Organic Food, Purity, And Koreans

Jonathan Haidt is a researcher of psychology who has classified human morals in five different categories. Of these five, the one liberals tend to value the least in comparison to conservatives is the one most associated with religion: "purity." But, as Haidt points out in this TED talk (pretty long, potentially fun, but not necessary to the discussion) liberals have this thing for food which they consider "pure." It's the point of this post; why do liberals pay a premium for stuff that's classified "organic?"

Please read this piece before continuing.

As Dunning points out, industrial organic fertilizers and "synthetic" fertilizers are almost identical. Run-off from conventional farms can feed algal blooms, but if organic farms are big enough, their run-off can, too. And even though some organic fertilizers decay and release the principle three elements slowly, if the soil and plants they're with don't integrate all of those elements, there'll be run-off just as with conventional farming. Finally, USDA organic farmers are allowed to use raw manure to fertilize land for crops. We know what that can lead to. (Gotta avoid those scary "synthetic" fertilizers!)

On top of this, some non-USDA organic farmers use blood meal, which is a by-product of slaughterhouses. It's just dried blood, which when added to water is used as a fertilizer; when it's sprayed dry on plants, rabbits won't eat them. Think of the Venn diagram of organic eaters and vegetarians. Surely, lot's of overlap. I don't think these vegetarians realize that to avoid using scary "synthetic" pest controls, some organic farmers are spraying dried cow blood on plants and rabbits. Funny.

But it just gets sillier. Here's a paragraph from the legislation defining USDA organic foods that describes verboten material:

The term “synthetic” means a substance that is formulated or manufactured by a chemical process or by a process that chemically changes a substance extracted from naturally occurring plant, animal, or mineral sources, except that such term shall not apply to substances created by naturally occurring biological processes.

Question. What's a "naturally occurring" cow? Modern cows are bred to produce milk at a high rate and are probably unable to thrive in the "natural" world. What's "naturally occurring" wheat? Almost all grains are bred to have little relation to the grasses from which they originate in nature. Fruit today (including organic) is very different from anything occurring before humans started cultivation (key section from 00:43 to 01:10).

But the most ridiculous phrase is "chemical process." Our bodies and all other things biological are just masses of chemicals whose interactions are mediated by genes. Look at this chart describing a key process in all life. It's just chemicals being processed by catalysts! To an organic eater, when a company produces fertilizer in industrial quantities it's a scourge unfit for organic human consumption. But not all industrial chemical processes are dangerous, and the green revolution caused by the Haber process and similar industrial techniques is correlated with some of the greatest gains in human lifespan. Organic eaters have no good reason to think that the Haber process is unsafe.

Conclusion: there are few differences between organic foods and conventional foods. In a double-blind test you wouldn't be able to tell the difference and you're not earning more Gaia points by eating organic foods.

Conclusion 2: some cultures are more honest about their obsessions.