Organic

I've been thinking a lot about the significance of organic. It started with biscuits.

I woke up on Friday with the express purpose of baking biscuits. I'd tried it once before, a couple years ago, to miserable results. I'd lived up to every expectation passed on from my mother....they were hard as rocks and the dogs wouldn't even look at them. Despite the disaster, I always felt if given a different recipe and sometime to properly prepare myself by researching oh....Paula Deen, that I could accomplish fluffy biscuits to the surprise of my Father and chagrin of my mother. She's never figured out biscuits, even though she makes a mean sausage gravy.

So that is how I found myself in the Baking Aisle at Valumarket, staring down the flour while Dan Kelty's daughter eyed me suspiciously. I had a serious look on my face, I'm sure it seemed odd. I picked up my usual flour, a natural unbleached white flour that doesn't have preservatives in it. Preservatives give Mom migraines and we've been trying to avoid them. However, from the corner of my eye I caught a package of flour that was ORGANIC. I panicked. Organic is good for us, right? That's what all the talk is. Buy Organic!!

But I love my flour, even if it isn't organic. And I was conflicted. So I placed MY flour in my cart and picked up the Organic one. There was nothing. Just ingredients: Wheat. Nothing explained that it was unbleached. No seals promised it's Organic-ness. Nothing.

So I walked away from the Organic Flour. Has Organic become a buzzword in the Supermarket industry? Stick Organic on it and you can suddenly charge an arm and a leg for it?

All of this organic thought got me further thinking about Milk. With the price of Milk skyrocketing as it is, and the fact that the household I live in currently goes through 2 gallons in about a week and a half I'll be the first to admit that aside from a small individual carton every now and then, our house does not buy Organic Milk.

Organic Milk is typically close to $4 per 1/2 gallon. Which would mean in a week and halfs time my parents would spend $16 of their money on Organic Milk. That is kind of nuts.

So I started researching about Organic Milk. Most of it (Horizon and Organic Valley) are Ultra-Pasteurized. Which means it's Pasteurized at a higher temperature to make its shelf life longer. Supposedly this is so it can be shipped from farther away in less shipments. Ultra Pasteurization makes the milk taste different than what you are used to. And it creeps me out that Horizon Milk can be left on a shelf forever until you refrigerate it.

But what is Organic Milk? Basically 2 things: no Bovine Growth Hormone was administered in the cow and it was not given Antibiotics.

Well. I could care less about antibiotics. And something tells me the person buying Organic Milk probably takes their kid to the doctor too much anyway and it's always on the drugs.

However the rBGH does freak me out just a bit. There are studies involving it and various cancers. It and young girls going through puberty sooner and sooner. I get the freak out over that one. Which is why Kroger and various other retailers began in February stopping the sale of milk that contained rBGH. So all of the milk options available at Kroger are free of this hormone anyway. And I imagine this is just the first of many.

Which of course brings me to the sustainability part of it all. We should buy local and support local farms. I get that, I really do. Except Kentucky is not at the forefront of sustainability. Rebekah Grace Farms has made their way into Valumarket stores and I am planning on purchasing a half gallon of their unhomogenized milk occasionally to support the efforts. But other than that you just don't see much of it.

However, milk talk always leads to egg talk which is why...

While I was at it, I found out that Free Range Eggs just mean the Chicken has access to a place to roam. It doesn't actually have to mean they let the chicken do it. However they feel free to jack up the price because of the "access". Yeah, tell that to the next person who acts like they are a saint for buying them.

So I've come up with my own manifesto on it all.

• I vow to purchase produce because it's closer to me, not because it's labeled organic. Organic fruit from the South of Chile really isn't better than non organic fruit from Florida.
• I vow to grow my own produce, as much as I can this summer, to offset. What I can't grow I plan on finding at Farmer's Markets.
• I vow to continue purchasing my "Bad Milk" even though it's bad. Because I don't care for ultra-pasteurization or high prices. However, I do plan on purchasing the local milk every now and then. Call it a treat.
• I vow to not care about buzzwords. Organic Mac and Cheese from a Box is really not better for me than Mac and Cheese made with the stuff from my own pantry and refrigerator. And mine will taste better.
• I vow, for the love of god, to stop thinking Free Range means a damn thing in regards to eggs.

My new definition of ORGANIC: anything made from my own two hands without the help of shortcuts and 3rd parties.

And by the way my organic biscuits were fabulous. Much to my mother's chagrin.