Has Your Organic Breakfast Been Tasting Evil Lately?

By on October 14, 2010 in News 18

Most of the “organic” eggs sold in supermarkets are a legal fiction, produced in the same overcrowded corporate aviaries as their non-organic counterparts. This via BoingBoing:

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  • emperorreagan

    You can treat the animals like shit and still produce an organic product.It just means you’re not pumping them full of antibiotics, growth hormones, etc.Organic doesn’t mean “ethically produced” and it doesn’t mean nutritionally superior. It means you’re buying food with the intent of minimizing your exposure to petrochemicals used in fertilizers and pesticides and the aforementioned antibiotics and growth hormones.

    I’m pretty quick to point my finger at corporate America, but it’s tough to point a finger when it seems people just don’t understand the definition of organic. Even free-range has a legal definition that might not meet people’s expectations. If somebody wants ethically produced meat or eggs, it requires a much greater effort than making assumptions based on the word “organic.”

    • Haystack

      I was a little confused by that. The way they were conflating “organic” and “free-range” in the video seemed to imply that the organic label required chickens to have access to the outdoors.

      • emperorreagan

        I think people confuse “organic” with some sort of romantic image of what farming looked like in cartoons.

        The term “free range” also, I think, lends itself to a fanciful image of the techniques the farmers are using. Free range legally only means that chickens have access to the outdoors. It doesn’t mean they have access to pasture and doesn’t have any implication on how much time they actually spend outdoors. The legal definition of free range can be met with a little bit of gravel outside the hen house.

        The definition also only applies to poultry. There is not a legal definition for “free range” for other meat products or eggs. In those cases, “free range” means whatever the farmer or company marketing the product decides it means.

        If people care about ethically raised animal products, they actually have to put in the time to research the farm, whether that’s visiting a local farm, or looking to organizations dedicated to those sort of farming techniques. You can’t rely on a label for that. If you want pasture raised chickens, for example, you can look at http://www.apppa.org/

        People also need to be aware what the terminology on food labels means. That really takes minimal effort – you can go to the USDA directly, hop on wikipedia, or pursue sources anywhere in between. Marketers rely on people associating particular terminology with being “good,” even where there is no discernible benefit or the term is essentially meaningless.

        • Ironaddict06

          ^^
          You are right. I was thinking I’d like to be a farmer-with modern technology you have access to a huge market thanks to the internet. There are many people that would pay a bit more for farm raised products. As I was researching this-I found out that you could have the FDA at your door threating to fine you or jail you because your products are not regulated. Yes-I realize that you can go to farmers market to sell or buy produce-but for example if you were selling raw milk to a large customer base-you could get a visit.

      • Aliquid Novi

        actually, the lack of ‘free range’ does have implications for the ‘organic’ label: it means that hens aren’t supplementing their diet with the full range of grubs and vegetation that they get outdoors. if they’re kept inside, they are completely reliant on foods that, while strictly organic (by law), were never part of the natural diet of the ancestors of chickens, which, for me, means that their diet is not as ‘organic’ as it should be.

  • emperorreagan

    You can treat the animals like shit and still produce an organic product.It just means you’re not pumping them full of antibiotics, growth hormones, etc.Organic doesn’t mean “ethically produced” and it doesn’t mean nutritionally superior. It means you’re buying food with the intent of minimizing your exposure to petrochemicals used in fertilizers and pesticides and the aforementioned antibiotics and growth hormones.

    I’m pretty quick to point my finger at corporate America, but it’s tough to point a finger when it seems people just don’t understand the definition of organic. Even free-range has a legal definition that might not meet people’s expectations. If somebody wants ethically produced meat or eggs, it requires a much greater effort than making assumptions based on the word “organic.”

  • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

    Once again…this is why I buy eggs from a lady with only a couple dozen birds down the street. I know where they come from, where they eat, what they eat, and how they live…and the taste is different…and better. I can hard boil an egg and it doesn’t smell like Satan Himself took a sulfurous dump in my kitchen. All anyone needs to master is basic cleanliness and thorough cooking and they’re good to go.

    • Hadrian999

      that’s why i love living in the middle of Illinois,
      if i want i can buy everything I eat from the source and go see how it’s being raised

    • Haystack

      I lay my own eggs. *g*

  • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

    Once again…this is why I buy eggs from a lady with only a couple dozen birds down the street. I know where they come from, where they eat, what they eat, and how they live…and the taste is different…and better. I can hard boil an egg and it doesn’t smell like Satan Himself took a sulfurous dump in my kitchen. All anyone needs to master is basic cleanliness and thorough cooking and they’re good to go.

  • Hadrian999

    that’s why i love living in the middle of Illinois,
    if i want i can buy everything I eat from the source and go see how it’s being raised

  • Haystack

    I was a little confused by that. The way they were conflating “organic” and “free-range” in the video seemed to imply that the organic label required chickens to have access to the outdoors.

  • Haystack

    I lay my own eggs. *g*

  • gemmarama

    easy solution: buy a couple of chooks. dirt cheap and endless comedy value…

  • gemmarama

    easy solution: buy a couple of chooks. dirt cheap and endless comedy value…

  • emperorreagan

    I think people confuse “organic” with some sort of romantic image of what farming looked like in cartoons.

    The term “free range” also, I think, lends itself to a fanciful image of the techniques the farmers are using. Free range legally only means that chickens have access to the outdoors. It doesn’t mean they have access to pasture and doesn’t have any implication on how much time they actually spend outdoors. The legal definition of free range can be met with a little bit of gravel outside the hen house.

    The definition also only applies to poultry. There is not a legal definition for “free range” for other meat products or eggs. In those cases, “free range” means whatever the farmer or company marketing the product decides it means.

    If people care about ethically raised animal products, they actually have to put in the time to research the farm, whether that’s visiting a local farm, or looking to organizations dedicated to those sort of farming techniques. You can’t rely on a label for that. If you want pasture raised chickens, for example, you can look at http://www.apppa.org/

    People also need to be aware what the terminology on food labels means. That really takes minimal effort – you can go to the USDA directly, hop on wikipedia, or pursue sources anywhere in between. Marketers rely on people associating particular terminology with being “good,” even where there is no discernible benefit or the term is essentially meaningless.

  • Ironaddict06

    ^^
    You are right. I was thinking I’d like to be a farmer-with modern technology you have access to a huge market thanks to the internet. There are many people that would pay a bit more for farm raised products. As I was researching this-I found out that you could have the FDA at your door threating to fine you or jail you because your products are not regulated. Yes-I realize that you can go to farmers market to sell or buy produce-but for example if you were selling raw milk to a large customer base-you could get a visit.

  • Aliquid Novi

    actually, the lack of ‘free range’ does have implications for the ‘organic’ label: it means that hens aren’t supplementing their diet with the full range of grubs and vegetation that they get outdoors. if they’re kept inside, they are completely reliant on foods that, while strictly organic (by law), were never part of the natural diet of the ancestors of chickens, which, for me, means that their diet is not as ‘organic’ as it should be.