As a consumer, I am finished worrying about whether or not to trust the USDA Organic label. It’s clearly not to be trusted. I understand this mind-set could put some organic farmers and producers in an unenviable position right now. And so supporting farmers and producers of organic products — even in the face of what the NOP has done to subvert organic certification — will continue to be a “core value” driving my purchases.
But the caveat will be that the products must be locally grown or locally produced. I live in a depressed area, and would like to keep a larger share of my resources flowing into the Rochester NY economy, such as it is.
Buy why stop there? Thanks in part to the July 1 New York Times article Buying Into the Green Movement (premium content, but entering the title in a search engine brings up a number of sources for the full text, including here) — I’m making it my goal to buy LESS as well as buy local.
“There is a very common mind-set right now which holds that all that we’re going to need to do to avert the large-scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions”
–Buying Into the Green Movement
The mass marketing of organics started the process. There’s just something stomach-turning about a well-known sports clothing manufacturer starting an “organics” line. And too much of what I learned while doing research for this blog became a series of nails in the USDA Organic Labeling coffin. To put it in Sopranos-speak: this label is dead to me.
What the NYT article did so well was to emphasize that in spite of the current green marketing frenzy (is organics already so last-year — ?) the best way to decrease energy consumption is simply not to consume.
So here’s my new shopping algorithm: buy less >> buy local >> buy organic >>
Wow, I feel better already…
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