September 2007 | On Our Radar
Don’t Panic, It’s Organic. Sort Of.
With more consumers ponying up the extra dough for organic products, and big companies vying for a piece of what was formerly a mom-and-pop pie, the debate wages on over what percent non-organic ingredients can rightly go into organic foods.
Many organic food producers and supporters are dismayed by a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposal that would allow 38 non-organic ingredients in foods that sport the organic seal — including hops, the second most important ingredient in beer.
According to USDA regulations, a processed food product can pass as “organic” as long as it contains just 5 percent or less of USDA-approved non-organic ingredients. The company must also prove that an organic version is not available in the quality or quantity needed.
Until May 2007, there were only five ingredients on the list: cornstarch, water-extracted gum, kelp, unbleached lecithin and pectin. But in June, the USDA proposed adding 19 food colorings, two starches, casings for sausages, hops, fish oil and a handful of spices and other additives.
Ronnie Cummins, executive director of the Organic Consumers Association, sees limiting the list of approved non-organic ingredients as a positive because it will prevent companies from using the more than 600 non-organic ingredients requested by food manufacturers. “Forty-three is a much better number,” he says. But he believes three of the proposed items — hops, fish oil and sausage casings — should not be allowed in any product called organic.
Anheuser-Busch — who launched two so-called “organic” beers, last September — lobbied heavily to get hops on the list. While the beer giant’s original recipe for their Wild Hop Lager and Stone Mill Pale Ale included 100 percent organic barley malt, it also included hops grown with chemical fertilizers and sprayed with pesticides.
The company’s claim that it couldn’t find enough organic hops didn’t hold water for many organic consumers who posited that the world’s largest beer producer (with its hefty resources, including its own hops fields) should be able to source whatever organic ingredients it needs.
After receiving a deluge of negative press and numerous petitions from consumer groups, Anheuser-Busch changed its tune, announcing that it will now stick to 100 percent organic hops. Cummins hopes their change of heart will hold, should the USDA proposal pass.
“The main problem is that we don’t have any objective criteria for defining what ‘availability of organic ingredients’ means,” he says.
Despite years of promising standardized guidelines, the USDA has yet to provide documents to help clarify this rule.
Amelia Slayton, president of Seven Bridges Cooperative, an organic brewery and home-brew supplier in Santa Cruz, encourages consumers to check ingredients lists on any beer labeled organic. “If it doesn’t specifically say ‘organic hops,’ question it,” she advises.
But rather than get depressed by big corporations wanting to enter the organic market, Cummins encourages consumers to be proud that they’ve been able to hold industry giants to a draw. “By bringing the court of public opinion into play, there’s no way these companies or the USDA can spin the continued lowering of organic standards as a good thing,” says Cummins.
— Amelia Glynn
Green Goes Postal
After Wal-Mart, the post office is the
second-largest employer in America.
So when the USPS greens its parcel service — implementing “cradle to cradle” policy for all Express and Priority packaging — it’s more than just big news.
While a “cradle to grave” policy results in products eventually ending up in a landfill, “cradle to cradle” products are 100 percent renewable. The USPS collaborated on its new environmentally sound packaging with MBDC, a firm founded in 1995 by architect William McDonough and famed “green chemist” Michael Braungart. MBDC’s chemists met with USPS suppliers, analyzed 14,000 of their ingredients, and made sure every last one met 39 criteria for human and environmental health, including toxicity, renewable energy, water stewardship and recyclability.
The new cradle to cradle standards will save 15,000 metric tons of carbon emissions annually. To get some perspective on that number, consider that the gigantic South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas generates only 250 metric tons of carbon emissions each year — and that’s from power sources, travel and transportation from around the world and wastes generated by printing, promotion and festival-related goods combined.
With the postal service, an industry leader, adopting rigorous new standards for sustainability — thereby pushing their suppliers to go green — it’s likely the ripple effect of this eco-consciousness won’t just expand to other shippers like FedEx and UPS, but also to related industries, like producers of packaging, paper, cardboard, tapes, adhesives and plastics. According to MBDC’s Executive Overview, the USPS’s new “products and services are designed based on patterns found in nature, eliminating the concept of waste entirely and creating an abundance that is healthy and sustaining.”
Now, if the USPS could only nudge the nation’s first-largest employer to adopt equally responsible policies…
— Lucinda Michele Knapp
Vegansexual [vee-guhn-sek-shoo-uhl] noun
n. 1. A person who shuns physical intimacy with partners who eat animal products; n. 2. A social movement, first recognized in New Zealand, whereby vegans commit to engaging in sexual relations only with other vegans (and it’s not just because they taste better).
Usage in a sentence: “He may have had me at hello, but after the feta, foie gras and filet mignon, he had lost my vegansexual-ass by dessert, literally.”
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