Am I going to be an outcast? A friend, who recently moved to an upscale neighborhood in Madison, Wis., called me last week to ask if she would be able to make mommy friends if she continued feeding her children gasp! non-organic food. This is how Naomi Schaefer Riley begins her piece in the New York Post, in which she very accurately describes the emergence of a group of parents called the organic mommy mafia. This phrase describes those parents who not only will exclusively feed their children organic food, but who also want to evangelize, other mothers, in the words of Julie Gunlock, Director of the Independent Women s Forum Culture of Alarmism Project
Riley describes instances in which some mothers attempt to introduce rules mandating that only organic snacks be allowed in the classroom, or another instance in which a mother was excluded from participating in nanny-share agreements because the other parents involved did not want their children to come into contact with conventional foods.
But Riley points out that the term organic does not mean better. She says, It s a term that s been co-opted and manipulated into a billion-dollar industry by some of the biggest food companies in America. And according to a report by Academics Review, Consumers have spent hundreds of billions of dollars purchasing premium-priced organic food products based on false or misleading perceptions about comparative product food-safety, nutrition and health attributes. The bottom line is that the organic food industry is thriving on people s misplaced fears of pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and GMOs.
ACSH s Ariel Savransky adds, Parents should be more concerned about making sure their children are getting enough nutrients and eating enough fruits and vegetables than whether or not those fruits and vegetables are organic. The myth that organic foods are healthier should be more widely debunked and emphasis should be redirected towards the overall diets of children.
