Sunday, April 15, 2012

Organic Industrial Food

I recently read The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has a couple of chapters about the compromise between "organic food" and "industrial organic" which is how the author characterizes what operations like Whole Foods do.  This report from an ABC affiliate captures some of the difficulties of "organic food" from China that Whole Foods distributes:



And Whole Foods' response is here.

Organic products from China can absolutely be certified organic to the exact same standard as domestic products. While China has had a number of food quality issues in the news in the past year, it does not mean everything grown in the entire country is unsafe. Since 2002, the USDA’s National Organic Standards have governed exactly what can be sold as organic in the US – how it’s grown, processed and handled – regardless of where in the world it’s grown, INCLUDING China. Organic integrity is ensured every step of the way. For example, a broccoli grower in China must be visited and certified to the USDA organic standards by a certifying agent that is approved and supervised by the USDA. If that broccoli is processed in a packaging plant, that plant must also be visited and certified by a certifying agent, who verifies that the handling and ingredients of the product comply with the standard.
I'm not completely confident that this process works perfectly in the U.S., but in China?

3 comments:

  1. As for me, bring on Irradiation.

    (All these folks opposed to it clearly have learned everything they know about radiation from 1950's monster movies.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. You mean those weren't documentaries?

    ReplyDelete
  3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Them!

    ReplyDelete