Fort Worth - Star Telegram, Liz Stevens
Published June 9, 2007
The confusion about organic foods begins, for most people, in the produce department: Is that organic Granny Smith apple from Chile really worth 30 cents more than the one grown in Washington state? Is it healthier for my kids? Will buying it save a struggling family farmer? Will it help the planet?
Indecision trails shoppers down the cereal aisle, past the splashy new boxes of organic Raisin Bran, and into the dairy section, where gleeful cows promote wind energy on the cartons of organic milk, and the eggs of free-range hens seem to look superior to the plain ol' foam-packaged Grade A's.
"If they have two things side by side" -- one organic, one conventional -- "I try to pick the organic," says Wendy Blanton, a Fort Worth mother of two. "But, seriously, I don't know why."
Woe is the weary and mystified grocery shopper of today! How guilt-ridden and perplexed! The sudden explosion of organic food on store shelves has many people filling their shopping carts willy-nilly. There's a good reason, too: The issues surrounding organic foods are myriad and complex, and are sure to become more so as organic foods' popularity grows.
Take a tour of the aisles with us as we answer some of the most pressing questions about organic grub.
What does "organic" refer to these days?
The time-honored definition of organic is what you're probably picturing: idyllic scenes of cows grazing in pastures, small family farms where rows of broccoli are sown by hand, imperfect apples without the waxy, fungicide-laden gloss.
All of that is still the case, to a degree. But organic food, although a mere 3 percent of the total retail food market, is now a nearly $17 billion business and the industry's fastest-growing segment. The resulting mass production of organic food -- from produce to grains to dairy -- has radically altered the traditional picture, says Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, or OCA.
Burgeoning demand for organic products has attracted some of the world's biggest food manufacturers and retailers: General Mills, Wal-Mart, Heinz, Target, Coca-Cola, for starters.
You may think you're "stickin' it to the man" by buying Kashi cereals or Odwalla juices -- until you find out that Kellogg's owns the former and Coke bought the latter several years ago. For that matter, General Mills is daddy to Cascadian Farms cereals, and M&M Mars owns Seeds of Change, which makes organic frozen dinners, salsas, pasta sauces and more. The list goes on and on.
Even Wal-Mart, grocer to the masses, unleashed a massive organics campaign just over a year ago. The move has drawn the suspicion of, and even legal action by, the grassroots organic-food community: After Wal-Mart was accused of placing "organic" signage on or near nonorganic products in some Wisconsin stores, the state launched an investigation. In May, Wal-Mart announced it would change what investigators described as potentially confusing shelf tags. The company had said the signs were an isolated incident and an innocent mistake.
Activists also fear that the corporate behemoth will shut out small U.S. farmers who can't compete with cheaper imports from overseas.
But the fact is that half of the organic food now sold in the United States is sold via ordinary grocers rather than independent natural-foods stores or specialty chains -- at prices that many more people can afford.
"I think it's fabulous," Susan Pressley of Fort Worth says of the mainstreaming of organic foods. Pressley, who has a toddler daughter, gardens without chemicals at home and regularly shops for organic produce.
"The more people will start to buy it," she says, "the better off the planet will be."
How can I be sure I'm really getting an organic product?
Know your labels.
You've probably seen the circular, green-and-white "USDA Organic" logo plastered on a lot of food products over the past couple of years. That's a good sign that you're getting a product with a high degree of organic integrity.
In October 2002, the U.S. Department of Agriculture introduced a national certification program for organics. To earn the logo, foods must contain at least 95 percent organic ingredients and meet a litany of production standards, from how much time an animal is confined, to the makeup of the soil in which crops are planted.
Food products that are between 70 percent and 95 percent organic can boast their organic ingredients on the front label. For instance, the chocolate soy milk you drink might not have the USDA seal but prominently notes that it is made with "organic soybeans."
And foods that are less than 70 percent organic can note their organic ingredients only on a side panel or label.
"The overwhelming majority of U.S. organic farmers are playing by the rules, and you can trust a USDA label in a retail store," Cummins says. "But there are a few areas where there are problems."
Um, what kind of "problems"?
There are a few food subgroups that remain either unregulated or, according to the OCA and other critics, poorly regulated.
Seafood is one. Although the USDA does not have standards for organic seafood, U.S. companies do import fish labeled as organic. The seafood is often certified by private companies in Europe, says Rebecca Goldburg, a senior scientist at Environmental Defense and a former member of the USDA's National Organic Standards Board.
"But those [foreign standards] are variable and don't necessarily meet the expectations of U.S. consumers," she says. "It's 'buyer beware.' You just don't know exactly what you're getting."
So how do we know that any organic food coming from overseas is what it claims to be? The USDA accredits government or private bodies in those countries to certify their products as organic. But Cummins points to the recent scares involving chemical-contaminated Chinese imports of catfish and pet-food ingredients as a reason for consumers to be circumspect.
But the issue that has received the most attention in organic circles involves milk. The controversy here is whether the nation's two largest certified-organic milk producers -- Horizon, owned by dairy giant Dean Foods, and Aurora Organic Dairy, supplier to, among others, Wal-Mart and Safeway (Tom Thumb) stores for their store-label products -- have been taking license with USDA rules.
These operations, Cummins says, are "certainly not what we mean by organic."
Small-dairy operators have complained to the USDA that 100 percent of Aurora's milk and half of Horizon's comes from cows kept on "factory farms." Here, they claim, the animals are often confined and overwhelmingly grain-fed, as opposed to allowing cows to graze freely on grass during the growing season. The companies also have been criticized for integrating conventionally raised heifers (i.e., those that may have been exposed to chemicals as calves) into their herds.
Blanton, whose daughters are 2 and 6, says she started buying organic milk two years ago, even though the cost difference can be substantial. At Tom Thumb, for instance, a half gallon of store-label organic milk cost anywhere from 20 percent to 80 percent more than nonorganic milk.
"You buy the organic label," Blanton says, "because you assume they [the companies] believe in it, that they go the extra mile to take care of the animals."
Both Aurora and Horizon have announced operational changes in the past months. At its 3,000-cow Texas dairy farm, near Dublin, Aurora tripled the pasture to 2,800 acres. In March, Horizon released a new "Standards of Care" protocol for its company-owned dairy farms that includes raising its own calves from organic mothers.
Diane Hatz, founder and director of Sustainable Table, which advocates farming methods that go beyond organic, says if she had to choose just one organic product to buy on a regular basis, it would be milk. "Without a doubt, hands down," she says, pointing to overuse of antibiotics and hormones on conventionally raised cows.
"I don't even have to think about it," she says.
How expensive is organic food?
Generally, pretty expensive -- although Wal-Mart's purchasing power has allowed the company to sell its store-brand organics at a significant discount: between 20 percent and 25 percent less than organic products at natural foods stores and conventional grocery stores, according to a comparison by the Cornucopia Institute.
At the warehouse chain Costco, the store label's organic peanut butter cost 30 percent more than the regular Jif peanut butter sitting next to it. The organic pasta was almost 20 cents more per pound; organic chicken broth was a penny more per ounce.
"Organic stuff is a little more," says Tom Thumb shopper Barbara Burst, 50, of Fort Worth. "But it's worth it if you've got a problem with pesticides and not knowing what's in your food."
Tom Thumb's signature line of O Organics runs anywhere from 30 percent more than conventional products (its line of baby food compared with regular Gerber, for example) to twice as much (O Organics apple juice and applesauce compared with nonorganic store brands). But the O Organic coffee was only a few cents more per ounce than the Seattle's Best brand.
Cummins warns that you get what you pay for. "We don't want prices to go below the point at which farmers are not getting enough money to do it right," he says. "If you want them to do it right and not cut corners, you have to be willing to pay them a fair price."
Is organic food better for me?
"I don't think too much about it," says 65-year-old Sarabeth Tuomey of Fort Worth. Tuomey also was shopping at Tom Thumb, where the shelves in every aisle sport dozens of little paper flags, making it easy to find the O Organics products. But Tuomey wasn't buying, literally.
Organics, she notes, are expensive and "I'm an old-fashioned girl!"
Most people who purchase organic food are doing so to avoid chemical residues, Cummins says, or because they think the foods have greater nutritional benefits.
So are organics more healthful?
Scientists have shown that consuming organic foods means ingesting fewer pesticides. A study by Consumers Union, the independent nonprofit that publishes Consumer Reports, found that even after conventional fruits and vegetables were washed, they still harbored three times as much pesticide residue as washed organic produce.
OK, so what?
According to the Mayo Clinic Web site, "Most experts agree ... that the amount of pesticides found on fruits and vegetables poses a very small health risk."
On the other hand, Consumer Reports magazine cautioned readers last year about the potential negative health effects of pesticides. The nonprofit Environmental Working Group urges consumers "to minimize exposure to pesticides whenever possible."
To that end, the EWG has compiled a list of the most pesticide-laden fruits and vegetables, called the "Dirty Dozen." Apples, peaches, sweet bell peppers, celery and nectarines top the list, but onions, avocados and sweet corn consistently turned up with the least amount of pesticide residue.
"We don't know ... whether parts per billion or parts per million [of these chemicals] are going to cause you problems or not," says Bob Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation.
What about my kids?
According to EWG, "there is growing scientific consensus that small doses of pesticides can adversely affect people," especially children.
In a 2005 study supported by the Environmental Protection Agency, evidence of pesticides in the urine of 23 schoolchildren dropped to almost undetectable levels after only five days on an organic diet.
Other studies have shown a strong link between a fetus' exposure to certain pesticides and babies with smaller heads -- a risk factor for "reduced intelligence and behavioral disturbances," Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician, told Consumer Reports.
And regular peanut butter, a childhood staple, was found to contain residue of numerous insecticides, such as toxaphene, according to a 2000 review of government studies by EWG.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has not taken a position on organic foods.
Do organic foods have more nutrients?
That question is the subject of vigorous debate. The Organic Trade Association Web site lists a dozen international studies that purport to have found higher levels of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals in organic crops.
"Any nutritionist will tell you it's a much healthier animal and a much healthier product if the animals are outdoors eating grass," says Cummins, speaking specifically of organic dairy products.
Scowcroft is more circumspect about the claim.
"There are many tens of papers and pronouncements and proclamations out there," he says, but few are peer-reviewed research reports that have been published in academic literature. Nonetheless, Scowcroft describes as "very intriguing" a 4-year-old study published in an American Chemical Society journal indicating higher levels of cancer-fighting antioxidants in organic and sustainably grown corn, strawberries and Marionberries.
One reason so little is known about the nutritional content of organics, Scowcroft says, is money. Of the $1 billion in research funding included in the Bush administration's proposed 2007 farm bill, just less than $5 million is earmarked for organic farming.
"We're not going to say organics are more nutritious," Scowcroft says. "We are going to encourage more research around the topic."
Is organic food environment- and animal-friendly?
Sometimes, says Hatz, of Sustainable Table.
Conventionally grown grains, coffee and produce require tremendous amounts of chemicals that can lead to environmental degradation. The farming of soybeans has become one of the leading causes of rainforest destruction in Brazil, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
And then there's the issue of burning fossil fuel for transportation -- whether it be importing organic apples from Chile or just going shopping.
"I try to look at things logically," says Pressley. "Is it really worth it [to buy organic] if I'm spending more gas to go to all these stores to hunt for the organic thing?"
If you're concerned about animal welfare and the planet's health of the planet, "then sometimes you have to go a step beyond organic," says Hatz, whose organization supports the movement for sustainably grown foods, which is to say agricultural practices that will not, in the long run, deplete the Earth's resources.
For instance, the USDA's National Organic Standards dictate that animals must have access to the outdoors, but that can mean opening a barn door for 10 minutes a day, Hatz says.
Many sustainable livestock farmers have opted to forgo the USDA Organic label, she says, because of the amount of paperwork and the difficulty in proving that all of their acreage is organic. "It's just much, much more difficult to raise organic meat" than it is dairy, fruits and vegetables, she says. "But many of [these small farms] go well beyond organic standards."
Where can I get a good value on organics?
It's not nearly as convenient as the local supermarket, but Hatz advocates buying locally grown organic produce from farmers markets.
"It's going to be fresher," she says. "It's going to have been picked later, it's going to have ripened before harvesting" and, because of that, "it's going to have more nutrients and taste better."
Even nonorganic farmers market produce tends to have less fungicide residue, says Goldburg of Environmental Defense.
As for price, locally grown organic foods likely will be less expensive than organics purchased at the store, Cummins says. For instance, at Albertson's organic eggs sell for $2.39 a half dozen. On Colleen Shorrock's D&M Family Farm in Lillian -- about a 15-minute drive from Burleson or Mansfield -- organic eggs sell for $2 per dozen.
When to buy organic
If you're interested in buying organic foods but, like most of us, don't have an unlimited budget for groceries, then don't leave home without these produce lists, compiled by the Environmental Working Group.
The information behind the lists, published in October, comes from an analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration tests for pesticides between 2000 and 2004. The Dirty Dozen comprises the 12 most pesticide-laden types of produce; the Clean 12, on the other hand, consistently showed the least amount of pesticide residue. If you can only afford some organic produce, it makes sense to buy organic versions of the dirty dozen.
The Dirty Dozen
Peaches
Apples
Sweet bell peppers
Celery
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Pears
Imported grapes
Spinach
Lettuce
Potatoes
The Clean 12
Onions
Avocados
Sweet corn
Pineapple
Mango
Asparagus
Sweet peas
Kiwi
Bananas
Cabbage
Broccoli
Papaya.
