A serious threat to organic standard in the US

Food labels are already confusing customers in supermarkets nowadays. According to the USDA (US Department of Agriculture), products labelled “100 % organic” and “organic” are produced differently – “organic” products must consist of at least 95 % organic ingredients, meaning that the remaining ingredients could be of non-organic origin. The USDA takes further action and thinks of adding another 38 products to the national list, meaning that they could be found in products labelled with the seal “USDA organic”. If they were not added, currently labelled food might not keep the “USDA organic” seal. Some of the newly recommended ingredients might affect a large range of food. They include conventionally raised factory-farmed animal intestines, non-organic hops, rice starch and whey protein.

Organic food advocates state that this would be a serious threat to organic standard. At least three of the proposed ingredients are backed by companies like Anheuser-Bush beer as well as some big food processors. Ronnie Cummings from OTA mentioned in his statement that this would cater for powerful players, wanting the benefits of labelling their products without sourcing organic materials.

Source: The Epoch Times