Welcome to your healthy eating resource


berkeleyfood.org keyword stats



Most current MSN search phrases:

organic food supermarket  

What Does Organic Food Certification Really Mean?

The term "organic" is beingsynthetic fertilizers or pesticides. In
tossed around quite a bit lately, andthe case of meat or milk, it means that
you'll soon be seeing a big jump in theall the USDA stipulations concerning
number of organic choices when you visithormones, feed, and time spent outdoors
your local Safeway or Wal-Mart store.were met.Organic: This type of produce
That's because the demand for organicor meat doesn't quite meet the highest
produce, milk, and meat has beenorganic standard, but the remaining 5
steadily increasing, to the point wherepercent of its ingredients have been
the giant retail chains have begun toapproved for organic use by a nationwide
take the trend seriously. In turn, therecertification organization called the
will be a growing concern over theNational Organics Standards Board.Made
certification process as factory-stylewith organic ingredients: This
farms begin to muscle their way into thecertification assures consumers that no
organic food market as a result ofless than 70 percent of the produce,
increased demand. In 2000, the U.S.milk, or meat was produced using organic
Department of Agriculture (USDA)ingredients. The last two other labels
established what were supposed to beyou'll see are considerably more
clear guidelines for gaining organicambiguous. First, there's the term
certification, but various ambiguous"free-range," which is used
areas will continue to confuse consumersinterchangeably with the term
until those guidelines are made even"cage-free." The USDA
more clear. For instance, under USDAregulates the use of either term when it
rules, growers of fruits, vegetables,comes to poultry, but not to eggs, and
meat, and milk are forbidden from usingthere’s no clear definition of how
most synthetic pesticides or fertilizermuch outdoor access animals should
in food production. They're alsoreceive. The other term is
prohibited from using genetic"natural," which has no real
engineering, irradiation, or sewagemeaning in any food commodity other than
sludge. To be certified organic,meat and poultry, which can't have any
livestock must be fed nothing butartificial coloring, chemical
certified organic feed and can't bepreservatives, or ingredients. Although
given any sort of growth hormone. Theyit's supposed to have only minimal
must also be allowed to be outside atprocessing, there's no certification
least a portion of every day, though theprocess that meat or poultry producers
rules for what that actually means havemust comply with in order to place the
been open to serious dispute over theterm on their labels. As the market
past few years.The USDA guidelines werecontinues to grow, you'll be seeing
meant to be fairly all-inclusive, butthese labels more and more. What remains
there are a number of gradients, asto be seen is if the USDA will tighten
well. Here are some of the labels you'llor loosen the process in order to allow
see in your local co-op orproducers to meet the growing demand for
supermarket:100% organic: For produce,organic products.Copyright © 2006
this designation means that fruits orJeanette J. FisherJeanette Fisher
vegetables were grown completely withoutteaches environmental interior design.



1 A B C D E 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128