Health, Organic and Hygiene - Part 2 Organic

Great thing organic food. You are sure that your food don’t contain any nasty additive or preservative; in the case of fruit or vegetable for example starting from the sowing until the harvesting the products are only treated with natural product. I myself often ordered organic mixed box from one of the by now numerous company. But again we need to be careful to what we buy. When organic wasn’t trendy, as currently is, few years ago we were more sure of the goodness of those products. Currently organic is a huge business due to the wake left by all the campaigning about healthy heating. But as everything becomes more popular and then a good business all the speculative will jump on the train; in this way the very first thing that gets affected will be the quality, hence the final customer. Us. Whoever produce food, will launch, if hasn’t already, the organic version of their product range (someone tried anyway but with poor result) in order not to be out the games. So it happens to hear unbelievably often about new organic products, new organic farm and new organic store; my question is why didn’t show up earlier? Because now people care more about what they eat, and it’s a good business too, could answer someone. I totally agree with that and that’s exactly my point. My worry is that organic thoughts and philosophy will be exploited just to make more money, as usually happen when the latter is involved. Good organic products are like good wine; it is not enough for a producer own the knowledge or the money to carry out the business. You definitely need more than that, you need the belief, the passion in what you are doing. I am sure there are, even among the organic, better and worst product; better and worst organic fertilizers which will result in a better or worst final product. Lots of farm are currently turning organic to keep up with the market, but at this point my doubt is if all the products labeled as organic really are. There are standards that settle what can be considered organic and what can’t. But I don’t know if there are bodies that check if the products are really organic; I know that if a product is certified by the Soil Association is definitely good but then I may assume than if it the Soil association certify only the 100% organic food what’s the rest? 80% organic and 20% not. It’s a 50-50. Or worse is 20% organic and 80% God knows what? Probably the label would say anyway organic even if we are under the threshold of the standard, then I’ll pay more for something that actually it means to cost less. Recently in The Guardian appeared an article about how the supermarkets deal with the change of food habits, especially concerning organic and fair-trade. The Cooperative understood that its customers are mostly aware of the truthfulness of the label. Again the label plays a fundamental role in the purchasing, we are more motivated to buy if we see that a product is organic, but sometimes I saw labels and products unbearable. The funniest was probably the organic eggs sold by the biggest English retailer(I don’t know if I can say the name but I can give you an hint, starts with T and finishes with esco). The label reads:

Organic
6 Free range eggs
Free range hens fed on an organic diet, free to roam on organic pastures during the day

I swear it says that, and they looked desperate to assure me about that their eggs are really organic and they’re absolutely not mean to the hens. Maybe soon it’ll appear also and during the night they also go out for a couple of drinks, but we swear they never come back home pissed.

It’s also funny see what product are labeled organic. I won’t be tedious listing all these products but one in particular caught my attention, which was Organic prawns. Thought I was an idiot because I couldn’t find a reason for which a fish could be organic I found something interesting in the website aboutorganics. This really well done websites in the section about organic fish quote as follow:

An EU directive has decreed that nothing captured or harvested from the wild can be labelled as 'organic'. The reasoning behind this is obvious, if you can't be sure of the history of a product how can you be sure it will meet organic standards without extensive and very costly testing. Currently only farmed fish can be given the organic label with only salmon and trout being readily available but swimming over the horizon we have organic cod, halibut and sea bass […]

As you see it’s all about the label.
Another issue is what to do with all the ingredients you get when you order a organic box. I found an interesting blog about that. I had the same problem also because i don't fancy vegetables every single day of the week, so I suggest that you may use all the ingredients at once and add something more as well with this minestrone.

MINESTRONE ALLA LIVORNESE (Soup Livorno Style)

Ingredients (makes 6):

300gr rice
400gr cannellini beans
300gr spinach
2 beef tomatoes
2 celery stick
half savoy cabbage
5 leaves of swiss chard
2 courgette
2 potatoes
2 carrots
50gr row ham in one slice and with a big rind
40gr of salted pancetta in one slice (you can use bacon as substitute)
1 little pig's trotter
2 garlic cloves
50gr parsley
half red onion
2l of beef stock
Olive oil, salt and pepper
Parmesan to serve

Method:

Soak the beans over night or at least 12 hours in lightly salted water. Boil the pig's trotter in water with a little salt. Meanwhile wash, clean and then blanch in another pot the cabbage, swiss chard and spinach roughly chopped. Now in the same pot you will cook the soup, chop ham, pancetta, garlic and half of the red onion in a little olive oil. The old recipe reads when the odour of the lightly fried perfumes the room, add the blanched greens and leave to flavour for few minutes. Start to add little by little, together with the water of the pig's trotter the onion left, carrot, celery, and courgette sliced, the potatoes skinned the pork rind and diced and the tomatoes peeled and deseeded. Free the pig's trotter from the bone (if there's one), and add to the soup with salt and pepper. Stir and add the beans bring to boil add the rice and simmer for 20 minutes until the beans are cooked. At the end add a generous amount of Parmesan and wait the soup cools down.
This particular soup has never eaten hot. Usually is consumed lukewarm with a bottle of good red wine and more Parmesan added on top. Some people enjoy this soup also in summer and in this case has to be at room temperature, and the Parmesan previously added has now form a delicious white crust.