Shopping cart in hand, you peruse the aisle of green, red and yellow vegetables. But among the array of colorful produce, a small sign catches your eye: organic.

When choosing what food to buy in the supermarket, the “organic” label may seem appealing. But the big question remains: what exactly makes a food organic, and is it really better for our health to eat organically grown food?

Several students eat organic food, but when asked whether they understood its true value, they seemed either unaware or indifferent.

Michelle Zhang (10) said that her mother purchases organic food, and therefore most of the food she eats is organically grown. However when asked whether she herself would buy food products that were organically grown, she said, “probably… but why? I don’t know.”

Others seem to believe that eating organic means simply, “no pesticides.” Carmen Das-Grande (12) feels that eating locally grown produce may be just as healthy as eating organically.

“Well, I think either one is good. Supporting local famers is good because chances are they don’t use pesticides that big companies do,” Carmen said.

In reality, though, there is a lot more to organic food than just healthy produce grown without chemicals.

In order for a food item to be certified as organic, it must meet the standards established by the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA). There are four main categories, each with subcategories that classify these foods as organic. These categories: the processing of the food and whether it has a detrimental effect on the environment, the need for organic production, the compatibility of the substance with organic production practices, and the commercial supply of an agricultural substance as organic, fragile, or potentially unavailable.

Each category has an exhaustive list of questions that must be answered in order for a food to become part of the National Organic Program. Any food manufacturer who labels and sells products as organic must be USDA certified; the only exceptions are for producers who sell less than $5,000 annually in organic food.

Dr. Preston Maring, Associate Physician in Chief at the Kaiser Oakland Medical Center, established the Friday Fresh Farmers’ Market in various Kaiser Permanente facilities. Dr. Maring encourages people to eat organic because it is not only better for their own health, but it is also safer for the farmers to be able to cultivate crops without the use of potentially detrimental chemical fertilizers.

“Some people never even eat fruits and vegetables, and they eat fast food, junk food, and stuff out of boxes; for them the most important thing is
to start eating fruits and vegetables of any kind whether they’re organic or not,” Dr. Maring said. “But once you encourage people to start eating good fruits and vegetables because that’s healthy for them, that’s the time to say […] organic is a better option.”

Although some people may feel that eating organically may cause a dent in their wallet, Dr. Maring believes the opposite.

“I know the organic, hormone-free milk is more expensive, but if you look at what you spend on fast foods and […] restaurants and look at the whole big picture […] having a little bit more fun in the kitchen can save you enough money to buy good healthy food,” Dr. Maring said.

Danae McLaughlin, Assistant Chef at the Upper School, even said that sometimes, organic food is just as expensive as other produce.

“You’re going to find a lot of food [where] organic is a little more expensive, but if there’s a really good crop, you might find that they may even be cheaper. It just depends. I would say 60 percent of the time organic food is more expensive,” McLaughlin said.

The kitchen on campus strives to buy most of its produce organically, but sometimes the food does not meet the quality of other local produce.

“We’ll get some organic products in that just don’t look very nice,” she said.

The three considerations that the kitchen staff takes into account when buying food products are the quality, the availability, and how seasonal it is.

Since the kitchen staff is trying to be environmentally aware of the distance food must travel, McLaughlin said, “when you talk about trying to go all organic, it’s pretty hard to do… it’s not ideal.”