I don't do organic.

I got talking to this woman who came into my restaurant on a slow day. We were talking about restaurants, and I mentioned one of my favourites, Fresh. “Is it organic?” she inquired. “Yeah” I replied. She was unimpressed. “Oh, I don’t do organic”.

How can you not "do" organic? Is there anyone out there who especially wishes for their plants to be sprayed with toxic chemicals? Organic has become such a foreign concept, a sort of inaccessible fad that only few hold the key to. In reality, it’s what our food should effortlessly be. We should be able to go to the grocery store and buy a rutabaga and not risk consuming a dozen synthetic chemicals. Pesticide free food is the simplest form of life, and we have strayed so far from it after all these years of chemical experimentation. Health is naturally occurring, believe it or not.

A study at the Mount Sanai school of Medicine in New York found an average of 91 chemicals in the blood and urine of its nine volunteers. The volunteers had no occupational or geographical connection to the chemicals inside them, including some chemicals that were banned in the 1970's. Is there any way to flee the chemicals Have we become entirely toxic species? The synthetic revolution stems from the fact that money permeates into our food sector, the pharmaceutical industry – our lives. From start to finish, we are exposed to a myriad of chemicals, regardless of if we know it or not. The funny thing is, we have to exert effort to avoid these toxic chemicals.

The Food and Drug Administration (US) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (Canada) whom we place a lot of trust in, rely on safety information from the food manufacturers to make its approval decisions. These manufacturers would never let it slide that there could be something hazardous in their ingredients, so how can we make an objective decision if we can’t rely on the powers that be?

Having chemicals inside our bodies may not be a death wish, necessarily. But how do we know when a chemical is truly toxic? When animals in the wild start dying, seems to be a good indication. Only then do things start to change. But things should never come to that point.

Competitive markets dictate what we eat. We are the only ones truly looking out for ourselves, and in order to live past your 50’s, this requires you to be a god damn anarchist, apparently. With everything I read regarding chemicals in the food or drugs we ingest regularly, I am becoming increasingly aware that I shouldn’t really have faith in anything. I don’t think it’s good to be cynical, but it’s good to be sceptical.