This week's dose of organic headlines, updates, resources, goodies, and recipes courtesy of Doug Snodgrass...
Jill Richardson reveals a recent FDA appointment that is less than desirable.
Obama White House Appoints Former Monsanto Lobbyist to FDA
Taylor previously worked at the USDA from 1976-1981 as a staff lawyer. He left government to work at King & Spaulding, a law firm representing Monsanto.
He returned to government - this time to the FDA - for a stint as Deputy Commissioner for Policy from 1991-1994. According to Marion Nestle in Food Politics:
[At the FDA] he was part of the team that issued the agency's decidedly industry-friendly policy on food biotechnology and that approved the use of Monsanto's genetically engineered growth hormone in dairy cows. His questionable role in these decisions led to an investigation by the federal General Accounting Office, which eventually exonerated him of all conflict-of-interest charges.
In 1994, he moved over to the USDA's Food Safety & Inspection Service to serve as Administrator until 1996. Then it was back to King & Spaulding for a little bit, and - in 1998 - over to Monsanto, where he was a senior lobbyist (Vice President for Public Policy).
Sam Fromartz asks,
Is Organic in an End Game?
Last week, the WaPo ran a story headlined "Purity of Organic Label is Questioned" -- a quasi-investigative story on how the organic "program's lax standards are undermining the federal program and the law itself."
I say quasi-investigative because it wasn't particularly news. The tension discussed in the article, between those who have always sought to expand the industry and those who seek a more purist vision, has been fodder for many articles and was the subject of my book Organic, Inc. -- published three years ago. Often those camps are presented as big corporations on the one hand (chipping away at regulations) and small farmers striving to keep things pure on the other, both at one another's throats.
Consistent with that narrative, the article asserted that big corporations were compromising the organic label by lobbying for questionable "synthetic" ingredients in organic food. Small farmers like Arthur Harvey -- a blueberry farmer -- were trying to limit these additives. But before we get into that simplistic framing of the debate a bit of background would be useful.
What are synthetics and why are they important?
Under the USDA rules, a product can carry the "organic" label if 95% of the ingredients are "organic." Processed organic foods, such as organic yogurt, crackers, cookies, cereal, etc., can carry the word "organic" if they meet this 95% threshold. But they can use approved non-organic ingredients in the remaining 5%. And these may be "synthetics" that must win a specific exception. Among them are baking powder, Vitamin E and C, xanthum gum (a thickening agent), pectin and lecithin. But as the article points out, the list has ballooned to 245.
Although "corporate firepower" has lobbied for these exceptions, nearly every company in the processed organic foods business uses them, from independents like Newman's Own Organics to farmer-owned co-ops like Organic Valley and companies like Stonyfield Farm, which has a cameo in the film Food Inc. In short, though some are controversial, you would be hard-pressed to find any processed organic food business arguing for a blanket dismissal of all synthetics. (For more background on synthetics, see "How the Media Missed the Organic Story").
Fromartz's discussion continues at Huffington Post.
And in the midst of this bad news, a cookie break.
Whole Wheat Organic Chocolate Chip Cookies
The ingredients.
1 teaspoon mayonnaise
1 teaspoon cream cheese, softened
1 cup butter, softened
@ cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
2¼ cups whole wheat flour
12 ounces organic semisweet chocolate chips
Go to the source for the instructions.
Defining ‘Sustainable Agriculture’
Conventional farmers, organic farmers, giant agribusiness companies, environmentalists — all have varying views on what “sustainable agriculture” really means.
Perhaps not for long.
The Leonardo Academy, an environmental think tank in Madison, Wis., is busy refereeing a debate over a new “National Sustainable Agriculture Standard,” under the guidelines of the American National Standards Institute.
One outcome of this effort could be a new “sustainable agriculture” label stamped on food — similar to the way some food is now marketed as organic. It could also create a system that rewards farmers for doing things like reducing the amount of nitrogen fertilizer they use.
Whole Foods Adopts New Verification Standard for Private Label Products
Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods (Nasdaq: WFMI), which opened its first store in Hawaii at the Kahala Mall over year ago, will work with the Non-GMO Project, a nonprofit collaborative of manufacturers, retailers, processors, distributors, farmers and others. The product verification program is the reportedly the nation's first system designed to scientifically test whether a product has met a set of defined standards for the presence of genetically engineered or modified organisms.
"From the moment GMOs were approved for use in the U.S., we recognized the need for transparency, but there was no definitive standard by which to evaluate or label products," said Margaret Wittenberg, Whole Foods Market global vice president of quality standards. "We searched high and low for years for a way to do this and now, thankfully, the Non-GMO Project has answered that challenge by creating a standard and a practical system by which manufacturers may measure their products. At last, shoppers concerned about foods made with genetically modified ingredients will be able to make informed choices."
According to the FDA, as much as 75 percent of processed food in the United States may contain components from genetically modified crops. Despite the abundance of products with genetically modified ingredients, a Pew Initiative study on food and biotechnology shows that 59 percent of Americans are unfamiliar with the issue of genetically modified ingredients in food.
While Federal law requires organic producers to comply with certain non-GMO requirements identified in the USDA organic standards, there is no standard for labeling GMOs in non-organic products.
Related Reading:
GM Foods, or How to Forge a New World Order
Organic Food - The Benefits and Pitfalls
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