You Don't Know Where It Came From

Driving into Muncie the other day I caught half of a radio interview discussing food production. A representative (unfortunately I didn’t catch his name or title, but I’ll post it if I can find the interview online) for a conventional food company was debating the merits of his company’s product compared to organic options and farmer’s markets.

The idea of organic food and glocalization seem tied together. I know that’s not necessarily always true, but Food Inc. carried the idea that knowing where the food came from was a crucial bit of knowledge that we lack when shopping at a grocery store seeing picturesque farms printing on the packaging. All of this is why I was so surprised to hear the food rep defend his product by saying “[with organic food] you don’t know where it came from!”

He then proceeded to argue that if there is an e-coli outbreak within the produce of his company, the food is all numbered and traceable, and warnings can be issued about the outbreak to the exact stores where that food was delivered. Gee. Thanks. That doesn’t exactly make me feel better.

That’s not to say that it’s impossible for contamination to occur on an organic farm like Joel Salatin’s Polyface farm featured in Food Inc., but considering the lack of transparency shown by the food companies in that same film the rep’s argument is nullified.

Still, I wonder if I’m romanticizing organic food. Humanity will probably never work out a 100% perfect solution, but between the two extremes the better choice is clear.