Organic: It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Eats a Worm

Unless you've been living in a cave for the last five years, you have probably noticed the rapidly expanding trend of "organic" foods. If you decide, for example, that you'd like to pay triple the price for a couple of cucumbers, organic is the way to go. But let me make my case for some good old fashioned pesticides.

Last week, on vacation, the "girls" of my family (mom, sister-in-law, aunt, cousin, cousin's daughter, and I) went for a nice lunch at the Jordan Pond House in Acadia National Park. The Jordan Pond House is best known for its beautiful location and "tea and popovers" on the lawn. From what I understand, it used to be pretty upscale. Now, while still expensive, it caters more to hikers and other random tourists. It says something about a tourist attraction that my Maine native relatives are still willing to go along for the ride. In other words, the Jordan Pond House is always worth a trip. On this particular occasion, we all decided to do lunch dishes with a side of popovers. I opted for a spring mix salad; my sister-in-law got a chicken sandwich with a little side salad, chips, and a pickle. We were probably halfway through our dishes when my sister-in-law got this panicked look on her face and started shaking her head and frantically waving her hands. At first I thought, "perhaps she has encountered a bee (the Jordan Pond House is notorious for attracting them)." Nope. No bee here. Instead, hovering near the pickle on her plate, was a tiny little worm. Understandably grossed out, we called the waiter over to remove the plate. He barely reacted to the incident of the worm - he just laughed a little uncomfortably and cleared her plate as requested. My sister-in-law still had half of her sandwich left and instinctively removed the sandwich from the plate to set it aside, even though her lunch at that point was clearly over. I did not personally experience the worm, but I too was done. I set my fork down in my partially consumed salad and called it a day.

When we got the bill, we were not surprised (given the waiter's reaction) but were a little appalled that the chicken sandwich was still included. Frankly, my salad shouldn't have been on there either, as I was not able to enjoy it once we saw the worm. So we called over a granola-looking guy with a headset to explain our situation. He was fairly friendly, was indeed a manager, and listened to our story about the worm. Instead of saying, "I am SO SORRY," he shrugged and proudly replied, "Yeah, that happens. All of our produce is organic, and we get it from local farmers. So we do encounter those from time-to-time. We'll take it off the bill." Evidently, we should not have been so freaked out by the worm because it is ORGANIC. We then joked that the worm was probably so sick of being forced into an organic lifestyle that he was headed straight for the transfats (aka chips). But in all seriousness: instead of being grossed out in this situation, we're supposed to applaud the Jordan Pond House for using organic products, which we didn't even ask for? Does using organic products mean you don't have to wash your lettuce? I don't think so. "Organic" is not a free pass to serve unacceptable food. Please pass the pesticides.