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Comment by Jeaye | Hacker News Reader

The most appealing benefits of organic foods, in my household, are not to do with our own health. Instead, we adopt the practice under the information that organic farming is more sustainable and better for the environment. Top three search results for "organic food better for environment."

http://www.fao.org/organicag/oa-faq/oa-faq6/en/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/is-organic-agr...

http://www.thechicecologist.com/green-living/food-drink/is-o...

Regarding it being a "rich [white] people thing," either way, that may very well be, in practice. Is caring about sustainable farming and the environmental impact of our savage resouce consumption also a rich white people thing?

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On the other hand, if you search "organic food worse for environment" you get results which explain why organic farming is less sustainable. Your search results are dependent on your query so if you search "vaccination schedule bad for children" don't be surprised when you get some highly placed anti-vax stuff.

In any case, assuming you eat a diet typical of an organic shopper with far less meat and more vegetables compared to the general population then organic farming is merely as carbon intensive and uses only 40% more land. If you buy organic but have a pretty normal diet then it's even worse. Is it a rich person thing? Switching to organic for everyone would require massive deforestation worldwide and probably still wouldn't get us enough arable land so not only would the price of food go up, we'd likely be hit with large food shortages that would probably disproportionately hit the developing world. Yeah, it's a rich person thing. They're the people who can afford organic and they're fine when food shortages come along.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria_Nordborg/publicat...

What about the heavily increased land use in organic farming?

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652617...

What about the pesticides used in organic farming? I'd jug some Roundup (LD50: 5,600 mg/kg in rats) before eating Copper sulfate (LD50: 30 mg/kg in rats) used in organic farming.

My main problem is, that the whole thing is just a big appeal to nature. More natural does not mean safer for consumption or better for the environment.

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