Organic Food From The Supermarkets - What a CON!

by Janet
(Humberside (UK))

Great experiment you did there Rick, and what a fantastic result! I empathize and fully understand why you were not able to continue with this "going back in time" experiment on a permanent basis. 50 years ago it was a different pace of life and people did not have the fast high-pressure lifestyles they have today. Ironically, I'm sure there wasn't a lot of IBS around either back then either!

The reason I am writing this is because you were talking about eating organic food on your experimental diet.
I've been a fan of organic food for several years, but very recently I made a disturbing discovery about the organics we are buying from the major supermarkets.

For several years I have been buying "free-range organic" eggs from one of the big UK supermarket chains. They cost about £2 for 6, so I have been seriously paying top price for what I believed was a totally legitimate and health-conscious product.

A few weeks ago, an old friend from out-of-town came over for a visit, and she brought with her some items from her dad's organic farm, including a dozen eggs.
Her dad's farm is only a small affair, with just a few staff and a tiny organic farm shop where they sell some of the things they grow, including the organic eggs.

When I tried cooking with the eggs she had brought, I realized immediately that something was very wrong; not with the eggs from her dad's farm, but with the supermarket eggs.

As soon as I went to crack the shell of the first farm egg, I noticed I had to use more force than usual to get it to break. The shells were considerably thicker than the supermarket-brought eggs.
Then I noticed the colour, I've never seen eggs like it! The yellowness of the yolk was deep, rich and vibrant. It had a vivaciousness about it that was clearly lacking in the supermarket eggs.

I was so struck by the quality of this egg (how sad does that sound!), that I made a point of cracking open one of the supermarket eggs there and then, and putting it into a bowl to do a direct comparison.

The supermarket-purchased, so-called "free range - organic" egg was pale and the shell seemed quite literally, half as thin as the farm egg.

I decided to take it all the way, and do a direct-comparison cook & taste test. I beat both eggs separately and made two small omelets using exactly the same skillet, oil and heat.
Suffice to say the taste and texture of the supermarket egg paled in significance compared to that of the farm egg.

Throughout the following week, I continued consuming both types of egg, making careful note of the quality of each. The results were consistent.

I am angry! For several years I believed that the expensive supermarket "free range, organic" eggs I had been buying, came from chickens that were reared on organic farms in conditions that were totally natural and, dare I say it, 'old fashioned?' without the pesticides, antibiotics, growth hormones or stress (just like the conditions on my friend's dads' farm). Yet when I compared those eggs to ones that had genuinely been created in these 'old fashioned' conditions, the results were hugely different.



I don't know the technical reasons behind why the expensive supermarket "free-range, organic" eggs were pale, thin and tasteless compared to the genuine farm eggs, but clearly, they were not the same thing, when I and most other people would have assumed that they were.

I feel conned, and I feel cheated, and this has really opened my eyes to the idea that the supermarkets make us think we are getting something that in reality we are not.

Rick, you said in your podcast that the supermarkets have a different idea about what constitutes "organic" compared to what ordinary people think 'organic' means, and I can safely say, you were absolutely right.

Since making this frustrating discovery, I have started getting most of my food from a local organic farm, and I am happy to say the eggs are as good as the one's my friend brought over from her dad's farm.

So I just wanted to say that I will never again buy anything from the supermarket that is being peddled as "Organic". I just no longer trust what I am buying at supermarkets anymore, and I urge others to look a bit deeper into this issue too..