Organic

Many years ago it didn’t bother me, or perhaps many of us, what kind of food was siting on top of the dining table. We were quite happy with the smell of fried chicken saturating the small kitchen. Even the smell of potato wafting through a gap in the microwave could make us aware that our lunch would be ready soon. “Hooray, the food is nearly ready!”. We would sit down at the dinning table and wait to be served. There was no question about where she bought all the ingredients or how it was processed. My mum was pretty chuffed to pay less than normal price for 2 kg of chicken in a traditional market, where petty traders sell left overs of big traders.


Now things have changed. The quality of food has become a topic of dinner table conversation, in talk-shows, news, or in brief chat between mothers in the shopping strip. Health researches and celebrity chefs talked in a similar sense about the quality of food as if they worked as partners. As many people are more concerned about the quality, delicatessens, bread shops, restaurants, fruit and veg shops have to attach some adjective in their menus or advertisement on their glass windows. It is not surprising the words are fresh and organic are easily found in shopping strip. In recent years these two words seem to have been the key to enter a healthy life-style. I was quite surprised as I opened my friend’s fridge, there are some products labelled organic. On another occasion, a friend of mine talked about her organic milk.

Organic food is always more expensive than non-organic ones. The price, however, does not seem to give frown than what organic foods will offer. Will it matter to pay one or couple dollar more for a bunch of spinach although the tray on the desk are full of unpaid bills? Perhaps, some would respond: “Surely, it won’t matter as health is far more important than anything else”.

“The idea behind organic products is to encourage people to be self-sustained by having their own plants in the garden”, said my close relative. I partly agree with this. However, these days it is hard to find house in the city with ample yard to plant things. Alternatively, people can have a community garden but this might be easy for those who live in units.