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Food Safety
Fifty or a hundred years ago, who would have thought the old fashioned way
of growing food would be considered the alternative and called organic.
Today, conventional methods include variations on the modern practices of
monoculture, chemical application, genetically engineered seeds and genetically
altered animals, all of it unlabeled except for country of origin.
What does all this mean? In years past most of us lived pretty close to
our food sources. Access to ice for refrigeration was limited, and it wasn't
practical to transport fresh food from other climates. Farmers produced
in relatively small quantities and shipped regularly. Most saved their own
seeds and bred their own livestock, so grocery customers knew basically
the source of their food. Life was also slower then; more people cooked
at home, so pre packaged foodstuffs were virtually unheard of.
Today we have nearly unlimited access to any food product imaginable. But
where did it come from, how was it grown or raised, how was it processed,
and how long did it take to get from there to here? These are the modern
issues of food safety, and access to facts can be convoluted at best. Back to Top
Genetically Engineered Foods
On January 17, 2001, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued its proposed
federal regulations on genetically engineered foods and crops refusing to
call for mandatory labeling or safety testing before food comes to market.
This means that we have no way of knowing what kind of pesticides or genetically
modified grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy or meats are included in the
products we eat unless the company voluntarily lists this information on
the package. There is no transparency to the process; manufacturers gamble
on the "out of sight, out of mind" strategy to sell products, and it works.
But what might be the health risks to ingesting these ingredients over long
periods of time?
Genetically engineered foods are fruits, vegetables, grains, and animal
products whose genetic material has been altered by the introduction of
genes from other living material. Genetic engineering (GE) is different
from hybridization, a process that relies on sexual reproduction such as
cross-pollination between members of the same or closely related species.
In genetic modification, a gene, sometimes from a different species, is
spliced into the chromosomes of a plant, or animal for a benefit not generally
associated with that life form. Flounder genes can protect tomatoes from
frost damage, while genes from certain bacteria and viruses can delay their
ripening and rotting. But what are the long-term effects to humans of eating
these tomatoes, and how could a farmer possibly prevent these tomatoes from
pollinating with non-genetically engineered ones? None of us know; it is
too soon to tell. In the meanwhile, labeling is not mandatory, so consumers
can't tell which foods are altered or how they've changed, unless it is
labeled organic. Back to Top
Organic Food - Always Labeled at Cronig's
Organic food is grown the old fashioned way-no antibiotics, irradiation,
genetic engineering, sewage sludge compost, or synthetic chemical pesticides.
Organic farmers know their products are healthier than conventionally grown
foods partly because they grow a variety of crops that are rotated to other
fields when appropriate. This is a time-honored practice to prevent pest
infestations and avert soil depletion. For raising livestock, animals must
have regular access to pasture land, and be fed 100% organically grown feed.
Organic and Biodynamic farmers (another natural method of farming) employ
many other techniques as well to preserve the health of their crops and
livestock without resorting to the chemicals and processes listed above.
The result is healthier, often tastier foods on our tables.
For thousands of years, this was the formula for farming through out the
world, but factory farming has become the dominant model in the late 20th
century. Corporate farming is based on automation and large scale, similar
to the thinking behind the factory fabrication of virtually all of our manufactured
products today. In the interest of efficiency, the focus is on monoculture,
the large scale production of one or two crops or animals per farm. This
method inhibits variety, relies heavily on chemical application to reduce
the man hours necessary to weed, and employs additional chemicals or genetic
manipulation to kill or ward off pests. It has created an escalating cycle
of toxic soil and water that is, among other things, damaging the wildlife
around it.
Those keeping to the old ways have had to develop a classification and set
of measurements to differentiate their methods from what has become known
as "conventional farming". Hence the term "organic farming" came to be,
close to 30 years ago. But it didn't have a nationally uniform criterion
because it was a grassroots campaign, so some organic organization's guidelines
were stricter than others. Over time, California's state standard became
the recognized benchmark most organic farmers used.
After more than ten years of development, the US Department of Agriculture
will soon present The National Organic Program to set the criteria for measuring
organic food standards in this country. This unified definition of organic
practices will allow farmers and food handlers to work across states and
national borders with standardized delineation. Implementation will begin
approximately 18 months after the final rule is established, which may be
January 2003. Once in place, a product labeled "organic" must contain 95%
or more organic content. 50% to 95% will be labeled with "made with organic
ingredients", and less than 50% may list the term "organic" only on the
ingredient info panel. For now voluntary "eco-labeling" is the norm, but
once the National Organic Program is in place, some farmers and food handlers
will continue to subscribe to higher criteria than what will be mandated
by the US Department of Agriculture.
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Green Martha
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