Why I Just Don't Care About Organic (Or Any Of That All-Natural Nonsense)

While reading last month's Marie Claire magazine (which I took from the box of old magazines at the gym [as one is wont to do]) I came across this little gem of information about a cocoa butter lotion:

"Earth-friendly manufacturing practices-- like rain-watering methods, solar crop drying, and the use of fuel derived from dried coconut shells---make the co-op sustainably sound."

Okay, you know what? That sounds like a bunch of nonsense words to me. More than that, it sounds like something Jack Donaghy would say to make fun of the Carter administration.

I want to come out and say something that I'm not sure anyone has said out loud before:

Meh.

THAT'S RIGHT: MEH. I said it. And what does "meh" mean exactly? It's this: I don't care. I don't care about your vegan, organic, free range, fair trade walnuts. Here's the way I see it:

I actively walk past organic food.
I recognize that non-organic food is probably covered in a thick film of rat poison. I know I'm probably putting growth hormones in my body and THAT'S why my eye starts twitching out of nowhere and no one else can see it. But I just can't bring myself to care. And this goes for all that stuff: cage-free eggs, all-natural soap (aka pachouli and sage. Yum), vegan hemp, whatever.

Am I the only one who will admit it? That, yeah, maybe it does cause cancer but it's forty cents cheaper and that stuff adds up. Besides, everything causes cancer. And also, NOTHING causes cancer. So give me the damn oversized strawberries.

And you know what? I like that my non-organic sliced bread lasts outside a refrigerator for weeks. WEEKS. How does it do it? No idea. How does Cameron Diaz continue to be cast in movies time and again? No one knows why and frankly, I'm tired of caring about both the bread AND the Diaz. At least one of them could cry convincingly and I think we ALL know I'm taking about the bread.

While I'm at it, I also eat meat.
I guess I don't like cows THAT much. Funnily enough, I could easily be a vegetarian. I eat Greek yogurt and black beans like it's my job. And, considering my current state of unemployment, it kind of IS. And Morningstar makes a veggie corndog that'll blow your mind. The only problem I foresee in going veg would be the restaurant ads that show hands pulling apart juicy chicken breast. But otherwise, I could definitely survive as a vegetarian. But I don't, because I don't care.

I hear all that about animal cruelty and it makes me sad...and then eventually I forget what I was thinking about because I'm hungry and I order a steak. I even read the Jungle in college. Sure, I didn't eat sausage for about a month. But eventually I convinced myself that meat packers must have changed their ways, that sausage is now made of rainbows and sunshine and nothing else, and I ordered a pepperoni pizza.

I give up.
Here's the real reason why I don't care: because whether or not I buy organic carrots, I'm sure I'm surrounded by injustice. Where did my shoes come from? Probably Malaysian toddlers. The carpet under my feet is likely peppered with asbestos. And even if the soap I bought is biodegradable, the loofa I put the soap on could be made of baby seals for all I know. So if you want me to care about something, I'm going to have to ACTUALLY care about it. And I don't live in a moss hut where I sew my own clothes and chickens gently hand me their eggs. So why really bother? I mean, I recycle. I'm not a monster. Let's just back off a little with the "all-natural" pride we get from using Aveeno hand cream while we turn our air conditioners a degree cooler because we "like to use blankets at night."

And even that Marie Claire magazine can't pretend to get all "every little bit counts" on me, because 40 pages earlier, in the same magazine that touted COCONUT FUEL, there was an entire page on how to make a statement with fur parkas. Yes, seriously.

So yeah. I buy the cheap stuff. Because that sticker (with horse hoof glue) you just slapped onto that bar of soap? It doesn't say "organic" to me. It says "don't bother".