Growers and Grocers

The conversation began very innocently. My husband Al Rosas, The Organic Chef and I were asked to consult for a major hotel chain regarding their restaurants and using more local and organic foods as options for their customers.

The idea was that they would use our name Rosas Farms and some of our products which are synonymous with organic and grass fed beef, to create a national steak house chain idea within their hotels. We immediately were equal to the task, thrilled that this huge corporation would take the lead in providing organic and great food to families and business travelers. We invited them to the farm, we cooked, and we prospected ideas and deals and nearly passed out when they told us very quickly and quite frankly, “By the way, all the beef will be irradiated.” WHAT!?

After we managed to catch our balance and breath we had the courage to ask them why in the world they would take our wonderful organic and grass fed beef and irradiate it?

“It’s a risk management thing, not negotiable,” I was told. I can’t tell you how quickly they left the farm that day but what I can tell you is that the big wigs that were there sampling our organic products still had sauce on their faces as we walked them to the car.

Grass fed beef can’t contain the specific kinds of E-coli that make humans sick, we protested! It’s part of the appeal nutritionally. It is in itself risk management. Alas, there was no room for education and therefore no room for our products in their hotels.

The duping of America is going on every day. All natural means literally all nothing. Organic dilution of products, the standards getting looser as the demand increases and organics become cool. The integrity of organics is the fight we fight every day at our company but this latest news has me writing this article.

Recently, the government proposed relaxing its rules on labeling of irradiated foods and suggested it may allow some products zapped with radiation to be called “pasteurized.”

The Food and Drug Administration said the proposed rule would require companies to label irradiated food only when the radiation treatment causes a material change to the product. Examples include changes to the taste, texture, smell or shelf life of a food, which would be included in the new labeling. An article in USA Today went on to say that the proposal also would let companies petition the agency to use other words than “irradiated”. The FDA posted the proposed revisions to its rules on irradiated foods on its website a day before they were to be published in the Federal Register.

A consumer group immediately urged the FDA to drop the idea. I don’t need to tell you what my comment was to the FDA.

The word pasteurized is considered by most Americans to mean something wholesome. How much more can they play with our food? The idea of raising the food properly to avoid contamination seems beyond what agribusiness can comprehend.

“This move by FDA would deny consumers clear information about whether they are buying food that has been exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation,” Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said in a statement.

A 1984 FDA proposal to allow irradiated foods to go label-free cause the agency to receive more than 5,000 comments. Two years later, they published a final rule that requires the small number of FDA-regulated foods now treated with radiation to bear identifying labels, including the radiation symbol.

“We have long argued that the use of the term irradiation or radiation has such a negative impact on the consumer that it basically acts as a warning label,” said Jeff Barach, vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers/Food Products Association, an industry group. “Fixing this problem will help in food industry efforts to provide consumers with safe and wholesome foods with reduced risk of food borne pathogens.”

Foods still require FDA approval before they can be irradiated. The proposed rule would apply only to foods regulated by the FDA. If the rule is finalized, the Department of Agriculture will most likely petition the process to change the irradiation labeling requirements for the foods it regulates, including meat and poultry.

Action alerts on all topics of this nature with instructions for contacting the USDA can be found on the Cornucopia Institute Website: www.cornucopia.org
The Cornucopia Institute is a non-profit whose mission, The Organic Integrity Project, acts as a corporate watchdog assuring that no compromises to the credibility of organic farming methods and the food it produces are made in the pursuit of profit.