In the UK I used to buy organic food (exclusively) and drink Evian. Here I drink out the tap (tastes pure to me) and just buy normal food, not organic/bio.

My question is, do you feel there's a reason for organic in other countries but not in Switzerland. For example, I just bought the Coop rotisserie chicken (hot). This is a Swiss chicken. It's free range (they all are, right?) and gets to run around Swiss hills where washing your car on the street is illegal and all sorts of clean/safe regulations are strictly enforced. This contrasts heavily with other countries. So do you buy bio here? Why? Is there still a point?

Nah, for some reason I have the feeling that normal produce and such is better quality than what I got in the U.S. The fact that it goes off so quickly seems like a good sign there's not too much chemical hocus pocus going on there.

Edit- just saw the poll. I did buy organic in the U.S. whenever possible.

Is there an international (well CH/US) standard for organic/bio?

I never liked the term "organic" in North America--but I'm a chemist, it has a totally different meaning for us.

for certain veggies/fruits, especially that we eat the skin of (tomatoes, strawberries, apples, etc.) i usually by organic/bio and local. if i have to choose between organic or local, i tend to buy local esp strawberries and things like that.

for meat, i don't do organic unless it's a really good buy, otherwise i do only buy swiss meat- you can see the difference between the chicken from germany and france.

i have no idea if it makes a difference, but fruit, veggies that i take the skin off of (oranges, carrots, potatoes, etc) i don't bother with bio.

in the states, i tried to do only bio.

__________________
'there isn't enough of anything as long as we live.
but at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails'

Yeah, there are a load of definitions for it, and even within food, there are many different certifications, although all with one major gist - basic, "natural" farming techniques.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_certification

I buy it on occasion, but purely by chance, there are no organic "musts" for me.

Probably most organic stuff I eat the the stuff from my garden.

Tom

I do tend to buy Bio here... and I guess I do it not only because I think it may be healthier for me, but also I think it's good to support organic farming.

I wouldn't be surprised, though, if it wasn't quite as necessary to buy Bio here, compared to the US. I watched a great documentary recently about organic farming and was a bit shocked to learn that there is a very dangerous pesticide made by a Swiss company that is commonly used in the US but is actually illegal for farmers to use here in Switzerland itself (and in most of Europe)!

Buying organic products makes me feel all health-conscious. If I crave that feeling I'm getting a couple of bio carrots.

I buy Bio quite often as I actually think it tastes better (ham, cheese, bread)
Coop Bio Zopf is really, really good.

Maybe 5% of stuff we buy. But more usually "fair trade" stuff, esp e.g. chocolate. The two often go hand in hand.

i don't buy bio in anything that has an inedible peel or that i plan to peel (melons, avocados, onions, bananas, cucumber, oranges)

i do buy bio veggies and fruits that i use in concentrated form (carrots and apples as we make juice out of them), or those that i've heard/read often come high in pesticides (strawberries, peaches, apples, paprikas, to name a few.)

the others, vary according to my mood or if there is an action on the bio goods.

by the way, i heard a talk by some big researcher from the U.S. who said that many parts of the U.S. have water supplies that have high concentrations of pesticides. he recommended using carbon-activated water filters. (though the particular pesticide he studies is banned in Europe, so i don't know how pertinent it is here.) anyway, we filter our water, just in case!

The EHEC virus shows that buying bio products is not always good ...

snork

I buy organic/bio as much as possible though sometimes it is a choice between localy produced & bio. We take it a step further and try to buy as few products as possible with chemicals such as parabens which meant a lot of label reading when we started this. For us it is a lifestyle choice that means we don't eat so much meat to keep the food bills down but we are happy with our diet.

The bio sprouts in Germany killed more than 30 people. I hate it when food goes bad...

I buy organic food but I check where it is from and would prefer to choose something locally grown. IMO eating what's in season and fresh is better than only eating bio.

Eggs and meat have got to be from CH though. Swiss eggs have the lowest incidences of salmonella in the world. I avoid US fruit after reading that some things are treated with radiation to stop them going bad We now grow our own cucumbers and bean sprouts

I buy eggs from a local farmer - I can see the chickens running around in the yard. I also try to buy as much local produce as I can - lettuces, strawberries etc. Milk comes from Switzerland, not always bio, though.

Swiss meat, preferably free range if possible or bio, all except for lamb, which pretty much comes from New Zealand, and our fish comes from all over.

I try to buy apples from Switzerland, and preferably bio. For the rest, it just depends....

I grow a lot of my own herbs... and this year, I have a mini peach tree, so we'll see how that works out. I also grow zucchini (although mostly so I can eat the flowers). I'm also experimenting with sprouts....

I don't buy bio-food. I see it more as a marketing trick to make you spend more money. I buy from local farmer vegetables + meat. I drink tap water.
What really maters for the taste of food is your cooking skills.

(I am sorry if I have told you this story before) I know 2 farmers living in Kerzers near Ulmiz and Inns (30 Km West of Bern) where many vegetables are grown. I asked them if there was any advantage in buying Bio. They told me that a vegetable packer had been dismissed because he refused to put normal potatoes in the green Bio plastic bags..... I never trusted them before and even less now.

If I had young children I might buy Organic/Bio products for them as they are still growing, but for adults I see no problem with eating a bit of pesticide. I really don't believe the farmer is going to put unnecessary chemicals on his crops, it costs him money and too much brings no extra advantages.

How can you be sure that the wheat flour, or bananas you buy at Coop and Migros are free of chemicals? They are supposedly controlled, but the controllers cannot check every farmer and every crop.

In short I believe it is a rip off. People state that Bio tastes better, I believe it tastes different as Bio uses some different varieties.

I try to buy bio whenever possible for the peace of mind, don't think bio taste necessary better except the blueberries..and it's really crazy they charge 5 chf. for 6 small bio apples which rot quicker than I could eat them.