The vast majority of what's there seems to come from the same food terminal that supplies the grocery chains, so I occasionally feel a little mislead.
You are being mislead. This whole "organic" thing has been hijacked by big business. Sorting out who's serious and who's trying to take advantage of you is tricky. They are hoping in your zeal, that you will overpay for something (and you generally are, with the added bonus of doing it for nothing, as the "organic" part of it is many times of no value, health or otherwise).
Also, remember that "Certified Organic" is a club one must pay to join. many small operations simply cannot afford to add the cost of certification to their already stretched bottom line...they are already struggling. What this does is allow the big corporations to muscle out a lot of the small guys who have good products, by offering you inferior quality products they can sell at a premium by simply being "certified". And they know the general public will simply pay higher amounts if it says "Certified Organc", as if it were a magic bullet.
I was never one to fall for the whole "organic" craze. Not that i don't agree it's better...of course it is. I just don't see it as some kind of "new" thing. I grew up in the country, and organic was just common sense. It came out of your garden, was purchased at the mennonite's farms, or from the harvest from local farms. Tomatoes were eaten in season, and consumed off-season from the various canning you did with your supply of tomatoes. Nobody would by a tomatoe out of season from a store...one: it costs too much, and two: it tastes like shit. I still can't get over the fact that people actually put tomatoes in the fridge?????????????
I'll tell ya...there was one day shopping at Whole Foods that I just couldn't take it any more....I came across some maple syrup labelled "organic", and of course, costing twice as much as the so-called non-organic brands.
I approached the store management, and asked them to explain to me what it was that made this maple syrup "organic" or not "organic". They had no idea...but I pressed for an answer, and asked that they find out and get back to me.
Now, as most people should know, maple syrup is about the purest form of food there is...you just boil the sap from a tree. There's no way to make anything
BUT organic maple syrup...the trees don't require any kind of pesticides or chemicals...the boiling of it doesn't involve anything that could be construed as non-organic.
They did give me the answer...somehow, the simple fact that they used "organic" products to clean the tubes they collected the sap with was enough to be able to claim the "organic" label. Ok...fine enough. I just think it's a pretty iffy reason, and it's not like non-orgqanic maple syrup producers were using toxic substances to clean theirs with.
Delivery is not something I really need, but that seems to be how the system works
What
system? One of the advantages of living in many of Toronto's inner-city neighbourhoods, is the ability to shop every day for fresh, quality products, instead of those poor people who live the burbs, who have to waste a saturday, packing the kids in the SUV, driving to the big box store, loading up with a week or two's worth of groceries, most of which are not fresh, because it has to last the two weeks until the next shopping "adventure".
