'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?
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