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Catherine Phipps's avatar

Full of common sense as usual, Mallika. I pretty much do what you do. And often buy based on special offers etc. I get quite a lot of organic vegetables from Lidl as they are cheaper than Waitrose. The other thing I do is ask a lot of questions, particularly to the stall holders at the farmers market. The organic stall is getting prohibitively expensive for me - I use it for products I can't buy elsewhere. But there are other stalls which aren't certified organic but tell me that they do stick to organic principles. So, for example I know a particular fruit/veg farm uses no herbicides or oil based fertilisers, just pheromone traps on the cherry trees. That the chickens from the chicken and egg stall are reared in a silvopastoral system (the ideal, I think) and aren't fed soy. I'm sure the Soil Association would prefer they certified, but they talk a lot about red tape/cost and just don't think it is worth it. It is going back to trust, I think.

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Mallika Basu's avatar

That's a great point Catherine about trust, and I would agree with you. When I sold spices we sold organic as standard without certification or marketing it as such. Costs were an issue but also we were worried about appearing prohibitively expensive. Lidl is a lot cheaper for organic but then I worry about what that means for farmers. It's not easy, is it?

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Meena Sharma's avatar

Very nice article on going with ORGANIC! Yes I too look out good deals on ORGANIC veggies or other stuff. Like your recipes on pies. Going to pick your book very soon "MASALA". All the best.

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Mallika Basu's avatar

Great to hear, thanks for the lovely feedback

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