Organic Food is Overhyped

Don’t believe the hype about organic food, writes Abigail Haddad in the American. While foodies and environmentalists may croon over produce grown locally or on small farms, the truth is that small farms aren’t very efficient, locally grown produce doesn’t help the environment, and organic food is produced much the same way as plain ‘ol food.

Locally grown food may travel a shorter distance to get to the farmers' market, but the economies of scale make that roughly as fuel efficient as bigger agribusiness shipments. And romantic notions of happy cows and diverse fields are just that—romanticized. Real organic farms look a lot like normal agribusiness, and with good reason: It’s efficient and it works. (More organic food stories.)