Jeff Caplan’s Minute of News: Eating organic food during inflation

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SALT LAKE CITY — Do you eat organic food? My esteemed spouse insists we eat organic fruit and this is good for two reasons.

The first is, organic food is better for you. Fewer chemicals.  I have absolutely no idea what those chemicals would be and whether they’d make me grow an arm out of my forehead. But my wife says so, which is good enough for me.

Mostly, I just consider the word organic to mean “healthier.”

But what does “organic” really mean? Well to get the green and white USDA organic label a product needs to have 95% organic ingredients. That means no chemical fertilizers.

At the grocery store, even without a sign, you can always tell the organic fruit and veggies. That’s because their price look-up sticker has five digits that begin with the number 9. Conventional fruit has a four-digit lookup number.

I mentioned there were two reasons to buy organic food. The other is inflation. The price of old-school fruit with all the chemicals is going up way faster than the healthy stuff.

A company called DataWeave reports conventional foods are up a whopping 11% from a year ago. But organic foods are only up an average 3%.

The shrinking difference between chemical-covered apples that might make you grow an extra ear on your neck and organic apples is now only 33-cents a pound.

Other Jeff Caplan minutes:

• A deadly career choice — journalists in Russia
• The fake Beijing Olympic Games
• Vladimir Putin’s Super Bowl ring

Listen to Jeff Caplan’s Afternoon News every weekday from 3 to 7 p.m. for more of his “My Minute of News.” And check out the podcast below.

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