As the summer unfolds, you may take a trip to your local farmers' market in search of the freshest berries and tomatoes. Or perhaps you are more of a grill king (or queen!), looking forward to that first summer hamburger. Whatever your plans, if you are someone who always tries to buy fresh, high-quality ingredients, chances are that you will see more than a few "organic" items for sale.
The federal and state governments playa large role in determining what foods get to our plate and how they get there. However, very few consumers know that the law historically had very little to say when it came to what food producers could claim as "organic." For many years, the organic food industry went unregulated, with producers being able to label their foods as they pleased. Consequently, unaware consumers spent extra money on food products, thinking they were getting an organic product, when in reality, they sometimes weren't.
In recent years, the federal government has begun to step in, taking a look at what "organic" actually means and mandating certain labeling requirements. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal agency charged with providing direction and leadership for food and agriculture. As part of this role, the USDA has established a certification system ensuring that foods sold as "organic" actually follow some established production requirements. From the government's perspective the issue is not whether organic food is better or healthier, but truth in advertising.
Generally, organic foods are those that are free of man-made fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, antibiotics, and hormones. In order to be certified by the USDA as organic, foods must meet USDA standards regarding how they are grown, handled, and processed. If the food meets the standards, the USDA organic label can appear on the label.
Foods can be certified as "100% organic" using the USDA label if they contain at least 95 percent organic foods. If the food contains between 70 percent and 95 percent organic foods, it must be labeled with a "Made with Organic Ingredients" label. Anything less than 70 percent? Under USDA guidelines, the product cannot display a certified label at all.
To complicate things even more, not all foods and food producers fall under this system. The USDA regulations apply only to meat, milk, eggs, cheese, and other "single ingredient" items. (So, for example, cookies would not currently qualify.) And they only apply to certain farmers and food producers; namely; those that are larger. If a food producer sells less than $5,000 a year in organic food, he or she is exempt. Further, the USDA has created another label for "certified naturally grown." This label is applied to smaller farms that sell only locally but still meet the USDA standards.
The USDA regulates only the use of the term "organic." Producers are still free to use similar sounding terms such as "all-natural" and "free range" as they please. Currently; there are no government limits on the use of such terms.
Since the USDA regulations cover only certain foods and certain food producers, it is impossible to verify all the organic claims that are now being made on behalf of a wide variety of food. Nevertheless, if you feel that a product has been purposefully mislabeled or includes a label that is misleading and confusing, you may be able to bring a complaint with your state's consumer protection agency. The best way to find the applicable agency in your state may be to start with your state's attorney general's office which you can find by visiting the National Association of Attorney General's Web site at www.naag.org.