Organic or Not: Can You Taste the Difference?

There are so many options at the supermarket these days—organic, non-GMO, all-natural, conventional. What does is all mean? Organic food is produced without synthetic pesticides and is usually more energy efficient than its conventional counterpart. As a rule, organic food is also less chemically processed than non-organic food. But can you taste the difference? Find out by challenging your kids' taste buds to a taste experiment to see if he can tell which foods are organic and which are not.

What You Need:

• Organic fruit, bread, cookies, and juice
• Conventional (non-organic) fruit, bread, cookies, and juice (make sure they're the same as the organic foods—the only difference between the two should be that one is organic and one is not)
• Paper
• Pencil
• Internet access
• Poster board
• Markers

What You Do:

1. Set up the experiment by grouping each organic food with its non-organic counterpart. For example, place one organic cookie and one non-organic cookie together on a plate. Make sure you remove all packaging and anything that would give away the test, but keep track mentally of which foods are organic and which are not.
2. Bring in the taste testers and and hand each of them a sheet of paper and a pencil.
3. Invite them to try each food, one group at a time, and have them record on their sheet of paper which cookie, bread, juice, and fruit is best according to taste and texture.
4. After participants have tried all the food, tally the results. Which foods tasted better—organic or conventional?
5. As a group, read and compare the ingredients on the packages. If there are ingredients that you are unfamiliar with, look them up online to learn more. Now conduct a vote: ask each taste tester to choose which cookie, bread, fruit, and juice they think is the healthiest and contains the best ingredients.
6. To round out the experiment, research the difference in production methods for organic versus conventional foods. Record your findings as you did with in steps 3 and 5, having each taste tester mark which of each type of food is better. Consider environmental impact in your results.
7. Gather all of the taste testers’ opinions into a single chart to compare the results. Make the chart by writing the results in bright marker on the poster board.
8. Look over the chart together. Which type of food received the most positive reviews? Which received the worst? Are you surprised by any of the results?

Hang your chart in a prominent area of the house and share your newfound knowledge with the whole family.