Yet the organic label itself—like every other such label in the supermarket—is really just an imperfect substitute for direct observation of how food is produced, a concession to the reality that most people in an industrial society haven’t the time or the inclination to follow their food back to the farm, a farm which today is apt to be, on average, fifteen hundred miles away.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals