Albert Anker, die Kleine Kartoffelschalerin, 1886
I know, I know. Buying organic fruits and vegetables can be really expensive. I can’t afford to buy organic everything (I have three teenagers), but certain produce just skeeves me out, and I will opt not to buy it if I can’t afford the organic version (or I’ll grow it myself in the garden). I only ever buy organic versions of berries, celery, apples, carrots and grapes. And organic bananas, which are almost the same price as the regular kind, so that’s an easy one. But here’s one more you might want to add to your list: potatoes. Please, buy organic potatoes if you possibly can.
I’ve blogged before about the Irish potato famine and how susceptible potatoes are to blight, rot, fungus, and insect infestation. On the huge industrial farms where they grow nothing but potatoes, farmers use enormous amounts of chemical fertilizers, soil fumigants to control nematodes in the soil, insecticides at planting, which are absorbed by the seedlings, herbicides to control weeds, and fungicides to control blight. And then more insecticides—organophosphates to control aphids and the feared Colorado potato beetles.
In my forthcoming insect book, I talk about how the potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) may or may not have been an agent of biological warfare during World War II. The Germans accused the Allies of planning to drop thousands of Colorado potato beetles on German potato fields; the Allies denied they had such a plan. It’s no wonder the Germans feared for their Kartoffelkloesse (potato dumplings); both the adults and the larvae of this extremely destructive pest feed on potato plants so enthusiastically the plants usually die.
Michael Pollan wrote this article back in 1998, when he visited some of these industrial potato growers, fifteen thousand acre farms, where pesticide applications are managed by computer monitors. He reported how these toxic chemicals are absorbed into the potato while it’s growing, so as to kill any bug that bites into it. After harvest, the potatoes must be stored for six months in enormous sheds, to allow time for the chemicals to “fade.”
Some of the farmers Pollan interviewed admitted that they wouldn’t eat the potatoes they grew, and had their own plots for their family’s consumption.
On the flip side, it isn’t easy to grow potatoes organically. Organic farmers have certain tactics, like crop rotations to prevent a buildup of crop specific pests, and planting flowering crops to attract beneficial insects. So you see why they’d be more expensive.
As soon as my kids were old enough to understand English, I made them watch the movie Supersize Me. It was my bald-faced effort to use scare tactics to make them avoid McDonalds. It worked for several years. My youngest actually shrieked in terror when we passed a Golden Arches. Hey, you have to do what you can.