Speaking of Organic

Discussing organic foods in class, we learnt how the U.S.D.A defines what organic foods are; Some people confuse the term organic with natural, free-range and other terms. We also discussed labelling on food products, how some people buy foods that are labelled without thinking or knowing what exactly the label means. For instance, potato chips are now labelled "0 grams trans fat" or "100% natural vitamin C."

I was at publix doing some grocery shopping and came across a monthly publication, "Publix Greenwise Market," In the Feb. 2007 issue, I came across the title 'Organic meals in less than 5 minutes' and began to skim through the pages. Before reading the article, I thought to myself another marketing scam, this was going to be just another articke misleading consumers into buying "organic foods." To my surprise it was not.

The article defined organic food as the U.S.D.A did, "Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy must come from animals given no antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic foods must be produced without most conventional pesticides, fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge, bioengineering, or radiation..." The article also went on to describe the different U.S.D.A labels and what each of them meant - "100 percent organic": all organic ingredients,
"Organic": at least 95% organic ingredients, "Made with Organic ingredients": Less than 70% organic ingredients, "natural": foods that are minimally processed and free of artificial ingredients and chemical preservatives, such foods are not necessarily organic.

I feel that the article in general did a good job of describing "organic" to most people. Yes the article did give recipes that included different organic brands but it did not tell consumers that other foods were "bad". I know my parents go grocery shopping a lot and by reading articles of this sort I feel that they would become more aware of certain issues. People have information infront of them, they just need to make an effort.