Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

I heard something today that I had to say something about. There was a person on a cooking program and they were talking about cooking venison and they ended by saying that the best thing about venison was that it was organic by definition. This really proves to me that the food consuming public has no idea what organic means. For venison to be organic you would have to prove that it never in its life consumed any herbicides or pesticides that were sprayed on anything it ate. Unless the deer was harvested in a wilderness area there is no way to make this assumption. Deer in any populated area are going to eat whatever is available and that includes yards and farmers crops that night be tended with pesticides or herbicides and therefore the venison would not be organic. Just because it is wild does not mean it is organic. Most herbicides have a withdrawal period that you are not allowed to graze livestock on treated acres for a certain amount of time after it is treated. I can sure enough move my cattle so they aren't there but I can't do a damn thing about the wildlife out there so any deer in the area would not be organic. I will repeat, just because it is wildlife it is not organic. Wake up and understand what things mean.

I'm perfectly happy to eat organic food, but if I choose to pay more for it, I don't pat myself on the back ethically. Quite the reverse. I think I'm actually being quite greedy, because what I'm doing is essentially saying, 'I want more land to be devoted to growing my food.'
Matt Ridley