"Organic" Farming and the True Cost of Food-A Small Farmers Perspective

[nadine_mn]

136. Have you ever heard of Bruce Bradley?

He was a former executive with big food...General Mills, Nabisco, and Pillsbury. He has this great blog at brucebradley.com ... he has left the food industry and become a major advocate of local ood and knowing what s in your food.

Long before I had heard of Michael Pollan, Food Inc. and other eye opening stuff about food, I saw a video on his blog about how the food industry creates tomato flavor...this goes directly to your point about why produce tastes so good.

He sliced up a ripe heirloom tomato ... juicy and so beautiful! Then he talked about how the food industry needs tomatoes to be consistent in shape, size, and available cheaply all year around. He cut into a conventional store bought tomato...it was more mealy than juicy, the color was just pale. Then he talked about how, once the tomato has been diced and dried up for processing, it really has no taste, so to give it the tomato flavoring salt, seasonings and fats are added.

Watching that video set me on my food journey do to speak and has convinced me to buy from small local farms whenever possible, to eat produce when in season and to try to buy more organic when I can.