I'm a pretty regular customer of Chipotle, the maker of big burritos and associated foodstuffs. They usually do a pretty good job, but a few months ago I got one of their chicken burritos, like usual, but to my dismay the chicken tasted just awful. I've never had my chicken from Chipotle taste anything like that, so I called up the restaurant. They said they had just switched to a new, organic, supplier.

My wife - a medical student with a lot of science under her belt - gave me a look and asked if they had previously been serving inorganic chicken and what the hell was "organic" supposed to mean? I told her it meant "crappy," apparently.

The chicken tasted all gamey and dark-meatish. Maybe some people like that, but I hate it. Also, according to the article, it costs more. I had thought their price increases were just inflation or due to biofuel boondoggles, but apparently this is a factor as well. So now I have overpriced, sub-par chicken because of the hippies and their food fads. Great. Just great.

If you eat at Chipotle, and find the chicken suddenly tastes terrible, well, there's why. You can complain to them here. I already have and if you're like me and don't like gamey-tasting chicken, then I suggest you do.

-Inspector





If you do like gamey chicken, then... uh, enjoy?

If my local Chipotle's lowers its standards out of some misbegotten political considerations, it will soon go out of business -- there's too much competition.

It might be that Inspector just got a bad burrito that is not representative of all organic chicken products. It's hard to tell from one anecdote. We need more evidence.

That's two in a row, but it could very well be a problem with the supplier local to Phoenix.

Of course, we'll need more evidence. Which can only mean one thing: eating burritos.

I avoid it by just getting steak burritos. I just don't like chicken as much. Plus I'm a Moe's man, no Chipotle in my city.

Hmm, I usually get kebab rolls.

Although I do find that "inorganic meat" thing interesting. It sounds like something you could throw at enviros (or envirii, a term I coined in '04) with good effect.

They do have "organic" beef in some areas, though. I have noticed that the beef has been getting more gristley lately (I cannot stand gristle) but I didn't think to ask them if it was also "organic." This will also require more burritos. I mean testing.

Envirii. I'd been using 'viros, but that is quite possibly even better!

Oh, a bonus: the damn thing's given me indigestion.

"Organic food" doesn't even rise to the standard of an anti-concept, it is as far as I can tell an un-concept. A meaningless term, subsuming under it any number of outmoded and primitive farming practices. Just as it is difficult to justify why Quakers might use basic machines, but cannot use electrical ones, it is difficult to say where exactly "organic" farmers draw the line. There are some legal definitions, but of course those are in dispute.

One thing they seem to be able to agree on, is the use of industrial chemicals and pesticides, acting no doubt under the false premise that naturally occurring complex and impure chemicals are easier to handle than simple and purified synthetically produced ones...

Basically, their yields are lower, and they produce food of an over all lower quality. If commercially depended on, you could expect to see sorrier looking meat and produce.

Wealthy people, who are among the biggest advocates of "organically" grown food, get all the choice crops, so natrually they believe that these methods are superior, and produce food of superior taste and quality. From what I can tell about this whole movement, is that it seems to allow the wealthier bien-pensants to feel even more exclusive and special. Kind of like blowing 50 thousand bucks on solar paneling or buying a hybrid.

I imagine that if the world were to convert all arable land to utilize these techniques, you could expect billions to starve.

The founders of these movements are I am sure beginning to see that they have lost control of the monster they made.

Its is furthermore interesting to see how most of these groups, not matter how strange it may seem, started out as Anti-Vietnam protest groups. Its one of the major common threads.

Well said, Kriegsgefahrzustand.

I think I got off lucky with just a touch of the runs...

Because how could nature hurt you?!

See, here is the interesting part, now that they're "big" and "corporate", the "organics" will be seen as products of industry, then what will they eat?

Hehe, exactly. Folks, if you are having trouble concertizing this one, and have a strong stomach, just go ahead and do a Google image search for "bear attack."

Golf course grass?

Did the image search. I think that's what anyone who anthropomorphizes animals should do.

Nothings more real than the damage done by those things. It reminds me of a program I saw on the National Geographic Channel about polar bear attacks, two women went out hiking together and decided not to take any weapons with them even though polar bears hang out everywhere (you know because they don't really attack people) and of course they were attacked and one of them was killed and the other managed to get away by jumping off a short cliff (yes the bear succeeded in outsmarting them by cutting off any exit they had) and the entire program spent the rest of the time trying to blame the polar bear attack on some sort of human interference with their natural way of life. You know because animals just don't attack people for no reason...so it must have been our fault. Since they were scientists they found out that human interference was not to blame and then just seemed to shrug and say "I guess we'll never know why that bear attacked!"

I'll tell you why it attacked. It's a god damn BEAR! it's what bears in particular and wild animals in general do. That's why we call them wild animals.

Exactly, I would also like to add this:

1.) Bears eat meat (along with other predators)

2.) People are made of meat

This in combination with the fact from the article that implied the bear was hunting them suggests that the bear attacked them because it was hungry. The other one probably got away because he wasn't going to forgo the surety of food for the potential of more food.

You may not be interested in the bear, but the bear is interested in you to paraphrase Trotsky.

I don't blame the bear at all, it was doing what bears do. There wasn't anything wrong with how it behaved, its a bear. The people however bear (lol) 100% of the responsibility for what happened to them. Bears can't help being bears, but people make choices.

Word to naturalists, forgoing your natural evolutionary advantages by suppressing them though the exercise of choice is decidedly unnatrual.

Since nature to be commanded must first be obeyed, I think that ironically, I probably have more of a respect for the raw unthinking power of nature than most envirii.

As do I. To fail by choice is worse than to succeed by default. Much worse.

I never did ask, but I would find it really funny if that golf course used pesticides and fertilizers on their lawns -- particularly if they were not of the "food-grade" variety (the ones that decay into harmless chemicals).

Being that it was a gold course, I'd say there is no maybe about it.

Quite so. I would definitely give a part of the credit for my immunity to the cultural trend of anthropomorphizization to the hours and hours of nature programs I watched as a youth.

This is just lovely. My wife showed up Wednesday with two boxes of organic pop-tarts ("toaster pastries" really, and not the actual "Pop Tart" branded product).

*sigh*

They taste like crap, especially compared to real pop-tarts. When I asked why she bought them, she replied that they were the only toaster pastries at the Sprouts[1] store.

I think I've got my work cut out for me...

[1] For those without the "privilege" of a local Sprouts, they're a grocery store that tends to cater more to the neo-hippie crowd by stocking much more "organic"and other pseudo health foods than a typical grocery store. Our local Sprouts is located right across the street from a large "chain" grocery store where there is a much larger (and better) selection of food at much lower prices.

That it was called Sprouts would have been the first red flag...

If I were to start a grocer, it would be called Ad Victorem

Our motto?

"Spoils from the War on Nature"

Kriegsgefahrzustand,

Ahahahah! Brilliant; I love it!

The Meat Section would be a joy to behold i would think ;)