Ask Professor Produce

My husband and I have been having an argument regarding organic being a fad or a permanent diet choice. Any input? Also, has the Wedge grown because it IS a fad - or due to more people wanting to eat organic as a life choice? Do you have people sign up as coop members, never to use their memberships? He doesn't think organic is here to stay and once the fad ends.....

Any insight would be helpful.

Far be it from the Professor to jump into a domestic squabble. But in the interest of the organic industry's good name (and matrimonial harmony), let's give it a go.

When does any fad become an institution? It's an intriguing question. Cars are probably here to stay, right? Cell phones and lap tops, too. I suppose the difference between cell phones and, say, CBs is that cell phones fill a need across demographic lines, whereas CBs are pretty much the purview of truckers and travelers, and that's about it.

So for organic food to elevate itself above the category of fad, it should really be appealing beyond its home demographic, the well-intentioned, liberal, natural-foods shopper. Is it?

Here's the lead sentence from an article in October 2004 issue of ProduceBusiness, a commercial trade magazine for the conventional fruits and veggie market: "Mainstream consumer interest in organics is no longer a passing fad when 66 percent of the US population buys organic products."

That percentage is quoted from research conducted by The Hartman Group, who examined the buying habits of 5000 US consumers and their underlying assumptions and patterns about the food they buy. Most interestingly, the study debunks the myth that organic shoppers are typically Caucasian women, predominantly moms of a higher income bracket. The Hartman Group discovered that certain ethnic groups are even more likely to shop organic than Whites: Asian Americans, Native Americans, Latin Americans, and African Americans.

Then there's the growth of organics, at 10% per year globally and 20% per year domestically. Worldwide in 2002, the organic industry generated $23 billion - and $7 billion in America alone. In 2003, that number jumped to $11 billion in the US. You think hippies, commies, and health-food freaks have that kind of money? If they did, a different president would have taken the oath in January, brother man.

So organic consumption is here to stay because there is Very Big Money to be made. Furthermore, the organic industry has received federal protection from the USDA, in order to prevent it from being co-opted and watered down. In 1990, California became the first state to create a law covering organic ag, and in 2002, the USDA used that law as a precedent to pass federal legislation, defining organics and enforcing how it may be practiced and marketed. The USDA Organic Rule has been vetted by International Standards Organization 65, meaning that our standards have independent, international verification systems in place to prevent organics from becoming a passing fad.

Do people sign up for memberships and never use them? Of course, but then, there are plenty of non-members who shop here several times a week. Is the Wedge's success tied to organics? Without a doubt.

But the Wedge has also benefited from its local farm and food connections and the rise of Fair Trade in the 1990s, and, currently, we're seeing a booming interest in "pastured" products (grass-fed beef, pasture-fed poultry and eggs, pasture-grazed dairy products). Are these fads? Maybe at first they are. But the Wedge strives to turn these so-called "fads" into cultural institutions because we believe they have deep merit and purpose in our society.

Now open a bottle of organic wine, kiss, and make up, you two.

I read somewhere that the rarest coffee in the world is from Indonesia. It's probably expensive, but any chance that The Wedge can carry it?

Um. No.

The rarest coffee in the world is called Kopi Luwak and, yes, it hails from Indonesia. Why won't the Wedge be carrying it? Two reasons.

A)It generally retails for $300 per pound.

B)The reason it's so expensive? The beans first pass through the digestive track of a tree-dwelling civet and then are sorted and gathered, ahem, from the forest floor.

We have to wonder who thought roasting and drinking pre-digested coffee beans was a good idea to begin with. But then, who thought oysters were worth a try? Or blue cheese?

One theory goes that native Indonesians observed the civet, called the "luwak," selecting only the best and ripest coffee cherries to eat. As anyone who's actually picked coffee will tell you, the riper and redder the cherry, the higher-quality the bean. So the luwak was naturally selecting for the best java around.

It's just that next part of the, er, "processing" that gives the Professor the willies.

In any event, this coffee is a big deal in Japan (go figure, so were the Bee Gees), and those who've tried Kopi Luwak say that its flavor is "musty" and "earthy." It's also said to have no aftertaste, which is highly unusual for coffee. The University of Guelph in Canada attributes this to the beans being partially digested, reducing the amount of proteins in the beans, which give coffee its taste.

Wasn't that interesting? Now someone ask me about monkey-picked tea.