ChewsWise Blog

ChewsWise Blog

Organic but not Natural?

Center for Science in the Public Interest, the nutritional watchdog, has said it withdrew its threatened lawsuit against Pepsi after the company announced it was dropping an "All Natural" claim for 7up.

At issue, the use of high fructose corn syrup, which CSPI notes "is made through a complex chemical industrial process in which corn starch molecules are enzymatically reassembled into glucose and fructose molecules."

A couple of years ago, a company tried to make "organic high fructose corn syrup" by using the same process with organic corn. I heard the company halted work due to a lack of demand, but have also heard annecdotally that organic HFCS is available from a European company. (I have not confirmed this).

This became an issue a couple of years back, when the USDA gave a blanket approval for "food contact substances" - some 500+ FDA-allowed chemicals - for use in organic production. One was styrene-divinylbenzene, necessary to manufacture HFCS. The issue though never got on the front burner because no one came out with a product with Organic HFCS.

Presumably, if a company uses this sweetener with a natural label they will come on CSPI's radar screen, being forced to argue either that Organic HFCS is "natural" or to justify that an organic product could be "un-natural." This will prove a very interesting debate ... perhaps too interesting, which is why no one yet has tried to sweeten an organic product with organic high frustose corn syrup.

Seedy

I was speaking to one organic seed company rep recently, who told me they source no corn seed from the Midwest because it's likely contaminated with GMO - that is with genetically modified seed.

I also recently came across this Nation article by Lisa Hamilton, who says that virtually no corn seed in the US is GMO free. But what the article points out is that there are in fact traditional breeding techniques - through mating one plant with another - that could insert a shield to prevent GMO contamination. The only problem is, that method is now patented too.

The issue here is the privatization of seed, which is one major problem I see with sending GMO seeds to the Third World. The farmers there will be tied into the seed and chemical companies, like any addict. They will also need to invest in chemicals and irrigation networks, which only concentrates farming and takes more people off the land and into cities.

Hello USDA? Check Up on Wal-Mart

The Cornucopia Instiute, a small farm advocacy group, has filed a complaint charging that Wal-Mart is passing off non organic food as organic. At the very least, the retailing giant may be causing consumer confusion if you take a look at the pictures Cornucopia has posted on its web site.

So what's the big deal?

Well, one of the reasons organic regulations were written was to make sure that consumers got what they were paying for. There's a whole system of inspections, certifications and labeling requirements that each producer and retailer must meet in order to sell organic food. Now, a retailer doesn't have to be certified to sell organic food, but they are required by law to label the stuff correctly (among other things). You want the fine print, check it out on the USDA web site here. The bottom line: mislabeling can lead to a $10,000 fine per incident.

Although Cornucopia complained to the USDA several weeks ago, the USDA apparently took no action. Nor did Wal-Mart, although Cornucopia also fired off a letter to Bentonville about the labeling issue. With everyone apparently asleep, Cornucopia - pitbulls that they are - racheted up the action by filing legal action.

Now, it would be easy to cry fraud. More accurately, it's probably a case of ignorant stocking clerks and managers slapping the organic signage on any and all products. Not too keen - but hey, that's what you get in the absence of adequate training about the organic marketplace.

So two things needs to happen. The USDA needs to check this out. And Wal-Mart needs to take some corrective action. They might be able to change the world by embracing sustainability, but first, they've got to get it right.

No wonder some organic types are likening the company's entry in the market as the arrival of Wal-Martians.

Organic Fraud?

The Dallas Morning News has run a groundbreaking series of stories about apparent fraud in the organic food industry.

The main story, "Is Organic Food The Real Deal?", was based on a Freedom of Information Act requests of documents from the USDA about complaints against certain producers and certifiers.

...a Dallas Morning News analysis has found that the United States Department of Agriculture does not know how often organic rules are broken and has not consistently taken action when potential violations were pointed out.

The most pertinent details had to do with crops coming from China.

Mutsumi Sakuyoshi, a Japanese inspector who has checked Chinese soybean fields for many of the world's largest certifiers, said she confronted one farm's workers after finding an empty plastic bag of herbicide.

Workers told her wind must have blown it from a neighbor's field.

Another farmer gave her an affidavit stating the land under inspection hadn't been used for at least three years. Ms. Sakuyoshi found the government official who stamped it and questioned its accuracy.

"He said, 'No. I don't know. I don't care. They just asked me to stamp it, so I stamped it,' " she said.

The only questionable part of the story I had was a blanket assertion by a USDA researcher that organics would be impossible in China because of water and air pollution. I would be very careful about writing off a country as large as China and its 2 billion population, especially considering that small peasant farmers historically used and still use organic methods such as composting.

But there is a major questionmark about whether the organic exports from China meet the USDA organic regs. That's a very worthwhile question to ask and to my mind has not been sufficiently answered yet.

I have heard annedotal reports of cancelled orders of organic products from China because of these concerns.

It also ran a story on a certifier who was certifying fields with prohibited materials. The USDA really needs to clamp down to maintain, and restore, credibility to the industry. Here's the piece Organic Certifier Targeted