Chemical Free Living Through Healthy Eating.

This entry was posted on 4/26/2007 8:51 PM and is filed under Food and Cooking.

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• 6/27/2007 2:18 PM Brit wrote:
  OCA PETITION TO USDA REGARDING PROPOSAL TO ALLOW 38 NEW CONVENTIONAL INGREDIENTS IN ORGANIC PRODUCTS
  
  
  
  Speaking from the perspective of organic consumers, we support the NOP for clarifying to producers that if an item is not on the National List, it cannot be used in conventional form. However, we do not support all of the NOSB's 38 recommended additions to the National List. Notably, we are opposed to the addition of casings from processed intestines, hops (without specific listings), fish oil, beet juice, lemongrass, rice starch and whey protein.
  
  AMS-TM-07-0062 claims that these exceptions must be added to the list to offer concessions to countless companies who have violated the National Organic Standards in the past by using conventional ingredients that were not on the National List. These same companies have been given months to petition the NOSB for inclusion of desired conventional ingredients on the National List. In contrast, the general public has only been allocated 7 days to comment.
  
  Specifically, we are opposed to allowing the following conventional ingredients in organic production:
  
  1) FOOD COLORINGS
  We believe additional criteria should be added to any of the added food colorings to the National List. Food colorings should be treated in a manner similar to flavors by the NOP. Before a food coloring is added to the National List, it should be stipulated that there are no synthetic solvents, preservatives or additives.
  
  2) CASINGS FROM PROCESSED INTESTINES
  The proposed addition to the National List is focused on bovine, ovine and porcine animal intestines used as sheaths for products such as sausage links. Surveys of organic consumers find that a high percentage of beef eating organic consumers choose organic products to avoid diseases associated with conventional meat production. Specifically, the organic beef industry has enjoyed a considerable boom as more consumers are concerned with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) which has only been detected in animals raised conventionally. BSE is transmitted via the consumption of prions in infected body tissue. There is no scientific evidence that excludes bovine intestine as a possible source of BSE transmission.
  
  In short, many consumers are choosing to pay notably higher prices for organic beef based meats to avoid conventionally raised beef. By allowing conventional casings on the National List, these consumers will be misled into believing that the meat product they are eating was raised in accordance to the National Organic Standards, when, in fact, the intestinal casing may be from an animal that lived its life on a factory farm in intensive confinement, consuming pesticide laden foods, and treated with an assortment of antibiotics and drugs.
  
  A meat labeled as "organic" should truly be organic, and the allowance of conventionally produced intestinal casings violates consumer rights.
  
  see part 2
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