Years ago the word Organic just didn't exist, food was food, it was bought , it was cooked and it was eaten.
By the way im not Methuselah either!
But in hindsight a high percentage of food used to be grown in our own back gardens anyway and the choice of food was by no means as varied as it is today.
We had unpasteurised milk from the farm, we ate what was `in season` , so maybe we ate quite an amount of organic food.


Organic food wont automatically make you any healthier, it certainly might make you feel safer in the knowledge that you have eaten products that have been grown without the use of pesticides.


I have to admit that I don't buy organic, the cost is the main reason, but we do grow a fair amount of vegetables ourselves.
The taste has to be a consideration, some supermarket fruit and veg is tasteless. Brussel sprouts need a frost on them to bring out the flavour, but farmers just aren't in a position to wait for frost to harvest a crop, they need an income.
We now have everlasting carrots, you buy them and three weeks later they are still in A1 condition, whatever they have been treated with works well.
Just a couple of examples that have made me stop and think about the merits of organically produced fruit and vegetables.

If you take anything straight from the ground and eat it raw or cooked the taste is a hundred times better than if it has been transported by air or sea and reaches the supermarket a week later. The goods will more than likely have been sprayed or coated with a chemical to ensure that they get to their destination looking fresh and don't forget the air pollution that the goods are subjected to en route.

In the UK 31,000 tons of pesticide are sprayed on to farmland each year, the chemicals are used to kill pests and weeds but over 25% of non-organic fruit and veg that is sold carries the residue of this spraying. Of course there is a chain reaction here, the chemicals that are found on the fruit and vegetables are then passed on as each company produces its own goods using the non- organic food.


Intensive farming harms the soil, all but destroys natural hedgerows and does untold harm to wildlife.
Intensive farming is another matter, horrendously cruel!... and we are supposed to be a nation of animal lovers!


If organic food was affordable to all then I am sure that many of us would buy otherwise. But sadly the cost is too high. Lidl`s recently started to stock Free Range Chickens, beautiful, but triple the price of a battery hen and they sat on the shelves until they were reduced sufficiently.
I agree that it is very sad that we cant afford to buy organic, it would be far better for us all to know that what we were eating hadn't been sprayed to within an inch of its life.
If the supermarkets turned around tomorrow and said they were introducing an affordable organic range then I would be over the moon, but as we all know that wont happen.

So apart from eating what we grow and what friends provide us with when they have surplus fruit and vegetables, then we will have to make the very best of what we have.
But of course I would much prefer to eat food grown without the use of chemicals.