What does ‘organic’ really mean?

Herb Weisbaum • Profile • E-mail

You know organic has gone mainstream when Wal-Mart starts selling it. In fact, organic products are the fastest growing segment of the agricultural market. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says organic sales jumped 22 percent last year. A growing number of people are willing to pay a premium price to eat what they consider to be superior products and to support farming techniques that are better for the land.

But what does “organic” really mean? According to USDA regulations, a product called “100 percent organic” must contain all organic ingredients.  If the label just says “organic,” a processed food product can have up to 5 percent non-organic ingredients by weight — if those ingredients are on the USDA’s “national list” of approved non-organic ingredients.

Until last month, there were only five ingredients on the list: cornstarch, water-extracted gum, kelp, unbleached lecithin, and pectin. But the list just got longer and there’s quite a debate taking place as to whether this is good or bad for consumers.

What just happened?
On June 9th, the USDA added 38 non-organic ingredients to the national list: 19 food colorings, two starches, casings for sausages, hops, fish oil, chipotle chili pepper, gelatin, celery powder, dill weed oil, frozen lemon grass, and a sweetener called fructooligosaccharides.

These 38 items, chosen from more than 600 requested by food manufacturers, can now be used as minor ingredients in 95 percent organic products if a company can prove to its certifier that an organic version is not available in the quality or quantity needed.

“There are a lot of organic farmers and a lot of organic producers who are very concerned about this,” says Phil Lempert, consumer reporter and the Supermarket Guru on NBC’s Today Show. “They worry that by adding these 38 ingredients it actually diminishes the importance and the credibility of a lot of the organic products that are out there.”

The debate is underway
The Organic Trade Association says the expanded list is actually a positive step for both the industry and consumers. “This is definitely a strengthening of the standards,” says Barbara Haumann, press secretary for the OTA.

How can that be? Until now, some organic certifiers allowed companies to use more than the five non-organic ingredients on the approved national list. Haumann says there might have been “hundreds or even thousands” of minor non-organic ingredients in products labeled organic. That news is sure to come as quite a surprise to a lot of shoppers.

Ronnie Cummins, executive director of the Organic Consumers Association, agrees that a strictly limited list of approved non-organic ingredients is a positive step. But he says three of the items — hops, fish oil, and sausage casings — “are outrageous” and should not be allowed in any product called organic.

He opposes the use of non-organic hops because they are essential to making beer. He worries that fish oil might be contaminated with potentially dangerous chemicals. And he’s totally opposed to sausage casings — intestines — from conventionally raised farm animals.

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