Thursday, January 26, 2012


Okay so after spending a few days thinking about what I wanted to cover this week I decided to talk about a certain rhetoric used for advertising, specifically the use of the word organic to describe foods. Now most people have heard the notions that if your food is organically grown that it means that it must be healthier than other foods, but that is not necessarily true. The definition of organic actually means that it is a compound that contains carbon and is ultimately of biological origin so basically if it grows out of the ground it can be considered an organic substance. People who produce crops and make less than $5000 a year off of the sales of these substances are allowed to refer to them as organic without being certified, they just are not allowed to say that it is certified. And at that substance doesn't have to be completely hundred percent organic just 95% so 5% of that can still be certain types of pesticides. While it is true that organic foods do have less pesticides then most other grown foods claims that it will reduce certain health risks are debatable and have not been scientifically proven. Basically what I'm saying is that before you spend all your extra money on certain “organically grown materials” you might want to check your local supermarket for something just as good for a cheaper price, but if you feel like splurging go ahead who am I to stop you.

Feel free to comment I want hear what you think

2 comments:

  1. I think that this is pretty cool, and once again, it is something off the track that I wouldn't have thought about. While I recognize the "organic food craze" and see its benefits, I find it amusing that your money isn't always buying what you had anticipated. On the other side, it is certainly a good job by the advertistising teams of these companies, because they are definitely accomplishing their goals.

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  2. I think this is a really interesting topic to write about. The word "organic" is often so misleading. It tricks people into thinking the food was naturally raised on a locally grown farm of some sorts, when in reality, it's the complete opposite as you have mentioned. It's funny how the corporations who use the words like "organic" are fast food industries such as McDonalds and even Chipotle. This reminded me of those "healthy" high fructose corn syrup commercials a few years back which argued the same thing as McDonalds does with the "organic" issue. People should do their research some more.

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