So recently I have had many discussions with friends about Organic foods. This is mostly due to the popularity of documentaries such as Food Inc.
I had heard that Organics was a trumped up label put out by the Fed Gov to keep people from thinking while they shop. I had also heard that the Organic standards in some countries were not as strict as ours. So I decided to do a little digging.
I found this site….Organic Consumers Association, which seems to have a wealth of information on why it’s great to eat organic food. So much info in fact, I will have to return to check out the large quantity of links and studies done on the health of our food.
I ran across this in the sources from Wiki:
“In addition to hops, the list includes 19 food colorings, two starches, sausage and hot-dog casings, fish oil, chipotle chili pepper, gelatin and a variety of obscure ingredients (one, for instance, is a “bulking agent” and sweetener with the tongue-twisting name of fructooligosaccharides).
The proposed rule would allow up to 5 percent of a food product to be made with these ingredients and still get the “USDA Organic” seal. Even hops, though a major component of beer’s flavor, are less than 5 percent of the final product, because the beverage is mostly water.”
from the Seattle Times. The problem with things like the hops in that article was that it was grown with pesticides and fertilizers.
And a more recent Washington Post article criticizes the program saying:
“Under the original organics law, 5 percent of a USDA-certified organic product can consist of non-organic substances, provided they are approved by the National Organic Standards Board. That list has grown from 77 to 245 substances since it was created in 2002. Companies must appeal to the board every five years to keep a substance on the list, explaining why an organic alternative has not been found. The goal was to shrink the list over time, but only one item has been removed so far.
The original law’s mandate for annual pesticide testing was also never implemented — the agency left that optional.“
There are more and more mentions of Industry giants lobbying to bend the rules and the Government rolling over like a nice lapdog. This is not encouraging my search for a food source I can trust. The Wiki page on Organic Certification lists the countries that have laws and standards for Organics. It says that all other countries get their certification through NGO’s and private companies. This does not encourage my trust in the label.
At this point I will probably throw up my hands and just go to my local farmer’s market. At least there I can talk to the person who grew that food. I can find out if they use fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, growth hormones, genetically modified organisms (GMO), or anything else that might give me cancer, adhd, autism, or multiple sclerosis.
It also sounds like a lot more fun to build relationships with my local farmers. This just happens to be where my family is at. We certainly weren’t buying a lot of our food from markets even a year ago. And until recently we were only able to buy during the summer. Some farms will sell year round, but only if you go to them. It’s all a process. Babysteps. Each one is new at first, like reading labels at the store, but soon becomes second nature.
