No, I’m not suggesting that organic food has caused autism.
But this graph demonstrates that correlation does not equal causation.
Now, the guy that created this graphic is advocating for vaccines. And I think that’s a noble cause and I certainly agree, but it fits so nicely for our discussion.
The more I experience what people believe, the more gullible I think most people are. People hear a celebrity tell them that conventional food is poisoning them and they run out to the organic grocery store to drop tons of cash. They hear the leader of the GMO movement recants and say he was absolutely wrong about the alleged dangers of GMO food, and they come up with any excuse to discredit the man they were just in love with. Anyone can put up a silly graphic on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media and people will throw all common sense away and believe what they see.
It is certainly easier, whether in politics, food, or life to just simply accept what we want to believe and reject what we don’t want to believe. This usually happens the less we actually know about a subject.
If you want to think organic food is healthier, it doesn’t matter how many studies come out showing you’re wrong, you’ll believe it anyway. If you want to think GMO foods are scary and bad, it doesn’t matter that there is nothing to prove your position, you’ll believe it anyway (as one girl told me, “we’ll have to agree to disagree.” About what? You have no science or evidence to support your conclusions…?). All common sense and logic can be completely thrown out the window.
I know people are worried about what they feed their families. They don’t want to inadvertently give the people they love cancer or make them sick. People are concerned about food safety. They are worried about how farm animals are treated. They want to be responsible and feel good about the decisions they’re making.
I have no doubt that if I shared the above graphic as true, a lot of people would buy into it and send it on. But we have to take a minute and decipher what the message is that we’re getting and where it is coming from. I certainly hope followers of my blog do so, and I hope those that don’t like what I post will take a minute before just rejecting it and actually think.
Yeah, with all that said it looks a little bleak. But here’s the good news in all of this: farmers are on the right side of the discussion.
We have that common sense, logic, and science on our side. Farmers want to produce good, safe food to make money, but they also feed it to their families. Just like moms and dads that live in the suburbs want to make sure little Johnny gets fed well, so do our farm mom and dads for their own little Johnny. It is in the agriculture industry’s best financial and personal interest to produce quality food.
We also like our farm animals…and most animals for that matter. Why on Earth would anyone choose to raise livestock if they hated them and just wanted to abuse them? Not only would you open yourself up to potential criminal liability, you’re also not going to find much job satisfaction since it requires a lot of work with those animals you hate…all the time. And I don’t think that abused animals produce much. Again, it is in your financial and personal interests not to abuse your animals.
So, when you do infuse a little common sense, logic, and science, it’s super easy for people to understand that we aren’t the bad guys. We just have to get them to stop for a minute and think about it.
Maybe a graphic can accomplish that.
