County Fare Fall 14
by Diana Cercone
Jim Gannon’s belief in the saying “you are what you eat” is so strong he opened a store that sells only organic and all-natural foods. Called Organnons Natural Market, the store is located in the Carousel Village on Durham Road in Wrightstown. The play on his last name with the word organic was born one evening at his home when he and his wife, Danielle, were tossing around names with friends for his then soon-to-be-opened store. They all agreed: The name was a perfect fit.
Though I had been hearing good things about Organnons since it opened last September, I still hadn’t stopped by and figured I was way overdue. Remedying that, I called Jim to set up an interview.
The day turned sunny with not a cloud in the sky as I pulled into Carousel’s parking lot. Before touring Organnons, Jim ushers me into his office in the back to chat. Pointing to the colorful area rug and crates holding toys at the other end of the large room, he says smiling, “That’s where my children [ages 3 &1/2 and 16 months] play when they come. It will also serve as a yoga area for employees.”
Tall and trim, Jim, who’s 33 and grew up in Southampton, says he has eaten healthily all his life. Or, so he thought. But about four years ago, when he and Danielle were starting a family, he says, “We started reading a lot about food and how it was produced.” The reports and studies they read underscored the industrialization of today’s crops—with most of them produced with GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds and heavy doses of pesticides. Recent studies have shown that these are often passed into the food we eat.
Beef, pork, lamb and poultry fare no better, Jim says. Most livestock are raised on factory farms and given growth hormones to speed up their natural market maturity dates. Antibiotics are routinely given because of the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. In addition, animals are often treated inhumanely. According to many medical studies, these, too, can be passed on to consumers in the forms of e coli bacteria, drug-resistant germs and illnesses.