Organic. 100% organic. Made with organic ingredients. Cage free. Hormone free. Happy cows. Thanks for further complicating my life, food industry. Just when I finally got a grip on health care reform and now there is whole new slew of food jargon for me to figure out.
Not to worry. Super Nutrition Student is here to save your confusing grocery trip with a break down on the lingo; but before I do, I would like to point out that there has been NO evidence to support the fact that organic foods are any better for us than the stuff grown the old-fashioned way. And by old-fashioned, I mean using genetically modified seeds to grow crops protected by toxic pesticides picked before maturity, then gassed and transported to the grocery store which is usually thosuands of miles away.
"Organic" does not mean better for you. What it does mean is that the farming practices used are within a certain set of standards outlined by the USDA. Amongst other things, the crops cannot be grown on soil that has been treated with pesticides in the last 3 years, water is recycled, crops are rotated, no conventional fertilizers, pesticides, biotechnology or irradiation is used. As stated by the National Organic Standards Board “Organic agriculture is an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain, and enhance ecological harmony". Animals raised on an organic farm can have no antibiotic residue either. If the animal gets sick and needs them, they must be treated but then the animal is no longer organic. Sound strict? It is. It's also expensive, which is why we end up paying more for organic food at the consumer level. I'll save my advice on which foods you should actually buy organic for the next post on this subject, but suffice to say it's my opinion you don't need everything organic.
So back to those terms.... Now that we've defined what organic means, let's define how the food industry is using the term to grab our grocery dollars.
Organic fruits and vegetables: Grown without synthetic pesticides, fertilizers or sewage sludge and have not been genetically engineered or irradiated.
Organic beef and chicken: animals were not the offspring of cloned animals. They were fed 100% organic feed, never given growth hormones, antibiotics or other drugs and meat was never irradiated.
Organic milk: for the last 12 months, these animals had 100% organic feed and were not given antibiotics or growth hormones.
Organic eggs: hens had 100% organic feed and never had growth hormones or antibiotics.
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Organic seafood/fish: Ha! doesn't exist. USDA hasn't defined it.
Cage-free eggs: hens were not confined to cages. Doesn't necessarily mean organic and doesn't necessarily mean they had access to the outdoors.
Free-range/free-roaming poultry: had access to outdoors for but who knows for how long. Free range could mean they went outside for 30 seconds.
Cage free poultry: doesn't mean a thing, most chickens are grown indoors but outside of a cage, at least until they get caged up before their beheading.
No hormones administered: means and animal was raised without hormones- not to be confused with hormone FREE-which is illegal-all animals produce their own hormones!
No antibiotics added:animals were raised without antibiotics.
Natural or all-natural: these should contain no artificial ingredients and are minimally processed. This term is almost impossible to define.
Access to outdoors: organic animals are all supposed to have it but the rules on this are pretty vague and many people charge that big organic operations aren't allowing their animals enough time outside.
100% organic:all ingredients are completely organic (except salt and water, which are exempt)
Organic:95% of ingredients are organic
Made with organic ingredients: at least 70% of ingredients are organic
So there yo have it. Muddy organic waters cleared a bit, I hope.
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