Is it better to buy local or organic food?

It's a bad combination. We're like one of those tumors that kind of grows out of you when you ate your twin in the womb, you know, the tumors where they find like hair and fingernails and teeth. We're like one of those when you put us together. Yes we are. Yeah, good stuff, Josh, Thanks Chuck, So Chuck. Speaking of all that, did you know our first lady planted her own garden

outside the White House recently? I did. I bet she had a little help, but yeah, she did from some local school kids, although I bet they just screwed around the whole time. School kids are useless when it comes to gardening, and they are, But yeah, Michelle Obama planted a garden. Apparently it's the first kitchen garden since Eleanor Roosevelt was in the White House. Pretty cool running the show while her polio stricken husband couldn't even get out

of bed. Um. So but yeah, so and that that that that you know, Barack keeps getting compared to fdr um. So this is appropriate enough. But the big thing, the big hubbub about all this is that she chose to go a hundred percent organic. Right, Yeah, good move. Yeah, and this day and age, that's just a smart thing to do, you right, well, and why not is my point. If you're planning your own garden, I'll tell you why not.

As far as the Mid America Crop Life Association, which is basically a pesticide and fertilizer trade association, they have a lot of nice things to say. They they sent her a letter basically saying they never said the word and this is from a Times UK article, but they never said the word fertilizer or um organic anything like that.

They just basically wanted to know that America owns it owes its robust physique to all the technological advances in agriculture that have taken place over the years, meaning fertilizer and pesticide exactly. Yeah. So, um, apparently a lot of people didn't really like the fact that the UM M a c A took it upon themselves to send Michelle Obama a letter. Um. So there's a petition online right now, um and at least a hundred thousand people assigned it basically telling the M a c A to lay off

their pesticide propaganda. And I just made air quotes for everybody who can't see interesting. Yeah, well, I hope it works. I guess it will. I don't know. But the point is is Michelle Obama's going organic and a lot of people are right. Yeah, it's it's sort of the thing. It is thinks so much so that now there's there's a term big organic. Have you heard this? Uh yeah, Josh, big organic is um like Walmart is carrying uh organic food. Now that's what you would call big organic. Yeah. If

you're a mom and pop farmer, you can't. So you can't sell it to Walmart. You just can't do it. It takes, you know, huge agricultural concerns that have tens of thousands of acres at their disposal, cranking out as much as they can per acre and It's kind of sad to see organics go that way because it's that's pretty that's a pretty big shift from its roots and feel forgive the pund very nice, Josh, I hate puns. Yeah, for anyone who likes puns, I would strongly advise you

to go listen to tech Stuff, one of our sisters podcasts. Yeah. Oh and Strickland isn't isn't completely innocent of his puns either. Yeah. So I guess we should probably get back to talking about organics, right, yeah, alright, so Chuck, is it better to buy local organic? And actually we probably shouldn't take traditional factory farm. I guess we'll just call it traditionally grown um food out of the equation quite yet, right, right,

non organic? Big farm? Is that what you're talking? Yeah, but I mean big or yeah, yes, big farm, right, the ones that use like pesticides and fertilizers and stuff like that. I'm trying to see if we can get the M A c A after us. I want a letter of my own. That'd be pretty cool. That would be super cool. Frame it for the cube. Oh yeah, definitely. Um. Actually, Josh, when I read this, I thought it was interesting because

I wanted to say, well, why not both organic and local? Yeah, which is the pretty obvious thing, But that's kind of not the point in the article. Well, let's talk about it first. What's wrong with with you know, traditionally grown stuff. Well, I've got some stats for you. I love your stats

that can illustrate just what might be wrong with it. Uh. I conventionally grown apple, Josh Josher's maybe sprayed up to sixteen times with over thirty different chemicals, and it's lifetime that apple that you're eating right before you put it in your mouth, which is why you wash the food, shining it on your shirt. I imagine that just kind of smears the pesticides and fertilizers around. And I imagine running it under a cold tap for a second doesn't

a whole lot either. Yeah. I found, Um, there's a book on Google Books. It's called Supernutrition for Men. They actually recommended that if you, um buy commercially grown veggies what we're talking about, traditionally grown stuff, Um, you want to soak it in a three percent hydrogen peroxide solution

before you eat it. Yeah, And they said that if you really want to go to town, you can mix a half a teaspoon of bleach in a gallon of water and soak your vegetables and then will get rid of the pesticides and bacteria and all that stuff they can come along with traditionally grown food. So that wouldn't what happens to the bleach though, Does it wear off or something? They you soak it for another ten minutes

and just clean water. But I should also say, if you do make a bleach solution, um, you want to use purified or distilled water because normal hard tap water actually has compounds that can that can fuse to the bleach and create carcinogens. No, there's an alternative of though, which we were just talking about, right, it's called what organic. Yes, yes, I have one more stat for you though before we move on, just so people know what they're putting in

their body. It's important, uh the FDA that they actually did this one and they said that between thirty three and thirty nine of our food contains detectable amount of pesticides and of the fruits and thirty of our vegetables out of that lot, so that's you're eating pesticide and came definitely and these things can have um, you know, harmful effects. They've been shown to have harmful effects like headaches, fatigue. Um, there's na pesticides that have been shown to be neural disruptors,

which is awful. Um. Yeah, nausea is not fun. You don't eat four nausea you know. No, No, So okay, so we're just gonna go ahead and say if you eat traditional farm food whatever, more power to you. It's a good idea to know what's in your food, right, you should know what you're putting in and there you can also make a case for using pesticides and fertilizers and stuff like that. Um no, you can't, well, I think, And their point is, in a big um farming situation,

it's pretty much near impossible to sustain that without using pesticides. Well. Plus also it usually makes for much cheaper food. Yeah, it's a lot less labor intensive. Um. You know, if you're using like um uh, natural pesticide methods, this is usually much more difficult. It requires a lot more labor, and thus the price is going to go up, which is why if you're poor in America you're not eating organic food. Now, it's definitely a bit price here. So okay,

so let's talk organic chuck. Yes, the U s d A has a program Josh called the National Organic Program fittingly, and they are the people that certify things organic. When you see certified organic, it has to run through them your whole operation. Uh. You know, the seeds cannot be genetically modified at all or treated with synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. It's all this is laid out. And if you quality

steps as a program, you can be certified organic. Right and and actually, um, there the standards are pretty good there there. They were almost questionable there in two thousand four. In April two thous four, the U. S d A issued three directives, right, and one of them was it allowed fertilizers and pesticides to be used that contain unknown ingredients. And I just made air quotes again, um and uh. You could also feed livestock non organic fish meal, which

who knows what's in that? Sure, and you could also use antibiotics on them. Those are two directives, and then there's a third one. I should say. Those first two they didn't stick. There was such a public outcry against them. The u U s d A repeal them the next month. Um. But there was a third one that stick that. I think everybody should be aware of non agricultural products, including seafood, um, skin lotion, anything like that. This label organic, the USDA said,

you know what, that's out of her jurisdiction. They can say they're organic if they want, We're never going to investigate it. And you know what, this hits home. You know my wife does. Yeah, she makes her She makes a fine fine line of health and beauty products and made all natural, handmade, and she gets her feathers all riled up all the time because she'll see these companies tout things like organic when it's completely falls out of

the jurisdiction. And and beyond that, just like a lot of like huge products, they'll they'll throw things on there like um all natural and fresh, and there's really no way to to back in in and up. Apparently with light beer to um, you only have only has to be light in color. Interest has nothing to do with calories or anything like that, although you're led to believe it does. So Yeah, that's uh. It definitely hits home.

And I would definitely not be angry if anyone went to love your MoMA dot com and bought some of her. I was I was gonna ask, do you that you have a website to plug? Well, probably shouldn't plug Love your Mama dot com because that that would mean money in our family's pockets. I know that would stick if we plugged Love your Mama dot com. Chuck, Let's not ever do that. Huh. So moving on, Josh, is organic better for you? That's the one thing they really haven't

been able to prove. No. I actually found a real dearth of, um of you know, information, like quantifiable information, hard stats on things like that. Um, it's just an assumption like, okay, you don't have pesticides, you know, fertilizers. Logically, pesticides and fertilizers have been shown to uh, you know, create health problems they can, right, um, And since they're not there in these certified organic products, then hence these things should be healthier. But the USDA makes no claims

to this whatsoever. They're just saying, these people followed these steps. Here's the steps that they followed to become USDA certified. We've checked it out and we said, yes, this product is usd A certified. You make you you surmise yourself whether you want to eat or pay the extra three dollars for this dozen eggs. Right. I think the deal is with this, um is they cannot prove any nutritional

value by going organic. What they can say is if it's organic, what it lacks, um, is probably better for you without all the chemicals. But since they can't prove that it's richer in vitamin C or whatever if it's grown organically, then they can't. They have to lay off in that category. Right. And what one of the other reasons people choose organic obviously is because you get the impression and it's much more sustainable, right, Um, Like I think you have to rotate crops, you have to compost

on site, and these things are good and sustainable. But again we were talking about big organic. Um. These these farms are you know, following these processes, but I don't know to what degree, just enough to be USD a certified organic, right, But um, it's still having a huge impact on the environment right through what's called food miles.

So the average of food that we eat in the US I think travels to two thousand miles from where it's farm to where it's consumed, right, Um, And a lot of it actually there's there's a huge outcry I found from researching this against um air transportation. Yeah, because apparently that is the worst way to fly food. It's the worst carbon dioxide emitter, it's the it's the worst way to get food from from the source to you know, destination.

UM so yeah, so again though I looked it up, I'm like, what's the average, um, what's the average amount of of C O two that's emitted, you know, per pound of food or whatever. There's nothing on there. So all of this stuff surrounding this is all very logical and intuitive, but there's no hard facts, which I find frustrating. I have one cool quote, let's hear. This is from guy Colombia who's been pioneering local eating for years. The name is Goosele and his wait, wait, does he just

have one name like share? Actually that's just his last name, but sure, let's just say that. And goose Ale is often quoted saying that a strawberry ships from California to New York requires four hundred and thirty five calories of fossil fuel, but provides the eater only five calories of nutrition. Nice. I don't know if it's true or not, but yeah, that's I mean, that's the whole question. Do you buy local or do you buy organic? I know the hundred

mile diet in U local wore dot com. There's a big local food movement going on to try and cut down the greenhouse emissions. Yeah you know much about the hundred mile diet? Uh? School me? Okay, I know a little bit. So in two thousand five, this Canadian couple at Lisa's Smith and J. B. McKinnon. Um, they vowed to basically only eat local food. Nothing could have come from more than a hundred miles away. Right, Yeah, cool idea.

It is a cool idea, and it makes sense. But I got the impression from from reading about this that they had no idea how difficult this was gonna be. Like they didn't realize that they were like seasons and then sub seasons and apparently micro seasons. Um. So if you want cherries in the winter, you could go to the grocery store and get them, but you can if

you're on this hundred mile diet. Um. They were saying something like in this f a Q they were saying, you know, they went without wheat for a really long time until they finally met a local wheat farmer. And then they were able to you know, make their own stuff. But that part, that's part of it's very It can be much more expensive because you're buying all the ingredients rather than a package product that was part of a

run of several thousands, So it's cheaper um. And also it's just much more difficult and again labor intensive, but it is a lot more sustainable that you're cut down on CEO two emissions a hundred miles in that far as far as food miles goes UM. And also you you get to know kind of um. One of one of the reasons they say to eat local is um. The produce is much fresher, so within twenty four hours, it's it's it's been picked and you're eating it pretty

much right off of the plant, right um. And you get to know the people that you're you're buying from because you're going to a farmer's market pretty much. Well, let's talk about farmer's market. Let's do it. It's the best. Yeah, you're a big, big proponent of farmers markets. It's the best here in Atlanta, as most people now actually indicator, we have the decab farmers market and I bump into Jerry there. Sometimes is there a she's a shopper the air but actually a bunch of people from work I

see there. But it's the best, man. It's huge. And the cool thing about the farmer's market is not only can you choose from organic, but um above every fruit and vegetable is a sign that says where it came from, which is kind of cool. So you know you're getting your avocados from California or Mexico. And usually each fruit and vegetable has a couple of choices, and uh, none of them are very local. Though that's surprisingly because most farmers markets have a pretty strict rule that it can

only be from that state at least. Well, this is a little different kind of farmers market. I think most of those are the ones that are like a local farmers market that you'll have on Saturdays only and they'll set up in a parking lot and the local farmers come and bring their wares. This is a big, huge operation that's been around for you know, thirty plus years. Yeah, well, so it's it's a little different. I know there's a

I think a state subsidized farmers market down by the airport. Yeah, and I think you could they you can only be a Georgia grower to participate there. Those are awesome. I went to one. I used to go to one in l A when I lived there while they had the Hollywood Farmers Market, which is awesome. And then I went to the one closer to where I lived in Eagle Rock. That uh, same deal. I mean literally, the farmers pull up their truck and set up their stuff in the crates,

and you know, you chatted up within these guys. You feel really good about supporting it. Yeah. Apparently I was reading on them hundred Mile Diet site that there was a study that found that, um, people at farmers markets have ten times more conversations than people at the supermarket. Oh, I'm surprised it's not more than that. Yeah, well, I mean that actually struck me. I go to supermarkets. I don't normally go to farmers markets, but I know, you know,

when I'm there, I'm not there to chat. I'm there to go buy food, you know. So yeah, that's pretty cool. I think I'm gonna check the farmer's market out. Yeah, they're definitely a little more like when I'm at the the cab farmer's market. You'll be checking out of a pepper and the lady next so you will just say, aren't these peppers amazing? Yes? You know you never hear that at your local grocery store. Is there the heavy,

heavy scent of patuli? Yeah? And then you know, the lady says that to me, and I say, mind your own business, lady, I don't need to hear about what you think about these peppers, And I stomp off. That sounds like my kind of farmers market, very aggressive, hostile farmers, right. You know, uh, should we talk about co ops and farmer community supported agriculture. Yeah, Well, that's the big thing about eating local. One of the one of the things

that proponents always say is you're you're feeding the local economy. Me, you're creating local jobs, the money's going back into the local economy, you're helping local farmers. Um. And that's that's pretty much the opposite of a globalized attitude. Um. But still it's okay, I mean to each his own, of course, Chuck.

We always say so if you're into helping the local economy, eating local is a really good way to do that, right, And one of the places where you can go and really help the local economy is a local food co op, right, we have one here in Atlanta, Sevenonda and there's actually um bruhaha going on. I heard about earlier this year. Apparently the general manager. They changed the charter and the general manager has a lot of power now and the board doesn't like some of the choices that he's making

a big struggle. They don't want you know, tropicana non organic orange tin for sale next to Heinz ketchup that's not organic either, And you're like, what is this stuff doing here? This is a local community food co op. It's been around around for long since the early seventies, I believe, very cool place. Um but yeah, so food co ops and I found this very interesting. The top one food co ops in the US in two thousand three made a hundred and ten billion dollars and nuts.

That's that's one point one billion dollars apiece. That's insane to me, it is. I mean, I can't imagine seven On to making a billion dollars. But I think it's a pretty good food co op. Right, Yeah, that's a great one. Pretty interesting. Uh. There's another way to go here, Josh, which is called a community supported Agriculture c S a program and that my friend Debbie in New Jersey actually is involved in one of these. She writes for our

site and also another plug. She runs a very awesome blog called freak girl dot com and she is a member of one of these. And what you do is a group of people in a in a community get together and they prepay a local farmer. Uh, they basically invest in the farm. And the cool thing is, well, some people might not think it's cool, it's a drawback. I think it's cool is you don't know what you're

gonna get. Every two weeks, you'll get a crate of you'll go pick up a crate of groceries, and you never know, like if the lettuce is great, you might get let us, you might get kale, you might get carrots, and so it just I think it's cool and encourages people to kind of learn how to cook with new ingredients. And it's like farm to table. And Debbie thinks it's really awesome and I trust her. Kid, you know, I've got a whole world of food to go explore. Oh yeah, yeah,

And should we talk about whole foods? Real quick? Knock yourself out, pal, I have another thing too to follow up with. This is chock full man. Yeah, really, I wouldn't have thought. Whole Foods, as everyone knows, is a big grocery store chain that cost a lot of money. Whole paycheck is what some people call it. It's a

little pricey uh. They a billion dollars a year, Josh, is what how much produce they sold in two thousand and six and sixteen point four percent and that came from local sources, which is up about two percent from two thousand five and another making in a big effort. I would imagine in two thousand nine it's even higher than that. So even these big companies like Whole Foods are trying to trying to source out local food a little more. Well, yeah, people are getting a lot savvyer

these days. I mean, you know the fact that the FDA's directives were reversed the next month because there's an outcry. There's a petition online saying leave Michelle Obama alone because she's farming organic. People have gotten a lot, a lot savviier and they realized, hey, I'm putting this stuff in my body, literally, I should probably pay a little more attention to it, right I got a garden, do you in your little squatting land area? Um no, actually this

is on our signer property. Uh yeah. John Fuller and I from stuff in the B side. He was talking to me about this weekend. He he has a little garden too, and we're gonna try and then I know a couple of other people here to We're gonna get a little vegetable exchange going on. Very nice, very nice fun. The concept of growing your own food, I think is John was just blown away by it. He's like, man,

this is just the coolest thing. Really. I could put the seeds in the ground and I can eat it later on, and like, yes, John, it's farming years, ten thousand years. Yeah it is. I love my own tomatoes for sure. It's about all I can grow that in basil. Two good things. You're halfway to spaghetti. So agreed, agreed, Um, so check. There is something I think that we should point out. Um, no matter how you eat, whether it's local or um, you eat traditional farm stuff or organic

or whatever or McDonald's at every meal, especially McDonald's. Actually that definitely factors into this. Um. There's this concept called ghost acres. Have you heard of this? Got me on this one, dude, This one's awesome. So basically, when we think about, you know, the amount of acreage it takes to produce food, right, we say, okay, well, you know one acre of food can produce um, you know, twenty

thousand pounds of strawberries on a traditional farm. Right. Ghost aakers are all the other parts of land that's required for that strawberry to go through its life cycle. Right, So you take into the it's to account the acreage that the fertilizer factories built on. You take into account the acreage that the dump, the landfill that's going to accept the strawberry rhymes is built on. Or um, the

acreage that's polluted by the runoff from this farm. Is there ghost acres and it ups the number of acres required that it's the actual number of acres and the impact that has on the land to produce you know, you know, ten thousand, twenty thousand pounds of shrubbers or whatever. That's the real deal. It's just the real deal. Yeah, So yeah, ghost acres definitely worth looking up. Man. Oh that's pretty cool. Yeah. I thought you're gonna throw me some stat like, did you know that for every acre,

there's ten ghost acres. Actually, the think that's about right. I think it's ten point one per person. Yeah, look at you. Thanks nice work, Thanks buddy. Have we exhausted this? I think we have a big time. I think we did about ten minutes ago. Yeah, grow your own stuff would be kind of cool local. You can join Chuck and John Fuller's um little food cooper change. Can I get in on that action? Uh? Well, you have to grow something? Can I just buy some? Yeah? Sure, okay,

I'll say some zucchini. I've got cucumbers going in the back of my car, remember all right? Yeah, So yeah, that's about it. Um. If you want to know more about growing your own food, We've got all sorts of gardening stuff on the side, don't we, Chuck. We do. We also have tons of recipes. We have a whole recipe channel we do. So there you go. All you need to do is come to how Stuff Works dot com and say whatever you want to in that little

search park. You should probably type it rather than say it. I don't think we have the right Josh this. Uh. As you know, we have a some fans over in Iraq, Yes, at Camp Liberty. Yes, some Army dudes and ladies who were very appreciative of And uh, this game from specialist Norman. I can't say your last name Norman, which stinks, but he is a specialist SPC Norman. Uh, he wrote her, wrote us a while ago. He's a soldier in the Army. He currently fed her down in an office job in

the Greater Baghdad area. And your podcast is not only a ray of sunshine in this sterile environment, it is a rampant light storm. Pilford out of Tesla's personal Forbidden R and D department. Oh it's that guy. Yeah. I love this guy because he's an awesome writer and he blows things up. It's like what we want to be. He's hyperbolic, so he says we love you and flattery complete. And then he has a couple of requests which hopefully

will get to one day. Uh. He would like to hear something on Dr SEUs and the reason why is because he has a new daughter that he has not met yet. Oh God, that's gotta be rough right now. And Josh, he has only met her through Skype, which is that videoconferencing and technology. So that's very sad. And Dr SEUs was awesome and I would love to do a podcast on him. Did you know he died the same day as Miles Davis. I did not bad day. I remember getting both of those pieces of news when

I was in college. That really bummed me out. To my heroes. And then he wants to hear one on sexual reproduction and evolution. Uh, this is a theoretical marriage that I have never been able to tie the knot on. How in the vast realms of evolutionary possibilities to two separate organisms each decide to belch forth half of their genetic material and stir them together. What environmental factors stabilize such a mutation? So I love that guy. Dude, he's

super smart and cool. And we sent them Camp Liberty. We sent them twelve T shirts and we just got a photo of them wearing the house stuff works T shirts with machine guns into tanks, bitch, And it is awesome. And I hope we can frame it super large and put it the office. We have to. We should pop it up on the blugs. Yeah, that's a good idea. Okay, let's do it. Let's actually do it this time. Well, I'll get his permission and then I'll do it, okay,

but well you actually do that, yes, okay. So I want to thank Norman for your service, and you guys are awesome and thanks for listening and supporting us, and come home soon and safe heads off to all of you. And if you're in Baghdad or Burma or anywhere, you can send us an email whether you want some free key shirts or not, although it would help your case if you're actually you know, fighting our country, yeah, that

kind of thing. Um. You can send us an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com and be sure to check out this stuff you Should Know blog on the how stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you