Flash in the Pan

An article in the New York Times says that the US Department of Agriculture is ready to add more inorganic ingredients that can go into food sporting the department's organic seal. Under the current rules, at least 95 percent of something labeled organic must actually be organic. The rest must be something where an organic substitute isn't commercially available. Apparently this includes such items as hops for beer, dill weed oil, and elderberry juice. What I'm left wondering is whether there is absolutely no organic substitute, or if a company only has to say that it can't get it commercially. And if that's the case, would the inability to get the wanted ingredient at a given economic price be considered unavailable? And just how serious are "organic" companies?

John Foraker, chief executive of Annie’s Homegrown, argued that nonorganic annatto was a crucial ingredient in the company’s macaroni and cheese. “Organic annatto is not readily available and does not deliver the same cheese color,” he said in a May 14 letter to the Agriculture Department. “Making orange colored macaroni and cheese is an important element of our offering. Without annatto, our macaroni-and-cheese products would be white.”

I can remember my wife and I feeding this to our kids to get away from the more commercial varieties. But the color is artificial? It just seems wrong that organic is the same processed crap as non-organic. Oh, and then the public was given only a week for the public to express its opinion, even though food companies had two years to request ingredients to be put on the list. Maybe organic will have to go out the window and making things from scratch will be the only reasonable option for those interested in what they're really eating, and not what a label claims.

Labels: agriculture, Annie's, ingredients, organic