This week has brought major news in organics. One item is definitely bad, the other is perhaps good in the future but not good yet. The major take-away message for consumers is:
- Don't buy "organic" fish (it's bullshit) - instead continue to use lists like this one to select seafood and look for the MSC certification as a measure of sustainability. I recommend American Tuna (available at Whole Foods) as a good option.
- If you want truly organic dairy, right now the best thing to do is go to Cornucopia Institute's dairy scorecard to find a good brand. Most are good - just a few bad apples, and those may be on the way out if things go well.
First, I'd like to make a few points that came up in comments on my last diary:
- First, organics aren't necessarily sustainable (you can follow the letter of the law without benefiting the environment) but sustainable food IS organic (maybe not USDA certified organic, but following organic practices).
- Second, in the legitimate studies I've seen, going organic doesn't mean a decrease in yields. There IS an initial decrease in yields when you first go organic, but after 5 years you tend to get increased yields. Also, the cause of hunger in America is NOT a lack of food - therefore, even if we grow less food that wouldn't necessarily cause more hunger. Just think - right now we grow so much we feed it to our cars!
Organic Fish: The Bad News
Yesterday, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) gave the green light to certifying farmed fish as organic. This doesn't make it official yet (I think) but it's certainly close to it, now that NOSB has weighed in favorably.
This is BAD. Here's why:
First of all, think about wild fish. We don't certify them organic because we can't be sure that everything they ate was organic. We don't know what they ate. Truth be told, if they DID eat anything toxic, it's probably our fault for polluting their water and their food. So wild fish can't be certified organic (again - look at the various seafood selection guides available online, and always look for the MSC - Marine Stewardship Council - certification).
So now consider farmed fish. We know what they eat because we feed them. Some fish are vegetarians, and that's simple enough. But some are carnivores. So what do we feed them? Wild fish.
So let's review:
Organic animal ==> Should eat 100% organic food
Wild fish ==> Not organic
Farmed "organic" fish ==> Allowed to eat wild fish
See why that doesn't work? I should also add that Marion Nestle's book What to Eat calls out farmed carnivorous species of fish (like salmon) for putting extra toxins like PCBs into the fish because the farmed fish live their entire lives at the top of the food chain, allowing a max amount of toxins to accumulate in their flesh. Wild fish do NOT start out at the top of the food chain, and only reach that status in maturity, thus accumulating less PCBs, etc.
A few members of NOSB admitted to heavy pressure from the aquaculture industry. Well, lord knows they didn't make this rule because of consumer pressure:
Just this week, a Consumers Union Poll revealed that 93 percent of Americans think that fish labeled as "organic" should be produced by 100 percent organic feed, like all other organic animals. Nine in 10 consumers also agreed that "organic" fish farms should be required to recover waste and not pollute the environment and 57 percent are concerned about ocean pollution caused by "organic" fish farms. Nearly 30,000 signatures have been collected in favor of maintaining strong standards for the organic label for fish. - (from a 11-20-08 Consumers Union press release)
Oh - and the bit about ocean pollution? Yeah, there's another glitch in the new rules. They allow fish raised in open net pens in the ocean to pollute the ocean and endanger wild fish populations and still be certified organic. IMHO, this should not be allowed PERIOD, let alone in certified organic fish.
So - all in all - there is NOTHING good about farmed "organic" fish. My recommendation? If you see an organic fish label, ignore it. Use the seafood selector tool I gave above and look for the MSC label.
Organic Dairy - The Maybe Someday Good News
At present, most organic dairy is good. I'm confident enough in it that I buy it myself - apart from 2 bad dairies, Horizon and Aurora. Aurora provides milk for Wal-Mart, Costco, Safeway, and Target's store brands. I typically buy Organic Valley but no doubt there are other brands that are perfectly good. Check out Cornucopia's dairy scorecard to see how your milk rates.
The good news is that after years of complaints, the USDA seems to be interested in making it impossible for factory farms like Horizon and Aurora to call themselves organic. They just issued a proposed rule (with a comment period open til Dec 13) that would require all organic dairies to allow the cows to graze for a significant portion of the year. That's the GREAT news!!
The less good news? The rule is SO flawed that we can't even advocate for it. The MAIN problem with it is that it is written in a way that would de-certify about half of legitimate organic dairy farmers. DEFINITELY not something we want to do.
I don't think the specifics are worth getting into here because unless you're a dairy farmer they are probably incomprehensible and irrelevant to you (and me). One example I think I gathered as a problem in the rules is that even the most organic, sustainable, and well-meaning dairy farmer has days where the weather doesn't allow his or her cows to go out and graze. We don't want someone losing their certification just because they had some bad weather, right?
There are other problems with the rule too. Currently under the rules, you need to feed a cow organic food for a certain period of time before you start milking it. You can't just take a cow that was eating conventional crap yesterday, switch its food to organic, and then sell its milk to organic. I think the proposed rule makes some provision to allow for that - obviously a bad idea.
Also, this rule has a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff dealing with beef and bees included in it. While those may be topics that we should address, from what I hear it's a bad idea to group them together with the dairy rule because they could slow down the process of getting a good dairy rule in place. Let's address each topic separately so that we aren't stuck in a position of having to take the bad with the good, or having to delay a good rule because of a bad rule its attached to.
I would include a link to where you can comment on Regulations.gov but I think right now the good, legitimate dairy farmers out there are still coming together to decide on how this rule can be fixed to make it acceptable. Once they've got a consensus, then we as consumers can weigh in on their side.
Getting rid of factory farm organic dairies will do a few good things for us. First of all, obviously they are bad for the environment. I assume they would just continue to operate as conventional dairies (also bad for the environment) but at least they won't get premium prices for their products anymore. Also, this will make the market more fair to legitimate organic dairy producers. Last - this is great for consumers because cows that graze produce healthier milk than those fed mostly grain.
More Big Stories In My World
Wal-Mart is going rBGH-free
Obama Transition team member profiles:
Mr. Revolving Door, Michael Taylor and Carole Jett - a USDA conservation program guru. (I still plan to find more info on the other transition team members)
Mad cow in Canada - how it happened and why it could happen here
I'll end here with a really disgusting quote to remind you that the U.S. government thinks of organic labeling as merely a marketing program - not superior or inferior to any other food:
The National Organic Program, which will take up the recommendations, is part of the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service.
The marketing service "doesn't deal with nutrition or food safety," said spokeswoman Joan Shaffer. "When you buy a steak that's labeled choice or prime, that's us. Is it healthy? Is it safe? That's dealt with somewhere else."
THAT is why I always recommend buying directly from a farmer you know if you can. Eat Well Guide and Local Harvest can help you find farmers near you.