Is Organic Food Necessarily Safer?
That's the question New York Times reporters Kim Severson and Andrew Martin raise in a terrific piece in today's paper. Here's the paragraph that really hit home:
The plants in Texas and Georgia that were sending out contaminated peanut butter and ground peanut butter products had something else besides rodent infestation, mold, and bird droppings. They also had federal organic certification.
Yikes! What's going on here? Am I the only person who bought a product made with organic peanut butter because I thought it was safer?
Here's what serious eaters need to know:
Although the rules governing organic food require health inspections and pest-management plans, organic certification technically has nothing to do with food safety.
Haven't we all pondered these very issues when we've been food shopping in the last month? A few weeks ago I bought a package of Newman's Own Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, surely one of life's most readily available treats. I thought about whether they contained tainted peanut butter but ultimately concluded that the fact they were organic meant they couldn't possibly be.
They weren't tainted. In fact, they were just as delicious and nutritious as ever, but Severson and Martin's piece made me realize how faulty my reasoning was. According to them, "So far, nearly 3,000 products have been recalled, including popular organic items like Clif Bar and Cascadian Farm."
What can serious eaters conclude from this episode? That organic processed food is still in fact processed, and the organic label doesn't guarantee its safety. Which means that the federal government needs to get a better handle on both organic and nonorganic food safety.
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21 Comments:
It also means that consumers should be as ready as ever to take responsibility for what they put into their body - organic or not. A label put onto a box in a huge, anonymous factory is just that - a label. Processed food moves through many, many pairs of hands, and by virtue of that alone it is always a better choice to opt for whole, local, unprocessed foods whenever possible.
djwackfriz at 11:01AM on 03/04/09
Organic is about the way a product is grown (without pesticides, without genetically modified organisms, etc.). Organic certification has nothing to do with how a product is *processed* and processing plants cannot be certified as "organic."
So your food might be safer to start off with, but if it finds its way into a plant with rodent droppings or is cross contaminated with non-organic products, then all bets are off.
@djwackfriz consumers can't be responsible for what goes into their bodies if it is unlabeled/unknown/unexpected! I mean, when is the last time you got a bag of chips that said rodent droppings were included? Granted eating unprocessed foods will help you avoid that, but ultimately these food processors and distributors have to put food safety systems in place and the federal government (in this case the FDA, but for meats, the USDA) has to inspect those systems and enforce safety rules early and often.
spartana07 at 11:14AM on 03/04/09
Exactly my point, champ. Labels LIE. If you can't be sure about what's in the bag, DON'T EAT IT. Try a locally grown apple.
If you wait for the government to take care of your own health, you won't be around long...
djwackfriz at 11:25AM on 03/04/09
of course labels lie. my point is the people responsible for those lies should be held accountable and eventually the lying will be reduced and hopefully eliminated.
i know working to change the system takes a bit more time and energy than just throwing the entire system out the window, but sue me, i don't want to churn my own butter.
spartana07 at 11:34AM on 03/04/09
@djwackfriz: Try finding a locally grown apple in Chicago in January. I just got back from South Carolina, where there were still local tomatoes being sold in grocery stores. I'd eat local if I could, but it's not an option available for all of us. It'd be lovely to have more control over what I could put in my mouth, but the simple fact is, you have to eat the food that's available to you.
honeybee413 at 11:35AM on 03/04/09
I'm not advocating some kind of Alice Waters-esque utopian impossibility, guys. We all know and have known (especially if you are even aware this blog) that the more processed the food, the worse it probably is.
@Spartana: It will take time, but relying on regulations and labeling conventions in the meantime is a lot like asking the doctor to just tell you that your inoperable brian tumor is benign. Just because he tells you what you want to hear doesn't mean the problem is gone. I have worked in food processing plants and can tell you - sanitation and inconsistency are a LOT harder to fix than just appointing a committee and making a few speeches.
@ Honeybee: It IS available to you: "The Chicago Green City Market is located at the South end of Lincoln Park between Clark and Stockton Drive." It's been heralded as one of the top 10 farmer's markets in the U.S. It also took me less than a minute to find using Google.
I mean really, are bagged chips and frozen dinners all that are "available" to us?! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here!
djwackfriz at 11:46AM on 03/04/09
I think Honeybee's point (and he/she can correct me if I am wrong) is that not everything is always available when you want it. The choice can't always be between a bag of chips and a fresh, locally grown apple right off the tree, because you can't always get a fresh, locally grown apple right off the tree.
Just because there is a farmers' market nearby, it doesn't mean that they are going to have everything you want. It also doesn't mean that it will be affordable, even if they do have what you want. I live half a block from the Union Sq Green Market in NYC, and don't shop there, because the prices are often more than going across the street to Whole Foods.
NYCEater at 11:59AM on 03/04/09
I also live a few blocks from the Union Square farmer's market, and at this time of year, you would not be able to put together a complete healthy diet from the things that are available. Its the end of winter and little other than apples, meat and cheese are available. Even if you eat a diet of whole foods, like fruits and vegetables, you sometimes have to depend on major distributors to provide them to you, and its difficult to trace where they have been and who has handled them.
I am all for increasing transparency in where food comes from, increases the food and food variety available locally, and improving the systems for both. But NYCEater makes a good point- I am lucky enough to be able to afford local foods, not everyone can. There's another issue I think would be well addressed by the government- switching subsidies from mass produced, corn-based junk to fruits, veggies, and whole grains produced locally will make healthful safe foods more easily available.
If you can't tell, I am a sustainable agriculture advocate.
spartana07 at 12:07PM on 03/04/09
@djwackfriz - the green city market isn't open year round - none of the Chicago farmer's markets are, really - the farmer's market season starts (I tihnk) in late march-early April; it's simply too cold earlier in the winter.
Shelby at 12:11PM on 03/04/09
I understand, NYCEater - I live in Astoria, in Queens! And I also don't shop at Union Square Green Market, nor Whole Foods, for that matter - I'm a student making less than $35K a year. By doing my shopping in Queens, though - at Mom & Pop groceries that are supplied by local farms in the Long Island area - I pay way less than what Manhattanites are paying.
I think a lot of what rankles people is that we are used to eating whatever we want, despite seasonal availability. However, if people were to try following what the earth yields us - apples, tomatoes, basil in the summer, swiss chard, roots veggies in the winter - they'd find it a lot easier to control what they are putting in their mouth. Not every country has the luxury of every possible type of food laying within reach at any moment, and maybe that's a good thing.
djwackfriz at 12:15PM on 03/04/09
Oh geez.
NYCEater, the choice is not always between a bag of chips or a fresh local apple because a fresh local apple isn't always available? Talk about typical spoiled American behavior -- "i want what i want when i want it and i want it NOW". If apples aren't in season or available from storage, wait until they are. Nature says so.
Sure you might not be able to get everything you need at the farmer's market in the middle of winter as someone said above. But you can get enough to make a good meal and eat in season. Butternut squash soup, anyone? Still available at the farmers market. Personally, i still have a TON of frozen produce from my CSA this summer when i froze things because i simply couldn't eat it all before it went bad. If anyone is hankering for a legit local organic tomato, stop by my house. I'll roast a few a make a great open-faced sandwich.... in the middle of March.
Djwackfriz, are you SURE about that mom & pop store in Queens? I have a local and supremely cheap mom & pop grocer near my house too, but whenever i check the produce boxes that their food comes in, its inevitably stamped "California" "Chile" or some other far off destination. Truth be told, small grocers can't afford to set up local delivery and work one on one with local growers, so MOST are actually plugged into a national distribution system. I would bet good money that you're not eating local Long Island produce.
mh330 at 12:51PM on 03/04/09
Obviously, ideally we would all be eating locally grown produce for a myriad of reasons, largely environmental. But the original issue was food being labeled "organic."
I have to agree that in general more regulations should be made as to what can be certified organic or not, based upon growing practices as well as processing standards. Even if you argue that we shouldn't be eating processed foods, even local farms should be using sustainable and safe practices. Currently these standards are lax, and as far as processing goes, almost nonexistant.
Laurel E at 2:27PM on 03/04/09
I think some folks are getting off the point, in the big picture, "ORGANIC" doesn't really mean what it was intended to mean. The folks who started the movement are running away from the "organic" label in lieu of a word that is more akin to their initial vision. People who started the "organic" movement also would never associate themselves with processed foods of any kind anyways. We have large companies such as general mills to thank for that, well, them and the lobbyists for companies of the same ilk. They made the gov't expand the meaning of the word organic to get them in the yearly double digit expansion of the "organic" market.
Arguing over how good processed food is or isn't really is a moot point. Regardless of how good, pure, safe, natural, etc... you think some box of processed food is, the fact still remains that the parent companies that manufacture them want you to believe that the term "organic" means, well... whatever you want it to mean. We need to build a bridge and get over the fact that "organic" when not applied to "whole" food really doesn't mean much at all. Think about it the next time you are picking up a box of "organic" pizza.
Pavlov at 2:52PM on 03/04/09
It is good that this discussion has come up here. The question of organic food safety has long been a contentious issue, together with discussions on nutrition quality etc. or organic v/s conventional foods. Official definitions: http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/ofp/ofp.shtml
Consequently, as mentioned in this discussion, anything that goes through a processing facility is subject to the same food safety risks as conventional foods. The foods are not different with respect to the characteristics that influence their safety. Salmonella can grow just as well in organic as in conventional foods if they find themselves there. So can other foodborne illness-causing microorganisms.
It would also be good to keep in mind that if items like fertilizer, water etc. happen to be contaminated with the above-mentioned bugs, they can equally contaminate organic and conventional foods - ergo, a reminder to locally-growns also to keep up with Good Agricultural Practices.
louisem at 4:42PM on 03/04/09
well, mh330, then I guess I am a typical spoiled American. There is only so much butternut squash one can eat. And sometimes, if I want a piece of fruit, I don't want an orange, even if that is what is seasonal (not that an orange would be grown locally to me) - sometimes I want an apple, even if it isn't local. I'm all for using produce when it is seasonal and local, but I can't help it if what I crave is a nice juicy apple, and not a bunch of swiss chard.
As for the actual topic, that's why I often don't buy organic food - there doesn't really seem to be much of a difference, other than cost. Processed food is processed food, and without more stringent regulations and controls, any food can have something happened to it - even if it isn't processed!
NYCEater at 5:07PM on 03/04/09
No, and often times it may be more harmful. I don't eat organic because it's somehow healthier, I eat organic because it supports small local farms.
Monkey4Sale at 5:09PM on 03/04/09
I saw that the original Georgia recall that started in January included their organic products and I'm not particularly surprised because of the manner in which the products were contaminated - which were the filthy conditions of the facility.
That said, I'm more inclined to buy organic not for my health (what I'm ingesting) but because it's better for the planet (watersheds, insect & animal populations and oceans).
I am extremely irritated at how slow the info about the peanut sourcing has been reaching the consumers. About a half a dozen are announced on the FDA site every day since January ... things that I thought were safe when I checked them a month ago turn out not to be.
cybele at 8:39PM on 03/04/09
What happened at Peanut Corp. was not the fault of the FDA and more government regulation will not solve America's food safety problems. It is the responsibility of every food processor to know their supplier and no, relying on a certificate or a contract packer's say-so is not enough. How many of the companies that made these recalled products ever visited Peanut Corp.? How many of them walked the production floor? Until a food company can tell me it knows its suppliers, I'm not buying.
GreenMom at 9:11PM on 03/04/09
Our farmers markets are not even open in the winter months, there is NOWHERE to get a local apple where I live most of the winter, or a local squash, or anything else local. I do try to eat what's seasonal at that time. For example, citrus when it's in season instead of all year round. While not local, at least it's seasonal and is usually cheaper at that time.
The only local foods we can get all year round are dairy products and meat, which I buy plenty of, but it's not a very balanced diet.
rockandroller at 8:24AM on 03/05/09
Great discussion. There are plenty of things everyone along the food chain - farmers, brokers, processors, distributors, and retailers - can do to preserve the microbiological safety of the food we eat. Food safety is fundamentally not about marketing designations like organic, local, sustainable, kosher, halal, etc. Its about whether or not the food safety risks have been properly controlled. Just because you can theoretically see your local organic farmer's face at the farmer's market, doesn't mean that he or she knows anything about managing the microbiological safety of the food or that he or she has made the personal commitment to do so. Food that's grown outside under God's blue sky will never be perfectly safe to eat - there are too many variables. But the farmer and others along the food chain can minimize the risks by learning about and applying sound food safety principles. There probably is some value in us, as consumers, buying food that has had a shorter food chain - i.e. buying directly from the farmer - because there have simply been fewer people in the mix and less opportunity for someone to screw something up. But being able to see the farmer is not a guarantee of safety.
sfullers at 9:21AM on 03/05/09
I find it very odd that anyone would consider "organic" to mean something like "kosher" or "specially handled" or "magically repellent/free of potential pathogens." I've never heard any organic food producer or label claim that their product was somehow "safer" except for being drug free. An organic apple is going to me just as susceptible to getting bug crap or feral pig crap on it as one coated in pesticide and they all rot just the same.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that you'd frankly have to be an idiot to make such an assumption....a feat of several massive leaps in logic and a lot more ignorance about food production & agriculture.
This somehow reminds me of a 20-year-old I was talking to at a party who said that she recently gave up meat since she had only recently realized that an animal had to die to make a steak or chicken breast. The Idiocracy won't happen in 500 years, it's been here for a while. Stay in school!
The NYT's and NBC's of this country are neurotic fear mongers of the highest sort, and it seems that a lot of people like the taste of what they're cooking.
Big Guy at 5:01PM on 03/12/09