Way Back When

As promised I’m devoting this week to posting to Eating Poorganically posts from the VERY beginning. This is the very first post I ever wrote about real foods from August 3rd of 2011 when this blog was still called The Low Ryder.  How much do you think we’ve changed in just one year’s time.

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Eating Poorganically: Belief and Skepticism

As you may know from having read my post on False Guilt, I am not a regular eater of organic foods. That is to say, I don’t go to any lengths to buy organically. I do have a garden and shop the Farmer’s market, but that is about the extent of it. In fact, I am a bit of a skeptic about the verifiable merits of organic eating.

However, after a recent conversation with a friend of mine who is into “wellness,” I realized that I am also basically totally uneducated about all things related to these subjects; consequently, I form my arguments out of a kind of annoyed and cynical defense mechanism.

Here’s a sample of how the conversation actually did might go.

Organic Person: Did you know that there is x million lbs. of pus in foods x,y, and z that you consume on a daily basis?

Me: Oh really?! I love pus. Wow, that doesn’t bother me at all.

Organic Person: Really?! Aren’t you worried about letting your children digest all that infection and nastiness.

Me: No. Not really. When we lived in PNG (It’s ALWAYS great to have a PNG line to pull out of the bag as the third world country references are really hard for people to argue with), we practically bathed Addie in sewer water, so I’ve been able to get over a lot since then. (I was slightly exaggerating. It was just river water that often looked quite brown depending on how much sediment was brought up during rainy season. I imagine that there probably was trace amounts of fecal matter, but calling it sewer water was literary license in its most abused form.)

Organic Person: (mouth agape) Wow, that is gross. But don’t you think prevention is really better than curing what could be caused by all the processed food we eat.

Me: (glib) I can’t afford prevention. Plus, I feel great. Could you pass me another one of those cheese doodles for the Baby. She loves those things.

So as you can see, I am not exactly rockin’ the educated point of view. Nonetheless, I do think that somewhere deep under my total idiocy, there is something to my skepticism about organic eating. I mean, how could something that feels so good (my processed food, that is), be so bad?!

But, I admit to insecurity in this point of view since I think the same rationalization is used by heroin addicts.

Also, motivated as I am by nerdiness and know-it-all behavior education, I realized that I really needed to bolster up my point of view with facts and research so that the next time I am caught unawares by Organic Person/ Friend/ Family Member, I will be able to respond more knowledgeably.

Finally, on another layer of my psyche,

(here is where you must start reading slowly)

I must admit that in thinking through my organic food reticence, an analogy occurred to me wherein the Organic Person is a “Believer” who has experienced some kind of personal rebirth due to his/her change in eating patterns and wants to “convert” me to his/ her way of thinking. I am a skeptic/ doubter/ unbeliever who is in no way dissatisfied with my eating and sees no reason to change it; moreover, I frankly resent being told that I ought to change. I hate change; it stinks.

After this analogy presented itself to me, I realized that in my experience, the roles are typically reversed. I am normally the person of a deeply held faith trying to proselytize people to conversion (sometimes religious, sometimes couponing, sometimes to Harris Teeter over other hell-hole grocery stores). In such conversations, the most annoying persons are those who, in spite of not really having the faintest clue what they are talking about (ahem-yours truly), persist in trying to convince the “believer” that ignorance is bliss (ie: I love pus).

A truly devoted “Believer” cannot be convinced of the contrary by the ignoramus. The “Believers” see themselves as having been saved from the very ignorance that damns the skeptic. The Believer probably can’t be converted, but if they were to be converted, it would be by someone as informed and experienced as they themselves.

So . . . .NOW, that we have all walked way too far down the path of my overly analogically-thinking- brain, you can see what conclusion I was FORCED toward.

I must try to eat organically in order to prove what a stupid, unnecessary, expensive, waste of time it is.

OR

I will be converted to a new delightful way of eating.

To that end, I am occasionally going to be blogging about my exploration into organic eating in the next few weeks, months, or however long it takes to reach a sufficient conclusion. I make no promises. Of course, being The Low Ryder, I have to blog about how we are going to do this in a frugal and budget-conscious way, so I’m titling all my posts related to this subject “Eating Poorganically.”

(You must know that one of my main motivations for writing this series is my sheer love of the cleverness of that name.)

I’m going to research organic eating and organic eating blogs to determine what is best for the Low Ryders and, thus, by extension, all of you my proselytes. ; )

And, I’d love to know what tips, questions, or challenges you would like to offer up to the Eating Poorganically Series to make it more fun, informative, and practical? What helps, enables, or prevents you from eating organically. Do comment and share.

 
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So that was one long year ago? Are you a believer or a skeptic? Later this week, I’ll post some more of our journey in Eating Poorganically. 🙂