. Organic standards for non-food products are different. Skin care, cleaning products and clothing have different levels of requirement but are just as regulated for their use of the “organic” claim. You still want to look for that label so you can verify the claims. Always check the ingredients as well.

So what does “organic” really mean? Well, the USDA regulates it and you’ll have to read through several pages to get the full details on what constitutes an organic product. But a quick summary is:

“Organic crops are raised without using most conventional pesticides, petroleum-based fertilizers, or sewage sludge-based fertilizers. Animals raised on an organic operation must be fed organic feed and given access to the outdoors. They are given no antibiotics or growth hormones.”

That is what applies to food products. For a company to earn their certification, they have to prove that they have followed these rules for at least 3 years and consent to multiple government inspection. Fines for lying about an organic label can reach $11,000. As you can see, this is a word you can trust.

If you see the organic label, you can trust that product. Anything else will require a little research on your part. Some “all-natural” products truly are filled with healthy and natural ingredients, but you won’t know for sure until you look into it.