Organic Guilt

Found another blog with a post about Organic guilt. Have a lookie!

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http://frogosphere.blogspot.com/2008/09/organic-guilt.html
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Without going into an examination of the benefits of organics, or its market explosion of the past five years or so, I will reveal that I have been buying organic products (food and cosmetics and household cleaners) on and off since about 1994, making me feel a little bit more qualified than mainstream consumers to whine about the topic.
In college it seemed sort of like a postmodern hippie thing to do, an elitist little secret. Buying handmade soap felt as anti-establishment as getting a tattoo, or at least as anti-establishment as you can get for a state college student in the mid-nineties - occasionally shopping at the local health food store in a thick coat of L'oreal Raisin Rage lipstick and a credit card. It all made sense, didn't it? OK, so that's my back story.
Today if I choose organics, it's in a more purposeful and planned way, taking price and practicality into careful consideration. I'd love to buy 100% organic, sustainable, fair trade all the time, but it's just not financially realistic (I hear a huge uh-huh out there). I mostly stick to the dirty dozen principle, some organic dairy, and natural bath products for Sam. Sorry, that was more back story.
Yesterday I stopped in the Green Earth (Oneonta's health food store) for a few specific items. The cashier gave me a free promotional magazine called, "Delicious Living". I had a chance to look at it this morning, and I realized that every page was yelling at me. Shrill, white, upper-middle class mom's voices rose from each page, condemning me.

--What? You don't buy raw vitamins??
--You don't supplement your child with DHA? His brain will shrivel!
--Non-organic milk is poisoning your family!
--All your produce is devoid of nutrients!

Alright, so these are not exact quotes, but they are pretty much the messages the mag was sending. I started over, from the Editor's page. The red-headed, simple-but-gorgeous Editor is pictured sitting lakeside on a rock (Colorado) wearing hikers and cargo pants, smiling smugly, suggesting,"I'm a natural mom. Why aren't you?" What a bitch.
The next article was something about Argan Oil in skin care. Dump out your olive oil everyone, this one has twice the vitamin E! If you don't use it, you'll look like Phyllis Diller by Tuesday. I also noticed that the photography was so totally blase. You can picture it pretty easily: small ceramic ramekins filled with creamy looking concoctions arranged on a neutral background. Think Clinique ads for the past 2 decades. Groundbreaking work, people.
As I leafed through the rest, it occurred to me that I hadn't seen one non-white woman, man or child...in the whole mag, including the ads. Hmm. Seems like a magazine with such principled values would make an attempt to be more inclusive. See? Snobby Bitches.
This stupid magazine bugged me for the rest of the morning, and I finally figured out why before I sat down to write. It made me feel guilty - on a couple of levels: the most obvious being that I'm somehow not providing enough for my child, or protecting him enough...whichever. On another level, I felt guilty for being a part of all this and paying attention to it, choosing an organic over a regular product - I do not identify with all of these women, and I don't want to be pegged as one....but I want to shop in the Green Earth sometimes. Maybe I'm having an identity crisis.