By Kristi Myllenbeck, Correspondnet

The owners of OG Sliders restaurant in Cupertino may not be "original gangsters," but they are doing something that, to them, is all their own.

"The OG stands for organic gourmet," said chef Mike Jenkins, the culinary mastermind and co-owner of the restaurant. "We enjoy good, healthy organic food."

Jenkins had the idea for the restaurant when was tasked with a project while pursuing his bachelor's degree in culinary management.

"It was something that needed to be trendy, for a food truck. I thought, 'What about doing sliders?'--something quick, something organic but really giving the sliders a different twist," he said.

On that basis, Jenkins, his wife Danni and co-owner John Chan formed the idea for OG Sliders, which opened in August at the Oaks Shopping Center near Bluelight Cinema.

In addition to using organic ingredients, OG Sliders makes a point to use locally sourced vegetables, meat and spirits. Even the decor comes from surrounding areas. The restaurant is a rustic blend of stained glass, doodled-on chalkboard paint, handcrafted tables and the aroma of wood-grilled meat. Some of the tables were salvaged from wood used in the old UC-Berkeley football stadium. Sharp-eyed patrons can still see the numbers used on the bleacher seats.

Whereas Mike had culinary ideas, Danni had a vision and made most of the decorating decisions. As a team, they decided to stay true to their roots and decorate with locally sourced products.

"I thought that was the natural thing to do," Danni said. "If everything in the food is centered around local, it only made sense to decorate accordingly. It goes hand in hand."

Though the interior looks polished and high-end, Mike is adamant that they welcome anyone and everyone to a location that was once used as a banquet room.

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Cupertino business: OG Sliders is all about food, family and details

Any farmer can call themselves organic, says Judi Morton. The public doesnt understand that it means nothing.

Morton has grown organic produce and raised organic meat at Tulaberry Farm in the Slocan Valley for the past 20 years.

The BC Ministry of Agriculture is drafting legislation that would require anyone selling products as organic to be certified by a provincially or nationally accredited certifier.

One of those certifiers is Kootenay Organic Growers, of which Morton is a board member and past president. She is also on the board of the Certified Organic Associations of BC. She welcomes the proposed change, as does Jocelyn Carver, the marketing manager at the Kootenay Co-op.

Because organic food is priced higher, Carver says, there is obviously a strong profit motive for a business to use the word organic misleadingly in order to charge more. We have seen this happen with a number of products over the years, actively advocated against it, and called attention to misleading labeling where we are able.

I think it is an important vote for honesty and transparency in advertising, a quality sorely missing in North America, she said.

Jesse Woodward, who runs the Baker Street and Cottonwood markets for the West Kootenay EcoSociety, echoes those opinions and adds, I have talked to a farmer in the valley who is certified organic and worked incredibly hard and spent a fair amount of money getting that done and they feel strongly that because they have done all that work they should be able to truly use the word certified organic.

But I have also heard through the grapevine that some other smaller farmers are feeling hard done by, because they either cannot afford the process of certification or are not willing to go through it, but have what would be considered an organic farm. But like sustainable or green these terms get thrown around, and no one knows what they mean. I think it is a good move to have some rules around it.

What does getting certified involve?

Farmers have to apply to a local certifying organization which, in turn, hires a highly trained independent inspector certified by the International Organic Inspectors Association.

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Province moves to regulate the definition of 'organic' food

If you weren't alive in the 1950s, you may not be familiar with the Davy Crockett coonskin hat, a $100 million fad touched off by a Walt Disney television series. Like millions of other eight-year-old wanna-be frontiersmen, I wore onefor a while. A short while. This fad flamed out quickly.

Soon we had all moved on to other things, like hula hoops. They were a fad of a different sort, a fad that became something more than a fad.

Fads are short-lived; hula hoops remained popular for decades. Even if you weren't alive in 1958, when hula hoops were first twirled, you probably know about them. They almost disappeared but were reborn. Although not exactly the rage today, they're still around.

And then there's another fad of the '50s, rock music. Rock and roll, as it was originally called, didn't flame or fade, like piano wrecking or panty raids, and it didn't merely hang on, like hula hoops. It evolved and changed and grew. It made the leap from passing fad to something big and broad and permanent. Rock in all its many forms, from rockabilly to rap metal, from proto-punk to post-Britpop, keeps rocking along.

Having examined a variety of fad types, you might wonder about organic food, food produced without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. Where in this taxonomy of fads does it fit?

In the 1960s and 1970s organic food had the makings of a fad that would flame out, never to be heard from again. Many saw it as a hippie affectation that would go away when the hippies grew up and got jobs.

Time proved that notion wrong; a coonskin cap it was not. Nor was it a hula hoop exactly; it never enjoyed a spectacular moment in the spotlight, as hula hoops did, when everyone seems to be "doing it."

Instead, organic food may be making the leap rock and roll once made, to something big and long lasting.

Today's organic devotees aren't hippies; they're mainstream Americans. And they no longer have to patronize specialty stories; every supermarket offers organic produce and organic packaged products. There's little chance that future generations will view organic food the way we view, say, goldfish swallowing, as a quaint quirk of a moment in time long past.

In 2012 sales of organic food reached $28.4 billion (http://tiny.cc/), more than 4% of total food sales, and projected to reach $35 billion last year. By one estimate organic-food sales are growing a heady 14% a year (http://tiny.cc/).

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Organic Food, Coonskin Caps and Hula Hoops

A horizontal full frame image of healthy fruits. | Gregor Schuster via Getty Images

Each year, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) releases a list of the "dirty dozen" that is, twelve fruits and vegetables that they highly recommend people should buy organic, as opposed to conventionally grown.

The list, which is based on the pesticide residues found on 48 popular fruit and vegetables, has similar findings this year to past releases. However, two notable additions for 2015 include hot chili peppers and kale/collard greens, which are highlighted because of the types of pesticides being used on the produce.

"Residue tests conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture have found these foods laced with particularly toxic pesticides. Among the chemicals at issue are organophosphate and carbamate insecticides." These types of pesticides attack the nervous system, according to National Geographic, so even though they're used in small doses in North America, people who eat a lot of these types of foods are advised to seek out organic options.

Although pesticides used in Canada, particularly on food, are highly regulated, there are still potential ill effects from ingesting these chemicals, particularly for people with compromised immune systems, according to Prevention magazine. And there are other reasons to consider buying organic produce as well.

As Director of the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada Andrew Hammermeister pointed out in an email to The Huffington Post Canada, eating organic food is not just a matter of reducing pesticide intake.

"Organic foods are an excellent option for consumers that want to reduce exposure to synthetic pesticides, genetically engineered organisms, growth hormones, antibiotics, preservatives, food colouring, flavours etc.," he wrote. But it also benefits ecological sustainability, biodiversity and animal welfare, and reduces environmental exposure to nanotechnology and antibiotics.

Meanwhile, a study reported last year by the CBC noted that half of all organic produce in the country was found to contain pesticides. The reasons ranged from pesticide residue in water or soil, contact with non-organic produce, and of course, the possibility that some farmers are using pesticide when they claim they aren't. From the sample, 1.8 per cent of produce exceeded the allowable limits by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

So what is a consumer who wants to avoid pesticides to do? First of all, eat from the "clean" fruits and veggies on the list below they have the least amount of pesticides, thanks to their thicker (and more protective) skins. Secondly, for the "dirty" produce, consider buying organic. Even though it is possible they'll contain some pesticides, it will be far less than conventionally grown foods.

Excerpt from:
Foods To Buy Organic In 2015, Especially For Fruits And Vegetables

Although the popularity and availability of organic fruits and vegetables continues to grow, for many consumers the whole thing still comes across as a bit of a fad a movement created by stores like Trader Joes and Whole Foods to get even more of their hard-earned cash.

Why pay $4 or more for a bunch of asparagus at Fresh Market, after all, when you can pay half that at Publix? Who has the time or patience for a 20- to 30-minute trek to a local produce stand when theres a two-for-one sale at the Wal-Mart down the street and you can pick up those razors you need as well?

Even for those ready to embrace a healthier lifestyle, there are lingering doubts about safety, taste and, of course, cost.

With all of these uncertainties floating around, the big question is this: Is the extra effort and money really worth it? And if so, how can organic food providers make it a little easier for the average person to get their hands on the good stuff?

I think for most of us, we want to know that what were eating is pure, said Cathy Hume, co-owner of Urban Oasis Hydroponic in Tampa. Logic tells you that eliminating as much false product in your system is bound to have a healthy effect on you.

Hume and her husband, Dave, have been naturally growing produce for eight years on a seemingly barren concrete slab on Linebaugh Avenue. They specialize in vertical hydroponic growing, a soilless technique that uses a nutrient solution to turn out sustainable produce.

They are not certified organic, Hume said, but they practice organic principles. We are not certified. We dont need to be. Our customers appreciate that they can come here and see their food; they can talk face to face with the people who actually go out there and plant it. We have relationships with these people.

Just down the road in Town N Country, Sweetwater Organic Farm abides by the strictest rules of USDA Organic certifications.

In the beginning, we went through a pretty intensive audit, said Kaitlin Hennessy, program director at Sweetwater. They look at land use, what fertilizers and insect repellent you use, and then every year afterward we are audited again to make sure we are continuing to do those practices.

For example, an acceptable fertilizer might be the use of liquefied seaweed. Its super high in nitrogen and is an organically occurring substance.

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Growers say organic food worth extra effort, cost