"Organic" is pretty much meaningless. I say that as someone who grew up in the bosom of the organic movement in the US. My mother was a pioneer of organic agriculture, and my close family friends are the people who defined current federal organic standards.

I lived and worked on an organic produce farm as a child, a farm owned by one of the founders of NOFA (the Northeast Organic Farmers Association.) NOFA's other (and primary) founder was a guy named Sam Kaymen.

You probably know Sam through the brand he started, Stonyfield. I remember visiting Stonyfield as a kid- Sam had many daughters, so many that I remember seeing them out for a walk and thinking that they looked just like the little girls in Madeleine.

I also remember Sam's oldest daughter accidentally spilling her diaphragm out of her purse in front of me and my parents- that's how I learned about that form of birth control, when I was nine. My parents thought it was funny as hell, and in retrospect I'm amused- I remember the look on her face to this day. She might be annoyed with me for telling this story but she's heir to the Stonyfield millions so I imagine she'll live.

The woman who defined what "organic" means in US federal law just sent me an email asking for my address so she can send me a copy of her book, dedicated to my deceased mother and her children (including me.) She's an old family friend, someone I've known for thirty years. I'm sitting here thinking about how to tell her that everything she's worked for, everything my mother worked for until she died, is bullshit. Or at least how to gracefully bow out of her acknowledgments.

The thing is, it is bullshit. "Organic" is bullshit. It's a meaningless term invented by a cult. I grew up as a member of that cult and I still have no idea what it means.