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Organic foods have spread a positive wave across America. People buy organic foods for environmental, personal, and health reasons. It’s a great movement for humans, plants and animals as a whole; organic foods typically are grown without the use of bad pesticides, and the farm-grazing chickens and cows are free from injected hormones, steroids, and antibiotics…or are they?
Organic foods are classified to be free from bad pesticides, preservatives, and the meat products are not given hormones, steroids, or antibiotics. They also need to be grown a certain way. However, it’s important to know how organically grown your food is. Many organic foods are not 100% organic. Under USDA standards, certain pesticides and pest-control biochemicals are ok to use; the “EPA concluded no risks to humans are expected from the use of SOE as a pesticide active ingredient,”(ams.usda.gov). So there are standards where farmers can still label their products as USDA organic when they are only 70-95% organic. If you check out usda.gov, you can read more on organic food regulations. If the USDA regulates this, it must be safe, right? Not necessarily. There are some holes in the USDA organic food standards where farmers can manuver around the rules. Having knowledge of the organic farm your food comes from is important. Some studies have shown that , “Pesticides that are applied to conventionally grown crops have been linked to disorders in the central nervous system and other illnesses, as well as serious environmental problems like contaminated groundwater and reproductive failure, mutations and even extinction of birds and other animals. Scientists worry that hormones which have been fed to beef and dairy cattle can ultimately affect child development,” (Diane MacEachern-“Big Green Purse”). It has been known that some organic farmers classify themselves as organic farmers, but they are not.
After I did a little research, I found that organic product labels in some grocery stores can be misleading. It’s easy to reach for food labels that explain perfectly where your eggs and milk come from. In the book Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, he bought organic, unpasteurized milk from Whole Foods Market. The label on the milk read that the cows “live free from unnecessary fear and distress”. Pollan traveled to the farm his milk came from and found out the milk wasn’t from a farm, it was from a factory farm. He saw ”distressed” cows living in conditions that were not free, while machines pumped milk out of them. This caught my attention. Many people don’t think twice when reading a label like that. Why would they? You want to trust the food manufacturer right? How can they be allowed to put false information on the labels? Some of the fancy organic labels are just used as marketing tools. Technically the label is correct, the milk is from a farm, but the label fails to specify what kind of farm. Sure your eggs came from a chicken raised on a farm, but where is this farm anyway? How were the chickens really treated? When I think of a farm, I think of the sun-shining among large, grass-grazing hills for animals to roam on. The labels are misleading. Like Pollan said, the food he thought he was buying straight from the farm wasn’t even from a farm at all. Be familiar with your local organic farmers. Check with your local grocery stores where you shop. (more…)
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