apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Re: Liz - does Wal-Mart actually carry fresh produce? It just occurred to me that I'm not sure aaanymore what a Wal-Mart Supercenter entails...I know they have a big grocery section, but I think maybe it's limited to mostly non-refrigerated and processed items (with the exception of milk, etc). So that makes both of our aruguments about local produce (or not moot)...I guess my point essentially was that we should be promoting localized, bioregional food wherever it's possible...and however organic to whatever standard, Wal-Mart isn't interested in promoting localization or bioregionalism!

Oh, man. Such a hard topic. On the one hand, extending organic opportunities to communities who shop primarily at Wal-Mart sounds like a really great idea. However, if this demand causes organic standards to weaken and no real health benefits or environmental benefits are incurred, there's no net gain, other than having alerted those communities that conventional foods may pose health hazards. Which is something. The thing is, though, that many "Wal-Mart communities" are primarily rural or semi-rural, and have local agricultural resources available to them. What would be ideal is for these local farmers to cultivate organic options for community consumption.

Bottom line is that Wal-Mart is still an evil superpower that oughtn't have control over *any* market the way it does--let alone one that is actually trying to benefit the health and quality of life of consumers.

I promise nothing!
Anyway, Kate nailed it.

I wish everyone sold healthy food at reasonable prices.
And that various large corps in the organics biz were not working to weaken the standards of what that means.

Companies that make everything from milk to lawnmowers to pickles have felt the wrath of the Walmart price squeeze, as have their workers who get locked in the building and must work unpaid overtime if they want to keep their jobs.
phooey!

This whole thing makes me a little crazy. Why? The organic industry is just that - an industry. I find it hard to believe that Wal-Mart moving into the game is going to affect that industry so much as to change its essential nature; they already have to produce organic produce and "free-range" meat on a massive scale to satisfy demand in other supermarkets all over the country. Wal-Mart will up that demand a lot, sure - but let's not pretend that we're not already dealing with a massive industry. It's not all small farms and conscientious growers.

I think that if people are truly serious about organic food, then they have to do the legwork themselves and find farms in their area, along with local produce distributors, and be willing to only eat what's in season, which is a sacrifice most Americans simply are not willing to make. We cannot trust large grocery store chains - whether it be Whole Foods, Wal-Mart, or any other supermarket - to do our work for us. No matter what their ostensible intentions are, we cannot rely on them to establish the virtue of our table.

On the other hand, the good thing about Wal-Mart being here is the enormous boost of public awareness that this can create; it's a stepping stone. If Wal-Mart is selling organic, then hopefully people will take it seriously and eventually move past buying plastic packages of "organic" machine-shredded lettuce flown in by gas-guzzling plane from Mexico.

OK, that was my spurt of cynicism for the day.

New Yorker article "What are you buying when you buy organic?" - http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/060515crat_atlarge

I prefer to buy local first, then organic, then family farm....etc.

There are so many things about Wal-Mart that don't mesh with my families values. I don't ever see myself buying anything there let alone food.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Question: what does "organic" really mean?

I read an article recently (Slate.com? not sure) which said that the standards for labeling something "organic" under US law are actually fairly low. I think this referred more to processed foods (like cereals), not fresh produce.

Does anyone know what a food manufacturer has to do to get an "organic" label?

faith
I think the difference with Walmart is that they have buying power, and therefore pressure, above and beyond any other retailer in the world.

They represent a more drastic turn into practices where a "free-range" animal is restricted to a patch of dirt in a feed lot, instead of grazing or pecking around in grass or rooting around in a forest for acorns. And of course that isn't free range at all, but corps with lobbying $ will ensure that's what the label will say.

me - I think that's the right question to ask. It's surprisingly hard to track down what "organic" really means, in the context of regulation; the link to definitions on the USDA National Organic Program site is broken; there's just a bunch of legal documents there.

I found the actual guidebook elsewhere:

Organic regulations: http://www.mofga.org/usda_regs_toc.html

Labeling definitions: http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/ProdHandlers/labelTable.htm

i haven't read the article yet, but i will. in the meantime, i just want to caution kate and say that not all rural communities have access to a variety of fresh, healthful produce. in places where small family farms have failed, many of these rural areas have become factory towns (or factory counties, depending on the density).

so the -idea- of bringing good produce to these communities is a good one. now i'll read the article when i get a few minutes today and see what the practice looks like.

i haven't read the article yet, but i will. in the meantime, i just want to caution kate and say that not all rural communities have access to a variety of fresh, healthful produce. in places where small family farms have failed, many of these rural areas have become factory towns (or factory counties, depending on the density). and many rural communities were never agricultural--they rely on mining, timber, or some monoculture like shrimp.

so the -idea- of bringing good produce to these communities is a good one. now i'll read the article when i get a few minutes today and see what the practice looks like.

guido, I absolutely agree about the buying power. I guess my point was just that this is already the situation; "free range" chickens with a tiny window of time to go outside their tightly packed barn, for instance. Wal-Mart will probably exacerbate it, but if we don't think that corporations have been using the idea of "organic" and "free range" as doublespeak marketing ploys long before Wal-Mart came on the scene, then we're fooling ourselves.

From the New Yorker article: "Earthbound grows more than seventy per cent of all the organic lettuce sold in America...The growing of the arugula is indeed organic, but almost everything else is late-capitalist business as usual. Earthbound’s compost is trucked in; the salad-green farms are models of West Coast monoculture, laser-levelled fields facilitating awesomely efficient mechanical harvesting; and the whole supply chain from California to Manhattan is only four per cent less gluttonous a consumer of fossil fuel than that of a conventionally grown head of iceberg lettuce."

I guess I am very skeptical whether with large producers involved the official USDA organic label will ever have anything more than a token meaning, Wal-Mart or no. For me, the whole dialogue has less to do with organic itself and the values that come with it, and more with being a consumer who hates feeling manipulated by marketing. To me, the organic label takes calculating advantage of customers' desires to do right by their children and eat healthy. Customers should not rely on labeling or government designations to do this. I think we probably all agree on that. Buying "organic" is fine as long as you understand the limited nature of what you are buying and don't have unrealistic expectations.

Grrr. Gosh am I cynical today or what? OK, I'll stop talking now. ;-)

Faith, while I totally get your point, and while I agree that, ideally, there would be local organic (although in NYC, that's pretty difficult, and in Florida, where I grew up and I think you live, that's difficult, too, because of climate), my first aim in eating organic is to avoid pesticides. Secondarily, yes, I agree--the local issue is a concern.

Maybe Walmart is a first step in making these values widespread, which would be good. But I agree with Guido that Walmart's track record with suppliers (and I'm thinking of Snapper mowers as a specific example) and labor makes me not want to spend money there.

Whole Food may get lambasted for health care, but Walmart was locking their cleaning force in their stores overnight, and as Guido mentioned, one worker broke an arm and was trapped for hours. To me, that's far worse than not insuring part-time workers. (Not that I think that's great, but if it's a choice between two evils...)

faith, we are surely interested in the same things for our food supply. I'm just resisting the temptation to lump it all together as a lost cause -- I don't really think it is.

pollyanna much? yeah, why not.
maybe it's because I have an option I can live with (PS Food Coop) with like minded people doing their damndest to keep ahead of the agrabiz corn syrup tidal wave. CSAs and farmers markets and community gardens are happening all over the place. I've met the lady who meadow-raised the chicken from which I'm making soup for my sick friend. That inspires hope.

That chicken is from Cloonshee Farms in Hobart NY
and cost me $2.15 lb
Loose organic carrots at the co-op were .83 this week

That's awesome about the chicken, guido! You do have excellent options there. I am sorry if I am too cynical; I would definitely say that organic via coops and CSAs and farmers' markets is exactly where I hope people can get their food. It's the big chains getting involved that I am cynical about, along with an unthinking dependence on government labeling. I am overstating the point anyway, I think. You're right: we do have the same interests.

I get my produce from a place that carries local, seasonal stuff. I don't think much of it is organic, but made a conscious choice to go local over organic, if I can only have one or the other. When it is open I go to another farmer's market and buy from a place that does both.

Last year I was in northern Florida, kinda midway on the panhandle. There were a bunch of farmers in small production -- an organic herb farm in Madison FLA with awesome shitakes, a sheep farm somewhere else. It was cool. And encouraging.

Being cynical about our food supply keeps us thinking, questioning, and looking for alternative solutions...

Kate:

Super Wal-Mart is a Wal-Mart and a grocery store under one roof. They do carry produce and everything else a grocery store carries.

oh. well then. ew. geez.

I'm conflicted. I hate Wal-Mart. I haven't set foot in one in years. That said, I live in a community with access to good food and I have the money to make the choice to buy quality food. Where I work is another matter. It's a very poor, rual community. You would think that good fresh produce would abound, but it isn't so. Many of the families I work with are the working poor, with very little money, time, and transportation options. Wal-Mart is the mainstay for them. If Wal-Mart gave them access to affordable, higher-quality, less processed food. I think it could make a huge difference in the lives of the kids I work with. That's my two cents.