By Anna Lappe
1. Seek Out the Seal: Keep your eyes peeled for the USDA organic seal. It’s your guarantee that the food producer followed strict guidelines. Why do you have to look for it? Because a lot of companies use the word “organic” in their product names but do not actually use organic ingredients. Shocked me, but it’s true.
2. Trust Your Farmer: You may have gotten on the farmers’ market bandwagon and like millions of Americans flock to your local one once a week. So, what to make of the farmers who aren’t organic certified with this seal? Don’t pass them by. Instead, dig a little deeper, and you’ll most often find that these non-certified farmers also have incredibly high standards and stay clear of toxic farm chemicals. So why aren’t they certified? The reasons are as numerous as heirloom tomato varieties in summertime. Some small farmers find the certification too costly. Others find the bureaucracy too burdensome. Whatever the reason, what matters to you — the ecological and health principles of the farm — hold up. So … ask them about those, and trust your farmer.
3. Don’t Be Duped By Smiling Cows: You know those milk cartons with the smiling cows in a bright green pasture or food packages dotted with quaint red barns? Do you ever find yourself reaching for these items because, well, they look wholesome? Don’t be duped by pretty pictures. Knowing that more and more of us are concerned about our health and the environment, food marketers are coming up with lovely looking packages that suckers us in. Also, be wary of labels blazoned with “All Natural!” and other healthy-sounding words. Look for seals that you can trust; the rest is just PR fluff. Check out www.eco-labels.org for one of the best online resources for trustworthy labels.
4. Love these Labels: While you should be dubious of many of the health and eco-claims of just any old labels, there are a few others you can trust. Fair-trade certified products, like organic-certified, are guaranteed by a third-party to meet certain standards, including that the producer got a fair price. Certified Humane Raised and Handled is also a meaningful seal to look for. Meat and dairy with this seal were raised in a ‘humane manner’ on feed without antibiotics and other additives that are commonplace in industrial animals. Animals must also have access to clean and sufficient food and water. Like the other seals I’m recommending, this program is administered by a certification body and includes inspections of the facilities.
5. Ack, What’s In That!? If you can’t pronounce an ingredient, it’s probably a sign you might not want to be eating it. Take a Pop Tart. Along with sugar, and lots of it, you will find the tongue twister “sodium pyrophosphate,” which is commonly used in household detergents as a water softener. Yum. Eating a Pop Tart, you would also be chomping down on “monocalcium phosphate,” a leavening agent found not only in this syrupy sweet breakfast treat, but also in bird and chicken feed. Many of the other thirty-five main ingredients in a Pop Tart might have similarly left you scratching your head — thinking what does that mean? And that scratching-your-head thing? Probably a sign to pass the product on by. One of the best ways to ensure the purest food possible? Buy your ingredients — not the finished product.
Anna Lappe is a national bestselling author and advocate for food and environmental justice. A founding principal of the Small Planet Institute, Anna is the co-author of Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet and Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen. Anna is also the co-founder of the Small Planet Fund, which has raised more than a quarter of a million dollars for social movements worldwide addressing the roots of hunger. She is an active board member of the Community Food Security Coalition and the Center for Media and Democracy.
The Daily Green: Five Tips For Making The Organic Choice Really Count
Posted: August 29, 2007 by Certified Humane
By Anna Lappe
1. Seek Out the Seal: Keep your eyes peeled for the USDA organic seal. It’s your guarantee that the food producer followed strict guidelines. Why do you have to look for it? Because a lot of companies use the word “organic” in their product names but do not actually use organic ingredients. Shocked me, but it’s true.
2. Trust Your Farmer: You may have gotten on the farmers’ market bandwagon and like millions of Americans flock to your local one once a week. So, what to make of the farmers who aren’t organic certified with this seal? Don’t pass them by. Instead, dig a little deeper, and you’ll most often find that these non-certified farmers also have incredibly high standards and stay clear of toxic farm chemicals. So why aren’t they certified? The reasons are as numerous as heirloom tomato varieties in summertime. Some small farmers find the certification too costly. Others find the bureaucracy too burdensome. Whatever the reason, what matters to you — the ecological and health principles of the farm — hold up. So … ask them about those, and trust your farmer.
3. Don’t Be Duped By Smiling Cows: You know those milk cartons with the smiling cows in a bright green pasture or food packages dotted with quaint red barns? Do you ever find yourself reaching for these items because, well, they look wholesome? Don’t be duped by pretty pictures. Knowing that more and more of us are concerned about our health and the environment, food marketers are coming up with lovely looking packages that suckers us in. Also, be wary of labels blazoned with “All Natural!” and other healthy-sounding words. Look for seals that you can trust; the rest is just PR fluff. Check out www.eco-labels.org for one of the best online resources for trustworthy labels.
4. Love these Labels: While you should be dubious of many of the health and eco-claims of just any old labels, there are a few others you can trust. Fair-trade certified products, like organic-certified, are guaranteed by a third-party to meet certain standards, including that the producer got a fair price. Certified Humane Raised and Handled is also a meaningful seal to look for. Meat and dairy with this seal were raised in a ‘humane manner’ on feed without antibiotics and other additives that are commonplace in industrial animals. Animals must also have access to clean and sufficient food and water. Like the other seals I’m recommending, this program is administered by a certification body and includes inspections of the facilities.
5. Ack, What’s In That!? If you can’t pronounce an ingredient, it’s probably a sign you might not want to be eating it. Take a Pop Tart. Along with sugar, and lots of it, you will find the tongue twister “sodium pyrophosphate,” which is commonly used in household detergents as a water softener. Yum. Eating a Pop Tart, you would also be chomping down on “monocalcium phosphate,” a leavening agent found not only in this syrupy sweet breakfast treat, but also in bird and chicken feed. Many of the other thirty-five main ingredients in a Pop Tart might have similarly left you scratching your head — thinking what does that mean? And that scratching-your-head thing? Probably a sign to pass the product on by. One of the best ways to ensure the purest food possible? Buy your ingredients — not the finished product.
Anna Lappe is a national bestselling author and advocate for food and environmental justice. A founding principal of the Small Planet Institute, Anna is the co-author of Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet and Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen. Anna is also the co-founder of the Small Planet Fund, which has raised more than a quarter of a million dollars for social movements worldwide addressing the roots of hunger. She is an active board member of the Community Food Security Coalition and the Center for Media and Democracy.
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