That’s a big problem in makeup too! Companies want to put out “clean” and “natural” makeup but makeup isn’t typically used very quickly. Makeup with no preservatives going bad is common.
That did and in some places does still matter. Homes moving away from heating with coal to natural gas reduces smog. Thus it is seen as clean energy. Because everything is cleaner in the true sense of the word clean. Green is often a better predictor.
Nothing inherently, you can go ahead and eat apples from your apple tree.
The main issue with "organic" foods is that the term is usually very badly regulated. Sometimes there is no difference between "organic" and "non organic"... besides price. Sometimes "organic" foods use very ecologically unfriendly techniques, or are grown/processed in countries where supply chains are not inspected anyway.
Then there's the fact that if something is different, it may not always be an environmental or health win. Growing your food in 30cm of water may be one organic and traditional way to avoid using pesticides (see: rice), but doing that with corn in the middle of Arizona would obviously be a terrible idea!
Anyway, overall I don't think organic foods are worse if you're well off enough that the price is not an issue. But you shouldn't feel personal guilt for buying whatever's cheaper, because quite often the alternative does not justify the price anyway. Eating truly "organic" food unfortunately requires a lot more involvement than picking the green package at a national supermarket chain.
It's a heavily abused and arbitrary marketing term that doesn't actually indicate anything about what the food is made of or how it's made or grown. It also doesn't indicate anything about how healthy the food is or how good it tastes. At most it's slightly better for the environment in some areas with some brands when used properly, but even then regulations are too lax and inconsistent worldwide for it to be a trustworthy label.
Depends on where you live. As far as I know the term is not well protected in many countries, so it means next to nothing there.
However, I live in the EU / Germany, where we have several organic farming standards that are all fairly strict. Generally, organic actually means organically produced food here, grown without artificial pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and so on.
Just out of curiosity since I assume you know more about this, is "plant based" the same as vegan? Because that's the hip new term but I've always wondered if they're equivalent or if they do have some animal products which is why they're dancing around the word vegan. I've never gotten a straight answer from the people at the store/restaurant.
The wealth of misinformation and personal opinions in this thread is… it’s just classic.
It’s incredible that as we are actively engaging in conversation on the internet we fail to use this modern marvel to better ourselves. Instead, we choose to bear our ignorance and influence impressionable minds.
I mean, I know this a meme and maybe not the right place for fact checking, still…