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Written by Heather McKee
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Wednesday, 06 February 2008 |
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A large group of chickens – debeaked, photophobic and packed in poultry shacks tighter than mall shoppers on Black Friday – will qualify as ‘naturally raised’ under the new label proposed by the USDA, so long as they were never doped up with antibiotics or growth hormones.
The USDA believes the proposed label could add a 10% value to poultry and other meats – a sort of purgatory between conventional and organic meats. There’s definitely some interest in the idea out there – Chipotle Mexican Grill, for one, pledged to purchase 52 million pounds of ‘naturally raised meats’ in the next year – though they believe the definition should also include humane treatment and vegetarian diets for the animals.
So far the USDA has received more than 2,500 comments on the proposed label, many of them citing the deceptiveness of a ‘naturally raised’ label for animals leading highly unnatural lives. Consumer Reports surveyed folks and found that 83% of us think that ‘naturally raised’ animals should mean ‘raised in a natural environment’ in addition to never being treated with antibiotics or growth hormones.
Because of the large response, the USDA will accept comments on the proposed label for another month, through March 3rd.
This of course is all in the midst of the USDA and the FDA sweating out a better definition of just ‘natural’ in response to food giants and consumers’ unions suing the pants off each other over uncategorized ingredients.
Whether confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) will be able to sell their animals as USDA certified ‘naturally raised’ remains to be seen. What is certain is that the battle over labels will continue to rage between corporations eager to claim their share of increasing environmentally conscious consumers – that’s right - us envirovores.
Via: Phoenix Business Journal |
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Written by Erika Fredrickson
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Thursday, 07 February 2008 |
When an organic beverage company called Honest Tea, Inc. sells 40% of itself to the colossal corporation that is Coca Cola, it's hard not to experience an aftertaste of irony. That's not to say that Coca Cola is the most evil corporation ever to materialize (or is it?) but certainly “honesty” isn't the first synonym that comes to mind.
The recent acquisition by Coca Cola also comes with an option to buy the whole Honest Tea company after a three year period. In its press release, Honest Tea says they look forward to the distribution benefits that will come with jumping on the Coca Cola train, and that it understands the buyer skepticism that comes with this decision.
What's interesting though is that when Seth Goldman first co-founded the tea company with his business school professor, Barry Nalebuff, the whole idea was conceived from a discussion about the inadequacy of companies like Coca Cola to provide the beverage product they both craved.
Sort of makes it even more ironic, doesn't it?
Still, this kind of merger between organic companies and conventional giants has become so commonplace it's hard to see it anymore as a strange turn of events. The argument made by Honest Tea -- which is one most large organic companies make -- is that the beauty of getting big is that organic products will finally be mass distributed and mainstream -- (also there's that little detail about how they'll be making more money, but...) True enough, but I think this sort of thing also continues to illustrate how hollowed out the definition of organic has become. Or perhaps more specifically, how organic movements never officially defined what “organic” means beyond basic rules of production.
If organic production on a mass scale contributes to environmental depredation and overconsumption, how “good” is it? If it's run by a company that has had questionable ethics (apartheid, anyone?), then the “honest” in Honest Tea could get a little murky.
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Written by Kiki Hubbard
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Thursday, 07 February 2008 |
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If you're one of a growing number of people who look for labels on dairy products that characterize them as "rBGH-free" or "contains no artificial hormones," then buyer beware: these labels may be at risk in your state.
The Monsanto Company – manufacturer of Posilac, also known as recombinant bovine growth hormone or recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) – calls these labels confusing to consumers, and convinced Pennsylvania agriculture secretary Dennis Wolff to ban the so-called "absence labels" in the state. (It makes you wonder if consumers are also confused by: "No MSG," "No Trans Fats," "No Artificial Flavors," and so on.)
Thanks to organizing efforts by consumer groups concerned about food safety, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture reversed its decision in November 2007, about a month before the ban was to be implemented.
Case closed? Not quite. Pennsylvania is just one battleground in Monsanto's attempt to pull these labels in a number of states.
The biotechnology firm has been involved in forming a front group called American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology (AFACT), according to Rick North, Project Director for Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility. Operating out of a public relations firm in Colorado, the group has encouraged state departments of agriculture and state legislators to adopt bans on rBGH-free labels.
And Monsanto hasn’t just been cajoling politicians. Since 1994, the year rBGH entered the market, Monsanto has sued several small dairies for using hormone-free labels. Even though a recent poll commissioned by Food & Water Watch found 80 percent of consumers want "rBGH-free" labels, it is clear that Monsanto is determined to use a variety of tactics to control marketing and conceal the presence of its products in U.S. food. (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the European Union all prohibit the use of rBGH.) |
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Written by Heather McKee
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Thursday, 07 February 2008 |
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Barbara Kingsolver and her family venture forward in envirovore consciousness in her new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Harper Collins, 2007.)
The Kingsolvers are moving permanently to Southern Appalachia, and for one year, they resolve to eat only food that they or their neighbors produce. Exceptions will be made (coffee, olive oil, cranberries at Thanksgiving) but the rigor of the exercise is not the point of this book. Rather, the book is at once an elucidation of our current industrial food system and an exploration of the alternative ways one family finds to eat.
In the beginning of the book, in late March, we see Kingsolver’s family holding their breath as they plunge into a new dependence on their community’s farmers and their own back yard. By August, Kingsolver is canning like mad in a kitchen where every surface is covered with tomatoes from her garden. And in September, she’s plotting ways to unload squash secretly on her neighbors.
In the meantime, her eight-year old daughter Lily starts her own egg and chicken business (“How many eggs would it take to buy a horse, Mom?”) and Kingsolver resolves to rekindle the forgotten passion of turkey sex.
Highly entertaining stuff – especially the turkeys. But the real value of the book lies in Kingsolver’s ability to sandwich humorous stories of her family’s back-to-the-landing in between expositions of the very real implications (read: oil dependence, dissolution of the family farm and community, and lack of food security) related to industrial agriculture.
She also uses candid revelations of her friends’ lack of knowledge about food (“The potato has a plant part?” asks one of her chef friends) as a tool to explore the general invisibility of food production in this country. |
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