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Entry bubble Organics, and Free-Range, and Naturals, OH MY!

By: Sommer | September 21, 2007 | Category: Health

I’m Sommer, your Friday blogger. I look forward to sharing government information that I encounter and use in my every day life and also to hearing your thoughts and suggestions of other great resources you know about. I know it’s the end of the week so thanks for checking out my post!

Lately, grocery shopping is less fun than normal. For once, though, it’s not because I’m going to 3 different stores each week just to buy what’s on sale. (Yes, I’m very cheap...) Now I’m on a new quest, this time to buy organic foods, which is almost harder than shopping the sales! Other than being more expensive (OUCH!) than conventional foods, it’s also hard to understand the whole host of organic food labels out there.

What’s the difference between “100% Organic” and “Made with Organic Ingredients”? What about labels that say “Natural” or “free-range”? Why do some foods carry the USDA Organic seal and some don’t?

This is what I found out:

  • Organic means that food producers must adhere to strict standards including not using antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, irradiation or bioengineering; they must adhere to certain soil and water conservation methods; and to rules about the humane treatment of animals.
  • “Organic” and “Natural” don’t mean the same thing. Also, “free-range,” "cage-free," and “hormone-free” don’t necessarily mean organic either.
  • Four categories  of “Organic”:
    1. 100% Organic: self explanatory, usually fresh foods,
    2. Organic (95% - 100% organic): usually fresh foods,
    3. Made with organic ingredients (at least 70% organic): packaged foods,
    4. Contains organic ingredients (less than 70% organic): packaged foods.
  • Only 100% Organic and Organic foods are allowed to use the USDA Organic Seal. Here’s what it looks like: 
USDA Organic Seal

 For more information visit the National Organic Program web site.

| Comments [4] | envelope Email This Entry | Tags: food   health   organic   sommer  

Comments:

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I am so glad someone FINALLY put this information in simple terms. You want to do what's best for you and your family, but you go in the grocery store and you're just confused. Thanks Sommer - I can't wait to read more.

Posted by stylin_mom on September 24, 2007 at 02:29 PM EDT #

I have always wondered what the exact standards are! One site I've been tracking is Dr. Alan Greene's personal "organic journey" -- he is trying eat exclusively organic foods and has chronicled his holiday challenges (bring your own snacks to parties) and his slip-ups (taking a cashier's word for it that a burger was organic): http://drgreene.blogs.com/drgreene/

Posted by Susannah Fox on September 27, 2007 at 02:11 PM EDT #

Sounds like the good ol' Juice vs. Drink debate. For a liquid made of fruit to be considered "juice," it needed a certain percentage of pure fruit juice. Anything less than that percentage was tagged "drink."

Posted by Squee on September 28, 2007 at 03:39 PM EDT #

I'm new to the organic world. I started 4 months ago, and I agree grocery shopping has not been easy. Here's another area that's worse-skin care products. A very recent eyeopener was my purchase of the Avon Liiv Botanical line that reads,dye free,preservative free and yes! Certified Organic in bold. Guess what I found out? Of course it is not. I read potentially toxic ingredients in it that I got off a website at naturopathica.com. I wanted to search more and landed at Organic Consumer Association's website. This was worse for me because in the past 2 months I have spent around $300 switching my products only to read here about misleading organic companies and I had bought some of their products.

Posted by Allycat on May 16, 2008 at 12:18 AM EDT #

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