12.51 Organic foods and morals? Organic foods are often marketed using moral terms such as “honesty’’ and “purity.’’ Is this just a marketing strategy, or is there a conceptual link between organic food and morality? In one experiment, 62 undergraduates were randomly assigned to one of three food conditions (organic, comfort, and control).¹³ First, each participant was given a packet of four food types from the assigned condition and told to rate the desirability of each food on a seven-point scale. Then, each was presented with a list of six moral transgressions and asked to rate each on a seven-point scale ranging from 1 = not at all morally wrong to 7 = very morally wrong. The average of these six scores was used as the response.