On missing the point.

So, I'm diverging a bit from the primary focus of this blog as I vaguely envisioned it, which was to be a platform for sharing my various arts and crafts and food projects. I never have been very good at sticking to a particular format however (those who recall my college radio show may remember that though I initially billed it as goth/industrial in focus, it wandered all over pop, classical, experimental, humorous, blues, jazz, folk, spoken word... pretty much anything that could be played over the radio that was of interest to me - it's just my nature to be eclectic I suppose). Therefore, I have plans for including creations of the mind here (observational essays, theorizing, metaphors), and things I've seen about the place, such as ant swarms, and also cultural criticizms... verging into political commentary. I've gotten partway through a post in that latter vein, in the middle of which I was distracted and haven't returned yet to complete it. Here now is another post of that sort.

ORGANIC

Indeed, it's all the rage now. People have actually started to care about what they put down their throats, and many have come to the conclusion that, though it may cost a dollar or two extra, they'd rather have some assurance that what they are eating is not actually poisoned, thank you very much, and that it maybe even didn't damage fragile and valuable ecosystems while we're at it. The idea of organic agriculture is pretty new... you had that big push in the 70's, which got going really in the 60s, or before, about sustainable agriculture without use of massive doses of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc. I'm not going into the whole history lesson here, but I want to point out that that sort of lower impact agriculture was going on for, roughly, 10,ooo years before the 'organic' label was applied. What is now considered 'conventional' agriculture is only a hundred years or so old, and has been practiced on a wide scale only since around World War II. And even only a few decades after the big uptick in such practices people started to realize that maybe this wasn't the best way to grow our food. Of course, the 80s hit and organic was 'out' and, except for a few holdouts, the whole thing took a bit of a hiatus. Now it's caught back on and the organic food industry is growing by leaps and bounds... and it has become an industry. Another term sometimes substituted for 'conventional agriculture' is 'industrial agriculture'. Now there is 'industrial organic', not relying on the chemical products of factories, but relying on industrially processed naturally occuring pesticides, large machines, massive scale fields and processing facilities and so on.

I'm trying not to get too involved here in my discussion since you can get all this stuff from Michael Pollan and such folks. I just want to bring up the fact that once big companies start getting in on organics and environmentalism, the tendancy is for them to do the very least possible to meet the requirements to get the label to be able to charge the premium price and attract the customers attracted by those ideas. There is an ongoing attempt to dilute what it takes to be organic, allow certain synthetic products into the mix, make it easier (and more profitable) for the big guys, so they can better compete with those little guys who've been farming small, sustainable acres, but don't have massive advertising budgets... it's all about open competition right? Anyway, it's a quick step from there to complete perversion of the idea of organic, if not the strict USDA definition (getting less strict). The idea is that it is simpler, healthier for us and the planet, something more like the food our grandparents or great grandparents ate... When you start veering away from those ideas, you sometimes wind up in complete absurdity.

See:


Yep. It's pancake batter in a squirt can. You can make pancakes with just the spritz of a nozzle. And it's organic! It contains all certified organic ingredients, which according to the website is all that is needed to be organic (their definition, cribbed from Merriam-Webster, is on the 'Product Information page). The fact that it comes in a can and is absolutely absurd seems not to phase the makers of this product. The fact that you can make pancake batter yourself with very little effort, out of all organic ingredients if you like, or largely local ones if you like that more (which I do), with far less energy waste (in production as well as transport) and materials waste to boot also does not give them pause. They bring out the old 'convenience' claim, which gave us boxed cake mix and microwave snacks of all description and various degrees of disgustingness.

Really I'm not trying to make much of a point here. This is just a rant against what I see as a stupid and wasteful item cluttering up the supermarket shelves, as well as a mindset that is continuing the same destructive philosophies of the recent past with a shiny new package that people are supposed to feel good about. See also: catalogues full of all the many things you can buy to be more environmentally friendly... I'll save that rant for another day.

AAAAARGH.