What Does “Organic” Really Mean?

Now I’m not sure about you, but when I first heard the term “organic” several years ago, I dismissed it.  It  connoted a “status” and conjured up two different images: the lifestyles of the rich and famous and an alternative, hippie lifestyle.   Since I didn’t relate to either, it seemed to be a select way of eating for a select few.

Boy, was I wrong.

The term “organic” actually refers to the way agricultural products are grown and processed.  It includes a system of production, processing, distribution and sales that assures consumers that the products maintain the organic integrity that begins on the farm, according to the Organic Trade Association (OTA).

The U.S. Congress adopted the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) in 1990 as part of the 1990 Farm Bill. This action was followed by over a decade of public input and discussion, which resulted in a National Organic Program final rule published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in December 2000 and implemented in October 2002, according to the Organic Consumers Association.

These stringent standards put in place a system to certify that specific practices are used to produce and process organic agricultural ingredients used for food and non-food purposes.

National organic standards set out the methods, practices and substances used in producing and handling crops, livestock and processed agricultural products. The standards include a national list of approved synthetic and prohibited non-synthetic substances for organic production. 

In other words, just to give an example using the egg recall disaster, the way that the chickens were treated on the farms recalling the eggs wouldn’t fly in organic agriculture and livestock production which place a higher standard on both the treatment and the livestock feed of the animals.

Organically produced foods also must be produced without the use of:

• antibiotics
• synthetic hormones
• genetic engineering 
• other excluded practices
• sewage sludge
• irradiation

Cloning animals or using their products would be considered inconsistent with organic practices.  Organic foods are minimally processed without artificial ingredients, preservatives, or irradiation to maintain the integrity of the food. 

This is a key definition that is worth repeating (especially for those of us trying to reduce our families’ exposure to sewage sludge, synthetic growth hormones and antibiotics in food):

Organically produced foods also must be produced without the use of
antibiotics, synthetic hormones, genetic engineering and other excluded practices, sewage sludge, or irradiation.
Cloning animals or using their products would be considered inconsistent with organic practices. 
Organic foods are minimally processed without artificial ingredients, preservatives, or irradiation to maintain the integrity of the food.

National organic standards require that organic growers and handlers be certified by third-party state or private agencies or other organizations that are accredited by USDA.  Anyone who knowingly sells or mislabels as organic a product that was not produced and handled in accordance with the regulations can be subject to a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation. 

Products labeled “100% Organic” and carrying the “USDA Organic” seal are just that – they contain all organically produced ingredients and none of those ‘bullet points’ listed above.  

The scrutiny that these foods undergo is enormous and expensive, driving prices at the cash register.  But when it comes to protecting your health, sometimes you just might want to pay a little bit more in the grocery store in order to pay less at the doctor’s office.  And check with your local farmers, as they often adhere to these standards, yet can’t afford the fees associated with labeling their products.

And should you choose to invest in your health this way, you’ll be joining a growing segment of the population and are not alone.  The U.S. organic industry grew 21 percent overall in 2006 with organic foods and beverages continuing to be one of the fastest growing segments in the overall $598 billion food market. 

Organic foods are increasingly sold in mass market grocery stores like Wal-Mart, Costco, Kroger and Safeway which represent the largest single distribution channel, accounting for 38 percent of organic food sales in 2006. Large natural food chains, along with small natural food chains or independent natural groceries and health food stores, represented about 44 percent of organic food sales. About 2 percent of organic food is sold through farmer’s markets. 

If you’re anything like me, you might have rolled your eyes at this whole thing a few years ago, dismissing it as an expensive food fad.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  And while none of us can do everything, we can all do one thing.  So the next time you are in your grocery store, consider purchasing something new and investing in your health with your shopping cart.  You just might end up spending a little less time and a little less money in the doctor’s office if you do!

Source: The Organic Trade Association (OTA) and Organic Trade Association’s 2007 Manufacturer Survey (Because USDA does not yet do comprehensive market studies of organic sales, as it does for conventional U.S. agriculture.) 

True Food: A Love Poem

As headlines swirl and climates whirl
And Wall Street finds its feet
There’s one refrain that doesn’t change
“Mommy, what’s there to eat?”

Well listen child, I’ll tell you what,
That’s no small query there.
Come over here, and sit right down,
In fact, pull up a chair.

Your question, dear one, though you ask,
With all good heart intended,
Is fraught with complications that
Aren’t often comprehended.

What we call ‘food’ is not the same
As what our grandmas ate.
Would she have had yellow 5 & 6
On her child’s dinner plate?

What about ‘acesulfame potassium’?
Can you pronounce that, love?
Did grandmother have a jar of that
In her cupboards up above?

What would she think of all these things
You children eat today?
Perhaps she’d bow her gentle head
And just begin to pray…..

But since she is no longer here,
It is up to you and me,
To be the ones who will inspire
Her “true food” legacy.

Perhaps as we begin this quest,
We might ‘cut the colors’ first?
Or try to avoid things we can’t pronounce?
Tell me, which do you think is worse?

You see, my little one, in our hands,
In our minds and in our hearts,
We have the ability to affect remarkable change
So, love, where should we start?

Written by Robyn O’Brien

What Would You Pay to Prevent Cancer?

Written by Robyn O’Brien for the AllergyKids Foundation August 26, 2010

A friend just lost both of her breasts to cancer.  In a matter of days, they were gone.  Just taken off in a double masectomy.  And upon completion of her surgery, she was then told that her breast cancer was invasive.

Needless to say, it stopped me in my tracks.  Because she is a mom of two boys, someone that I see everyday and we’ve been in it together for the last five years with kids in the same school, on the same soccer teams and with the same allergies.  So as she was diagnosed and disfigured, all I could think is “There by the grace of God, go I,” since today, 1 in 8 women have breast cancer, yet only 1 in 10 of those cases are genetic (meaning 9 out of 10 breast cancers are environmentally triggered).

Because like my friend, I wasn’t raised a foodie or an environmentalist.  I grew up going to KFC, loved ordering Dominos in college and nuked my kids’ plastic bottles in the microwave when they were babies.  I didn’t know I had an “environmental footprint”, and I didn’t want anyone telling me what to eat or how to feed my kids.  All I cared about was managing costs and convenience. 

And then one of our kids got sick.  And I suddenly realized that our cost benefit analysis hadn’t captured everything.  We had ignored the total cost model of cheap food.  The less money I spent in the grocery store, the more we were spending in the doctor’s office.  The less time I spent on health, the more time I spent in the checkout line in the drugstore. There was a direct correlation.  And I suddenly realized that we were paying a high price. 

But as a stay at home mother of four small children no longer bringing in a salary, and obviously not contributing to the top line as I had been when I was earning an income, I was mindful that the contribution that I could make to our financial situation was to help manage costs so I’d done everything I could to keep the food costs down.  And as our own family recognized that contribution, with a laser like focus on the top line, I realized that it was indicative of a pervasive mentality. 

In our focus on the “cost” of food, we had justified our penny saving and our exemption of prevention, failing to value it.  But as our children got sicker, I thought, “What if our kids got so sick that savings didn’t matter?”  As the high costs of cheap food took its toll, had we been overly concerned with the “cost” of prevention rather than focusing on its “value”?

In a world that values the dollar over just about everything else, we are often judged by the amount of money that we bring to the table.  How much revenue are you generating?  What does your top line look like? 

But what dollar value should we put on prevention? 

As I reflected on this question over an email to the friend with breast cancer, and in her case, it is genetic, I couldn’t help but wonder what dollar amount she would put on prevention.  Or what her children would  pay to have their mother’s health back.  Or how much her husband would have paid, had he been given the choice, to prevent the breast cancer in the first place, and the emotional and physical costs that come with it. 

What would our family pay?  If given the chance to prevent cancer, would we prioritize the food budget over the entertainment budget?  Or weekly fresh produce over monthly digital cable?  Absolutely.

Perhaps it is time that we do this as a country.  And rather than dismiss prevention as a passionate pursuit by those with the “luxury” to afford it, perhaps we should value it for the contribution that it will bring not only to the health of our families but also to the health of our economy and our country.

To learn more about the precautionary measures that you can take to protect the health of your family, visit the Environmental Working Group at  www.ewg.org

“Someone Call 911!”

Written by Sonia Hunt of Noie Productions for the AllergyKids Foundation August 26, 2010

I can’t really recall the first or second time.  I was too young to remember. Probably didn’t understand what was going on.  But the third and fourth are vivid in my head.  Public places; all eyes on you. You’re having a grand time one minute, enjoying every morsel that touches your lips and then a slight tingling from your toes stretches up towards your brain and increasingly becomes intense.  That feeling as you slowly start to gasp for air, as if you lost your regulator 60’ down and now are trying to get to the surface being chased by a great white.  Red panic ensues on your face and on others.  Fading in the distance are sounds of confusion and yelling.  ‘Someone call 911!’  ‘Does she have her Epipen?’

Aaah, food allergies.  If you’re lucky enough someone injects you with your EpiPen, scoops you up in their arms and rushes you to the ER where next thing you know you’re being poked and prodded by a hot doc.  Wishful thinking.  If you’re not lucky, well, it could be fatal.

I am the only one in my immediate family with allergies to certain foods so severe that I could die.  I am the kid with asthma. I am the kid who can’t eat peanuts.  Baskin Robbins move over, because I have 31 flavors of food allergy. I am a face of the new generation. 

Somehow my allergy list continues to grow, as I get older.  Three years ago my allergist told me that I was the most allergic patient he had that year.  I think I deserve a plaque on his wall in the shape of a peanut or something.  New ones appear and old ones remain.  And the force effect that some have on my body, actually rocks my world.  But you’d never know it if you looked at me.  I am probably one of the healthiest people you will meet.  An athlete with resting heart rate of 46, who trys everything, watches her portions and eats in moderation.  I train hard and run races. I bike, hike, dive, swim, surf, kiteboard, snowboard…what else is there? Oh, did I mention I’m shooting a Food+Life/Style show where I eat for a living?  Something is wrong with this picture. 

How these came about I don’t know.  Why these are getting worse, I have some ideas.  How do I control them? One day and meal at a time.  Even with precautions we live in a world where unhealthy and processed food is a fad, organic and farm-to-table is still not affordable for the masses and wait staff still don’t know the ingredients in your lunch. The science behind the testing and medications are clear and sometimes a thumb in the air.  I could totally stop eating but my mother already complains that I’m too skinny. 

As a kid with food allergies, life is tough.  You’ve gotta fend for yourself when you’re not with a parent and trust that what someone is telling you is in that dish, actually is correct. It’s hard being kid in society today, let alone ‘that’ kid who is the reason why your friends can’t bring PB&J to school or have peanuts on the airplane.  Food allergies are a like a big sundae of social pressures, self esteem issues topped with a poor eating habits as the cherry on top.

I learned how to cook at a young age mainly because it’s a part of my culture and partly to ‘fend’ if I ever needed to.  My mom cooked with fresh ingredients from the markets and read labels for her problem middle child.  I’ve spent my entire life traveling the world, cooking and eating and enjoying every bit of it.  I read, learn and experiment with food, and I ask questions.  But mainly I do not let my allergies run my life.  My mantra is that “if I’m going out, it better have been a damn good meal” and maybe in the arms of Johnny Iuzzini.  Oh Johnny. To me, my food is my lifestyle and having a healthy body, mind and spirit is so much more than what we eat.  It’s a state of being.

So after many trips to the ER, dealing with places that don’t take proper precautions and a culinary world full of celebrity, I decided to stir things up a bit, started a production company and shot a pilot Food+Life/Style web series. After a successful career in Digital Media Technology, this venture is my journey.  To share my love of the culinary arts and the stories that brings them and their people together.  There are so many wonderful people out there doing incredible things in the culinary arts that absolutely take the health and well being of their patrons very seriously, down to each and every ingredient and allergy.  I want to tell their stories, thru my eyes and their food.

 I’m hoping to drive a new way to interact with the information and to interest, amuse, inform, question and maybe even change your perspective on the food we eat and how we eat it.  Although we didn’t shoot a show based on food allergies, I find that more and more people connect to me because they have a similar story.  And for those kids out there that feel ‘different’ because of their allergies, just stick with me kid, and together we’ll be all right.

Hoping that one day there is enough awareness to make real and definitive change, like changes in our manufacturing processes or an even peanut vaccine? A girl can only dream.

Sonia Hunt is the Founder+CEO of Noie Productions, an independent media production company spawning organic, innovative & chic culinary media. Watch the trailer to her new Food+Life/Style series at http://soniahunt.com

What’s in Fast Food Chicken? (Hint: It’s NOT Chicken)

Written by Shiloh Urban & submitted to the AllergyKids Foundation by Organic Authority August 23, 2010

Frying chicken is fairly simple, if a little messy. You dip pieces of chicken into a mix of egg and milk, roll them around in flour and spices, then cook the chicken in sizzling hot oil until the pieces are brown, crispy and delicious.

But wait! Don’t forget to add a dash of dimethylpolysiloxane, an anti-foaming agent made of silicone that is also used in Silly Putty and cosmetics. 

Now add a heaping spoonful of tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), which is a chemical preservative and a form of butane (AKA lighter fluid). One gram of TBHQ can cause “nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse,” according to A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives. Five grams of TBHQ can kill you.

Sprinkle on thirteen other corn-derived ingredients, and you’re only about twenty shy as many ingredients as a single chicken nugget from McDonald’s. And you were using pulverized chicken skin and mechanically reclaimed meat for your chicken, right?

No one in his or her right mind would cook chicken like this. Yet every day, hoards of Americans consume these ingredients in Chicken McNuggets, which McDonalds claims are “made with white meat, wrapped up in a crisp tempura batter.”

However chicken only accounts for about 50% of a Chicken McNugget. The other 50% includes a large percentage of corn derivatives, sugars, leavening agents and other completely synthetic ingredients, meaning that parts of the nugget do not come from a field or farm at all. They come from a petroleum plant. Hungry?

Scariest perhaps is the fact that this recipe is a new and improved, “healthier” Chicken McNugget launched in 2003 after a federal judge called the deep-fried poultry bites “a McFrankenstein creation of various elements not utilized by the home cook.” Also terrifying is the fact that these McFrankenuggets are overwhelmingly marketed to children who love their fun shapes and kid-friendly size.

While McDonald’s is of course the poster child for fast food ire, if you look at the nutritional information for chicken at any fast food restaurant, the ingredient list will be dozens of items longer than the egg, flour, chicken and oil recipe you might use at home.

Eating fast food is a habit, but it is one that you can break? No doubt you rarely plan to have a delicious meal at Arby’s for dinner, a lingering lunch at Carl’s Jr. or a special breakfast at the Burger King in the airport. It just happens. You are late, tired, hungry, broke, or all of the above. You have no time, and you must find something to eat before you crash. All of a sudden a bright, friendly sign beckons from the side of the road: Drive-through!

In five minutes you are happily chowing down on an inexpensive, filling meal. But don’t be fooled – the true cost of fast food does not come out of your wallet, but out of your body, your health, and your years on this earth.

You can break the unhealthy fast food habit: educate yourself about the true ingredients of fast food items, plan ahead for your meals, carry healthy snacks like nuts to ward off hunger and cook healthy chicken recipes at home. Convince yourself that fast food is the most disgusting stuff on the planet and is harmful to you and to those you love. After reading this, that shouldn’t be too hard.

Full ingredient list for a Chicken McNugget (from McDonald’s website):

White boneless chicken, water, food starch-modified, salt, seasoning (autolyzed yeast extract, salt, wheat starch, natural flavoring (botanical source), safflower oil, dextrose, citric acid, rosemary), sodium phosphates, seasoning (canola oil, mono- and diglycerides, extractives of rosemary). Battered and breaded with: water, enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), yellow corn flour, food starch-modified, salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate), spices, wheat starch, whey, corn starch. Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.

Full ingredient list for my mother’s fried chicken:

Bone-in chicken pieces, egg, milk, flour, canola oil, salt & pepper.

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