The Food Police (11 page)

Government bureaucracy lacks this key dynamism embedded in the market. A paternalist seeking to improve our health might mandate that all cafeterias place the fruit and
vegetables first in line, based on research showing that this will increase those items’ uptake. But what will ensure that this change won’t cause people to eat at McDonald’s instead or bring their lunch from home or eat more snacks later, or even cause the cafeteria to go out of business? If McDonald’s truly is the evil empire the food police claim it to be, why wouldn’t McDonald’s pressure the rule makers to get the outcomes they wanted?
The Economist
criticized Thaler and Sunstein’s proposal to give the government the power to nudge by saying, “There is a serious danger of overreach … Politicians, after all, are hardly strangers to the art of framing the public’s choices and rigging decisions for partisan ends. And what is to stop lobbyists, axe-grinders and busybodies of all kinds hijacking the whole effort?”
³⁵
The food police can rest satisfied in nudging us toward greater health, all the while being unaffected by complex interactions that lead to outcomes the paternalist never intended. The same cannot be said of the cafeteria owner who puts her wallet on the line every time she reorganizes the buffet line.

The economist Robert Sugden says the paternalists are wrong: “There
is
a viable alternative to paternalism. It is what it always has been—the market.”
³⁶
I don’t know about you, but when I walk into a cafeteria, I
want
the manager to tempt me—to offer me what looks good at a price I’m willing to pay. Yes, this kind of world might require more willpower and self-control, but the alternative world of the paternalistic food police would deprive us of the noble act of making a wise choice when we had the freedom to do otherwise.

THE FASHION FOOD POLICE

According to ancient Jewish Scripture, man’s first moral quandary began with a choice of whether to eat a piece of fruit. Despite the passage of millennia, we find ourselves back in Eve’s proverbial fig leaves. There is the inexpensive Red Delicious, but who’d be caught buying something so boring? Express some individualism and go for the Granny Smith, or push the basket down a bit farther, prices rising all the way, and go for the organic Gala. Even though budgets are tight, there’s no telling what has been sprayed on the industrially grown apples, and after all, we should consider the health of our children. Or at least consider the kids’ teachers, who would think us the worst kind of parent and environmental deviant if we didn’t double the shopping bill for organic. After all, an adviser for
Consumer Reports
magazine tells us that nonorganic farmers are “raping the land.”
¹
Better yet, hop in
the SUV and save the environment by heading down to the farmers’ market. Of course, we’ll turn a blind eye to the carbon footprint of the Cadillac Escalade. Unlike Eve, at least we can take some comfort in knowing that the fate of humanity doesn’t hinge on our apple choice. Or does it?

Let’s face it: food choice was once much easier, though much less exciting. Today’s supermarkets boast over a hundred types of breakfast cereal alone. Which will you pick? Are you a Fruit Loop or 100 percent organic granola? Both will fill your belly, but only one will earn the approving nod of the fashion food police. Their message is clear: if you don’t choose organic, not only are you unhip, but you’ve sided with the serpent.

In one sense, the rise of organic food corresponds with the libertarian ideal. On the one side were consumers who demanded new attributes from the food system, and meeting them were entrepreneurial farmers willing to change production practices to make an extra buck. There’s only one thing wrong with this organic-is-libertarian story. It isn’t true. Consider Julia Roberts’s assertion on the
Oprah Winfrey Show
that it’s our responsibility to be green for our children and eat organic food. Julia’s green food guru, Sophie Uliano, tells listeners that if they can’t find organic items in their local supermarket, “Speak up! … We as women, we are powerful. We have a voice … go to the manager and say to him, ‘I want to see more organic here!’ ”
²
Ah, sounds just like un-coerced choices in a free market. As if store managers need to be yelled at to offer products that will bring more profit.

Hordes of consumers are being scared, mothered, and guilted into buying organic, and political pressures are
redirecting millions of taxpayer dollars to support organic production. We’re often told that organics don’t get government subsidies, but that’s a fabrication. In Europe, organic farmers are subsidized like all other farmers. In the United States there are programs such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which pays producers to transition from conventional to organic. Other programs use federal monies to help organic farmers pay the cost of certification. Organic farmers can receive government-subsidized crop insurance just like nonorganic farmers. Organic milk is subjected to many of the same complex price-support rules imposed by the government on nonorganic milk.
³
Hundreds of millions of tax dollars are spent on research and education into organics and on marketing and monitoring programs.
⁴
The food police tell us that the growth in organic food demand is a result of the free market working at its best, even as they use the taxing power of the state to manipulate the market by subsidizing organic production, marketing, and research activities. You can’t have your organic-is-libertarian cake and eat it, too.

When we spend a few extra bucks for the shirt adorned with a horse or alligator, most of us know what we’re getting. We’re paying a few extra bucks to be stylish, to fit in, to follow a trend. Deep down, if we’re honest with ourselves, we know the cheaper, logo-free shirts aren’t really much different from their stylish cousins. The trouble with organics is that people believe the hype. By all means, if you want to buy organic to be stylish or look good to your neighbors, then go for it—it might be a small price to pay to fit in, depending on your income. But let’s stop with the false advertising.

Turn on almost any daytime talk show or watch any
celebrity chef, and you’ll hear the same drivel. On Oprah’s show, we hear “Organic farming protects the planet, so it’s a win-win. It’s healthier for us, and it’s healthier for the planet.”
⁵
In
Whole Living
magazine, the editors tell us they think organic strawberries and carrots taste sweeter, and we are encouraged to “Buy organic whenever you can.”
⁶

I’m truly sympathetic to those who want to buy healthier food or who are trying to protect their families from the negative side effects of pesticides. I have a family, too. But don’t we also want to make sure our money is well spent? After all, the kids have to go to college; we have the bills for art lessons and sports; safer automobiles and car seats are expensive, too. Money spent ratcheting up our shopping bill for organic food is money not spent on other things we also value for our families. One can literally spend thousands of extra dollars a year buying organic rather than conventional.
⁷
That’s thousands of dollars
not
given to a charity supporting the homeless, saved for retirement, or available for Junior’s summer camp. We all want our children to grow up healthy, but we have to marry our concerns with the evidence on whether the actions we’re taking have any impact.

One of the problems with organic is that few shoppers know what it really means, and they project onto the nebulous word all their hopes and dreams of eating in a safe, healthy, environmentally friendly manner.
Organic
is like the word
natural
. Whatever you may think
natural
means, the USDA primarily defines it as “minimally processed.” Under this legal definition, almost any beefsteak, pork chop, or chicken breast can be labeled “natural.” Likewise, the USDA precisely defines the word
organic
. Farmers can use the label if they grow crops
and livestock according to the list of criteria established by the government. In essence, organic crops are grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, and farmers must adhere to certain tillage and cultivation practices. Producers of organic animal products must feed livestock organic grain, allow them outdoor access, and refrain from administering them added growth hormones or antibiotics.

“Organic” means food produced according to a set of rules. But in no way do the rules guarantee that organic is safer, tastier, healthier, sustainable, or more environmentally friendly. It is, in fact, so hard to tell organic and conventional apart that a dozen Italian companies were recently caught selling 700,000 tons of counterfeit organics all over Europe.
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The organic label doesn’t mean the food came from small farms, is without pesticides, or wasn’t processed by a large agribusiness. Indeed, the supposed job-destroying, community-crushing villain Walmart has cashed in on the craze and is now the largest seller of organic food in America.
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It is time to set the facts straight on organics.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: there is absolutely no consistent scientific evidence that organic food is any tastier than nonorganic food. I know, I know.
You
can tell that organic food tastes better than that sleazy conventional stuff. I can’t go around conducting blind taste tests with every organic food zealot I meet. But if you happen to find yourself in that crowd, I challenge you to find a friend (a neutral one without skin in the game) to set up a blind taste test to see if you really can tell the difference across several products. I’d bet good money you can’t consistently pick the organic. Carefully controlled scientific study after study, published in
peer-reviewed journals, show that most people, most of the time, just can’t tell the difference.
¹⁰

Sure, some foods labeled organic taste better than conventional foods, but it isn’t the organic aspect that’s causing the taste difference. Fresher fruits and veggies will almost always taste better than non-fresh—organic or not. Some crop varieties are tastier than others regardless of whether they’re grown conventional or organic. Different amounts of rainfall, wind, and any number of complicating factors can affect the taste of food. But don’t be fooled into believing that organic per se has any consistently measurable effect on the taste of food.

Let me tell you another shocking truth: many people believe organic tastes better than conventional because our expectations are often more powerful than our taste buds. Research has shown that people will say the same bottle of wine tastes better if it has a higher price tag.
¹¹
Brain scan studies show that most people can’t tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi in a blind taste test, but when told they’re drinking Coke, their brains suddenly get fired up.
¹²
Consumers similarly tend to think organic will taste better than it actually does. They say the organic option tastes better—but only
after
they’ve learned it is organic.
¹³
So, yes, organic food might really taste better to you. But it’s your brain telling your tongue what to think, not the other way around.

While we’re on the topic, there are a lot of things associated with organic that do affect the taste of food, and sometimes for the worse. There is the myth about organic milk being naturally safer than regular milk because it has a longer expiration date. Organic milk often has a longer shelf life not
because it is organic but because it has been subjected to ultra-high-temperature pasteurization.
¹⁴
Dairies use the technology because organic milk often has to travel farther and sit on the shelf longer due to the lower volume of the product purchased due to its higher prices. But most people don’t like the taste of milk that’s been ultra-high-temperature pasteurized, which is why conventional dairies in the United States don’t use the process. I spent much of the last year in France, and most of the milk there was sold right off the unrefrigerated shelf—next to the laundry detergent. Why? Because it is ultra-high-temperature pasteurized. And you want to know something? It tastes terrible.
¹⁵

Let’s get to a more serious matter. Is it healthier to eat organic food than nonorganic? Some studies claim organics are more nutritional; others show the opposite. In cases like this it is useful to look at large-scale literature reviews such as the one commissioned by the British Food Standards Agency and published in the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
, which found, after sorting through thousands of studies, that “there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs.”
¹⁶
Not surprisingly, the organic industry has contested these findings—but what would you expect from a group with such a vested interest in the outcome? The fact that one or two studies (out of more than a hundred studying the issue) can be turned up showing a higher level of one nutrient (out of a dozen nutrients tested) in organic than conventional only serves to show that any “true” relationship between nutritional content and organic that might exist is exceedingly small and probably within the margin of error scientists are
able to consistently detect. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement for the supposed added healthfulness of organic.