Food Fight: Time Magazine on Organic vs. Local

The organic vs. local produce debate has gone mainstream. The cover of this week's Time Magazine proclaims, "Forget Organic. Eat Local."

John Cloud investigates the battle between the "local foods" movement and Big Organic.

Cloud writes in the cover story:

Not long ago I had an apple problem. Wavering in the produce section of a Manhattan grocery store, I was unable to decide between an organic apple and a nonorganic apple (which was labeled conventional, since that sounds better than "sprayed with pesticides that might kill you"). It shouldn't have been a tough choice--who wants to eat pesticide residue?--but the organic apples had been grown in California. The conventional ones were from right here in New York State. I know I've been listening to too much npr because I started wondering: How much Middle Eastern oil did it take to get that California apple to me? Which farmer should I support--the one who rejected pesticides in California or the one who was, in some romantic sense, a neighbor? Most important, didn't the apple's taste suffer after the fruit was crated and refrigerated and jostled for thousands of miles?

Read the whole article at Time Magazine.

Read More in: Food | Organic Food News | Weekend Reading

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