From Twittman@aol.com Sat May 30 23:05:04 1998 Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 11:36:49 EDT From: Twittman@aol.com To: sanet-mg@shasta.ces.ncsu.edu, findit@cats.ucsc.edu, casawg@igc.apc.org, sambo@cruzio.com, Cinrichter@aol.com, campjoy@cabrillo.campus.mci.net, rosato@cncnet.com, martha@zzyx.UCSC.EDU, Molinofarm@aol.com, AKozimbo@aol.com, dburgett@cats.ucsc.edu, lakelly@cats.ucsc.edu, navail@cats.ucsc.edu, eming@cats.ucsc.edu, mabibbo@cats.ucsc.edu, johnfish@cats.ucsc.edu, jann@redshift.com, jo4e@actuald.com, laguna@sonic.net Subject: newsweek article on organics Is Organic Better? by Laura Shapiro Newsweek, June 1, 1998 'Organic' food labels can mean many different things--or nothing. National standards are in the works, but they still won't guarantee you the best, safest food. By Laura Shapiro Shiny red delicious apples are stacked in two separate heaps on the produce counter of a Manhattan supermarket. They look remarkably alike, but the second heap, labeled "Organic,'' costs $1.79 a pound--40 cents more than the first heap. Increasingly, Americans believe that the premium is worth paying: sales of organic foods have jumped about 20 percent a year since 1991 and are expected to total more than $4 billion this year. But what are all these folks actually buying? To many people, the word "organic" promises that the food is cleaner, safer and closer to nature. "I think organic farmers really love the land and want to bring good, healthy products to people," says Lori Sutherland of Portola Valley, Calif. Genuinely organic food is indeed grown without toxic chemicals, using agricultural methods that do the least damage to the environment. But the label "certified organic" means only that one of 44 certifying agencies around the country, all with different standards, vouches for the farm or processing facility that produced the food. And less than half the organic food on the market is certified; the rest you buy on faith. Finally, no matter how high an agency's standards are, buying organic is no guarantee that the food has better flavor, more nutrients or complete freedom from pesticides. What are we getting for our money? Right now, farmers, retailers, chefs, corporate executives and government officials are engaged in a massive struggle over just how to answer that question. Last December the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a long-awaited proposal for national, comprehensive standards governing the use of the word organic. Last month the USDA yanked the proposal back for a rewrite after it took an unprecedented public beating. Some 200,000 people wrote, faxed, e-mailed or spoke up at public hearings to let the USDA know they overwhelmingly rejected the standards, especially if they allowed what became known as the Big Three to be sold as organic: genetically engineered food, irradiated food and food grown in municipal sewage sludge. A USDA staffer says officials were "awestruck" at the size and fury of the protest. "It never abated, it just grew," says the staffer. "We underestimated the strength of the commitment to the term organic that exists out there." According to Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, the USDA will now make "fundamental revisions" to the proposal. The Big Three will be jettisoned, and a new draft will be issued later this year. No matter how the USDA eventually defines organic, the word will never mean that you're buying the safest, most scrumptious apples. The best an organic label can do is improve the odds. In fact, to understand what you're getting when you buy organic, you have to forget fruits and vegetables for a moment and think about dirt. "The whole concept of organic is that you feed the soil, not the plant," says Jim Riddle, coordinator of the Independent Organic Inspectors Association, which trains inspectors to certify organic farms and processors. Feeding the soil starts with crop rotation: organic farmers plant a field with different cash crops for a few years, then give over the field to alfalfa or clover for a season or two. Tilling under that "cover crop" makes the soil rich and fertile. "Those plants are food for the earthworms, the fungi, for all the soil-dwelling bacteria and all kinds of beneficial organisms," says Riddle. "When you have healthy soil and healthy plants, pests aren't attracted to them as much." All this TLC tends to make the labor costs in organic farming several times greater than on conventional farms. Hence the price of the food. Tari Delisi of Oak Park, Ill., often buys organic but drew the line recently at organic lettuce costing $6 a pound. She scrubs conventional produce with a brush "to get the guck off." Many organic experts predict national standards will attract more customers, more farmers and more funding for research, ultimately lowering prices. Whatever you pay for organic, you can't be sure that dinner will be pesticide-free. Consumer Reports recently tested organic and conventional produce and found pesticide residues on both, although the organic samples had much less, and its residues were from less toxic chemicals. "We're doing the best we can, but the rainwater here in the Midwest contains herbicides," says Riddle. "There are pesticide residues in dust particles, in snow. So residues will show up sometimes." Whether the residues on conventional produce pose a health risk is much debated. "It's difficult to make the case for organic produce being safer than conventionally grown produce," says Carl Winter, a food toxicologist at the University of California, Davis. "While you can detect residues in [conventional] food, the levels we are exposed to are far below those that would trigger any health concerns." On the other hand, the EPA now acknowledges that its pesticide policies must be made more stringent to protect children. With all that rich, healthy soil to grow in, organic food ought to be more nutritious, but the evidence just isn't in. The studies to date have been too small to take into account the many variables that affect nutrient levels. Flavor differences are equally hard to judge. Great taste is more likely to be associated with seed variety, ripeness and buying locally than with pest- control methods per se. "As a general rule, organic products have better flavor," says Odessa Piper, chef-owner of L'Etoile in Madison, Wis., which features mostly local, mostly organic food all year round. "But the flavor of an organic product shipped from California may be inferior to a nonorganic product grown here in Wisconsin." So is there any reason at all to pay extra for organic? Sure. Turn on the tap for a glass of water in, say, White Hall, Ill. Tests conducted by the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization, found six pesticides in one sample of the town's drinking water. "Virtually every river and reservoir in the Midwest that's used for drinking water is contaminated by corn fertilizers," says Brian Cohen of the EWG. A USDA report documents numerous examples of the environmental threat posed by farm chemicals, including the destruction of fish, wildlife and beneficial insects. Farm workers who apply pesticides and herbicides have disproportionately high rates of some cancers--and so do their children, according to Aaron Blair of the National Cancer Institute. "In terms of health, food safety tends to be our central concern, but the environmental impact of pesticides is a greater concern," says Winter. Kathy Davis of Mequon, Wis., doesn't mind paying a premium for organic to protect the earth. "The environment is for my children," she says. And from an environmental point of view, the lower price tag on conventional produce may be deceptive. Catherine Greene, an agricultural economist at the USDA, says our food supply only seems cheap because its real costs aren't represented by supermarket bar codes. "Water with pesticide residues, water that has to be tested for chemicals and treated--those are big costs,'' she says. "They're not quantified, but they're costs we pay as a society." Once the USDA's revised regulations are in place, perhaps by 2000, shoppers who choose organic will know for the first time exactly what they're buying. What won't change is their emotional investment in the choice. "Buying, eating and seeking out organically raised food has become my religion," writes food critic Patricia Unterman in the San Francisco Examiner, and as the USDA has learned, she speaks for thousands of true believers. But the real test of their faith is yet to come. With the new regulations, business will boom--and fresh produce is just the beginning. "The big growth area will be frozen and prepared [organic] foods," says Katherine DiMatteo of the Organic Trade Association, an industry group. Already, supermarkets carry products that look suspiciously like organic junk foods. For longtime devotees of organic food, the good news is that abundance and lower prices are on the way. The bad news is that they're bringing frozen organic breakfast burritos with them. With Mary Hager in Washington, D.C., Karen Springen in Chicago and Thomas Hayden in New York Newsweek 6/1/98 Lifestyle/Is Organic Better? To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with "unsubscribe sanet-mg". To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "subscribe sanet-mg-digest".