In the supermarket last week, I met somebody quite weird. He was just before me at the checkout, his bag full with organic products. As a Agro student, working on environmental, agriculture and agribusiness, I was very interested in trying to understand what kind of people he was, how he has started buying organic food. So I paid attention to him and his bag. Once he had paid, he began wrapping carefully each of his organic products in a plastic bag, and then put them in his backpack!! I was stunned! How can he buy organic food and hold it in a plastic bag?

 It reminds me this article, seen on http://kootenaycoopradio.com/deconstructingdinner/

“Why does my tomato look so perfect, and how much fuel was required for it to travel here from Mexico? What about the truck my tomato hitched a ride on? How much energy was required to build that truck, and wait a minute, how much energy was required to make that fuel? I know a guy down the street who grows tomatoes. Why doesn’t the grocery store around the corner sell his tomatoes? What about the road my tomato travelled on. How many workers are required per year to maintain that road? And how much fuel do they use to get to the highway that they’re paid to maintain? Didn’t I buy this tomato like a month ago? Why does it still look so perfect? And why did that girl at the checkout counter assume I needed a plastic bag for my tomato? She even gave me a puzzled look when I told her I didn’t need one! Did I mention the guy down the street grows tomatoes?

Everyone’s telling me to “go organic”. What’s the difference between organic and non-organic? And why is it that the organic produce at the grocery store is always wrapped in more packaging and stamped with more labels than the non-organic produce? Isn’t organic produce supposed to represent a more ecologically friendly alternative? Why does the same company make both a fair-trade coffee and an unfair-trade coffee? How does that company justify selling an unfairly traded product? Was the truck that was transporting the coffee using organic fuel? If not, is the coffee still organic? Whew!”