Organic Foods' Unexpected Extras

[question everything]

Organic Foods' Unexpected Extras
Newsweek

Sept. 24, 2007 issue - The boom in restaurants serving local organic produce has come with an unexpected downside: more bugs in your food. Without pesticides to deter them, aphids, ladybugs, caterpillars and beetles are tagging along on the journey from farm to kitchen to dinner table with greater frequency. But the reactions among diners are as diverse as the critters they're finding on their plates.

Some are furious, of course, especially considering they're already paying more for organic food—but a surprising number, restaurateurs say, are cheered. To those customers, such uninvited guests are proof that the produce really is fresh and pesticide-free. "I, for one, would much prefer a bug on my plate to pesticide in my bloodstream," says Ben Long, a communications consultant and foodie from Kalispell, Mont. Sometimes it's more than just a bug. When Richard Samaniego, chef at California's Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa, opened a box of organic lettuce last year, a frog jumped out. "It was a good thing I found it before we started chopping," he jokes. And before his guests started eating.

—Julie Scelfo

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20789368/site/newsweek/

[Warpy]

1. Color me pleased

when I find a cabbage looper or other minor wildlife. I do know that the stuff is organic, then. I just pick the extra protein off and put it to the side.

I am not fond of miller moth larvae. I freeze whole grain flours.

Seriously, if the bugs won't eat it, I won't, either.

[YankeyMCC]

14. You 'put it to the side'

For an after dinner snack? ;)

[Warpy]

16. Vegetarians can use all the extra protein they can get, but no.

As a Buddhist, I had to let the compacting garbage bin in the kitchen do its thing.

[htuttle]

2. Some places charge extra for frogs in your salad

It's true!

[hatrack]

21. "If you took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy, now would it?!?"

:evilgrin:

[terip64]

3. As my old farmer neighbor used to say, "If a bug won't eat it either should you!" n/t

[Snarkturian Clone]

4. I've been saying this shit for years.

I'll wager that at least 65% of the people who shop at stores like Whole Foods do it so they can look down their nose on the poor people who shop at the commoner's supermarket. This way they can say "Those ignorant fools who buy regular food, they are not as enlightened as we", which is more acceptable then "look at those poor dirty fuckbags"

edit: typo

[kestrel91316]

11. Well, aren't YOU the pleasant one? A few of us here DO shop at WF.

GFY.

[YankeyMCC]

15. I'd rather deal with a bug than most industrial pesticides

and I shop at WF often, thanks for the blast from your wide spectrum insult.

[Snarkturian Clone]

18. Touched a nerve, have I?

Read my post carefully. I said 65%, not ALL. Maybe you're part of the other 35%?

Or did my post hit too close to home for ye?

[YankeyMCC]

19. So you respond by making an accusation

directly at me.

Way to win over people to your point of view here swifty.

And yes you did touch a never it always annoys me when people make sweeping generalizations, and yes I think 65% qualifies as a sweeping generalization.

[Snarkturian Clone]

25. That's the biggest pile of bullshit I've ever read.

I've read some good piles. Do you deny the fact that there's an entire contingent of people who don't give half a shit about eating organic but go to whole foods anyway?

Here in Philly there's a Whole Foods next door to a regular supermarket. It's fun to sit at the corner of 10th and south, watching which people go to one or the other. Only a small portion of the people entering the whole foods do so because they genuinely care. Most are soccer moms who can't go against their clique, hipsters who will be scrutinized by their peers if they don't go, and rich people who do not want to be in the presence of poor people while shopping.

Know any Whole Foods stores in bad neighborhoods? Whole Foods has aimed their entire marketing strategy to the well-off.

They might as well advertise with this motto:

"Whole Foods. You don't have to look at poor people!"

I believe many people on this board go there because they genuinely care about their health and the origin of their food, but please, don't sit there and tell me that there aren't people that go there as a status symbol.

How can 65% be a SWEEPING generalization if a regular generalization refers to 100%?

[YankeyMCC]

27. Don't read your own posts much then I guess nt

[baby_mouse]

23. "Ooooh, look at me, I said something offensive and now you're OFFENDED."

Are you on crack?

[Snarkturian Clone]

24. not crack, smack.

Sorry I said something negative about your church. There's one 3 blocks away from me, I'll light an candle with an organic lighter and pray to John Mackey.

[baby_mouse]

26. You do that.

Pray for brains while you're at it.

[lakeguy]

29. was that your own study

where you determined that 65% of the WF shoppers were nose lookers?

[baby_mouse]

17. Be off with you, you ludicrous creature.

Maybe their behaviour (GASP!) isn't all about YOU.

[Nihil]

20. Be fair ...

... he's probably just crawled out of someone's salad ...
:evilgrin:

[shaniqua6392]

5. I would rather have a bug

than e coli!!

[question everything]

8. E. Coli is very much organic

and found in nature..

[XemaSab]

6. God forbid there should actually be LIVING THINGS in your lettuce

:eyes:

[C_U_L8R]

7. what's a little extra protein with your greens :-)

[Sarah Ibarruri]

9. Well, I've always washed my veggies. :-) nt

[kestrel91316]

10. There's no reason for bugs, organic or not, if veggies and fruits

are WASHED PROPERLY in the first place. Sheesh. Muy stupido.

That's why kitchens have these things called SINKS.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

12. I work organic produce

and I often cite insects on the produce as proof that it hasn't been treated. I also recommend washing (before you put it away!), even items like bagged salads that come "pre-washed".

Folks also complain about inconsistency in size and blemishes on organic chow. I tell them to eat by candlelight.

[Javaman]

28. "I tell them to eat by candlelight"

LOL :rofl: that is priceless!!!

it's amazing how many people have no idea how food is grown or that it is grown outdoors.

the best part about, what I like to call normal food (or the fad title of organic food, lol), is the variety of flavor. Take 5 hothouse GM tomato's and they all taste the same: bland.

Take 5 normal tomato's grown in a field with no pesticides and/or other bizarre modern mechanizations, and you will have 5 different flavors, sometimes several in a single tomato!

People in general have lost their sense of taste and flavor. if it's not loaded down with sugar, salt or other crap, they think something organic has no flavor.

I liken it to the concept of people who smoke then quit. Once they quit, they realize how flavorful their food is, imagine if they tried organic at first. Their senses would go crazy. lol

[Nay]

13. Old joke: "Waiter! There's a bug in my soup!" "Please, sir, be

quiet. . . all the other diners will want one, too!"

[leebert]

22. aphids, lady bugs & catepillars... YUM n/t