Tag Archives: Organic Pastures

Organic baby formula goes for the sweetest, just like kids’ cereals

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The New York Times reports today that parents may be buying Similac Organic baby formula because they believe that organic is healthier, but babies may prefer Similac Organic because it is significantly sweeter than other formulas and is the only major brand of organic formula that is sweetened with cane sugar, or sucrose, which is much sweeter than sugars used in other formulas.

Dr. Benjamin Caballero, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an expert in risk factors for childhood obesity, said,

“I would be very concerned about this as a pediatrician. The issue is that sweet tastes tend to encourage consumption of excessive amounts."

Dr. Caballero was further cited as saying evidence shows that babies and children will always show a preference for the sweetest food available, and they will eat more of it than they would of less-sweet food, adding,

“This is how breakfast cereal manufacturers compete."

Organic formula, with sales of about $20 million annually, makes up only a sliver of the $2.5 billion formula market, according to A.C. Nielsen, the market research company. Similac Organic, analysts say, is largely responsible for the nearly tenfold growth in sales of organic formula from 2005 to 2007.

All infant formulas contain added sugars, which babies need to digest the proteins in cow’s milk or soy. Other organic formulas, like Earth’s Best and Parent’s Choice, use organic lactose as the added sugar. Organic lactose must be extracted from organic milk, the global supplies of which have been severely stretched in the last three years, driving up the price of the lactose.

Dr. Jatinder Bhatia, a member of the nutrition committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said,

"The parents in my practice who would use organic formula are the same parents who would be worried about giving sweets to their babies. That organic formula would be sweeter might not be a health risk, but it certainly isn’t what the parents have in mind.”

Dr. Gary K. Beauchamp, director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, a nonprofit research institute, said,

“The entire enterprise of formula is the attempt is to make it as close as possible to human milk. Making sweeter formula so that babies like it more seems to me contrary to the ethos of organic food, as a doctor and as a grandfather.”

Organic food myths

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Rob Johnston argues in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper this morning that organic foods are not healthier or better for the environment, they’re packed with pesticides, and in an age of climate change and shortages, these foods are an indugence the world can’t afford.

Organic myths:

• Organic farming is good for the environment

• Organic farming is more sustainable

• Organic farming doesn’t use pesticides

• Pesticide levels in conventional food are dangerous

• Organic food is healthier

• Organic food contains more nutrients

• The demand for organic food is booming

All myths, and backed up by Johnston in the article. As far as microbial food safety, as we’ve written before,

Organic standards are process-based, and have nothing do to with end-product safety. Specific omissions include worker hygiene and recommendations for safe use of processing and irrigation water. Further, any guideline or standard is meaningless without robust verification. The production of safe food is the responsibility of everyone in the farm-to-fork chain — conventional or organic — and food safety, especially with fresh produce, must begin on the farm.

Using pigs as bug control in an orchard?

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Today the Associated Press reports that a farmer in Michigan has been using more than two dozen pigs in his organic apple orchards in his quest to control the plum curculio:

Jim Koan has gone hog-wild in his battle against a beetle that threatens his 120-acre organic apple orchard. [The] porkers patrol his orchard, gobbling down fallen, immature apples containing the beetle’s larvae. After a successful trial run late last spring, he and some researchers at Michigan State University are preparing for year two of the experiment at AlMar Orchards & Cidery in eastern Michigan.

They hope their work will someday help fruit growers throughout the world reduce the use of pesticides while diversifying their agricultural operations, as he is doing. He plans to periodically sell off the offspring of his four original hogs, keeping only what he needs.

Interesting move, definitely thinking outside the box, as organic producers must, when it comes to pest control. I wonder if there is a segment of the research that looks at the microbiological differences between the fresh apples (and the drops) on his farm and other producers not using the hogs.  This pest reduction plan might be introducing new food safety risks that weren’t there before.

Feral pigs seemed to play a part in the the 2006 spinach outbreak. Last March the FDA said: "Potential environmental risk factors for E.coli O157:H7 contamination at or near the field included the presence of wild pigs, the proximity of irrigation wells used to grow produce for ready-to-eat packaging, and surface waterways exposed to feces from cattle and wildlife."

You can say organic is safer, we just won’t push it

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Laura Telford, executive director of Canadian Organic Growers, said in Toronto’s Globe and Mail  today that companies that sell organic food make a conscious effort to avoid branding themselves as being safer than other products, but the industry doesn’t discourage the positive association, stating,

"[Consumers] perceive that organic food is going to be safer. Whether that’s true or not is a whole other issue. We don’t make food safety claims."

No kidding. Katija and I wrote a paper about this in 2004.

Joseph Odumeru, food science professor at the University of Guelph, said although a reduction in pesticides can eliminate some health issues, the most common food safety problems have nothing to do with chemicals, adding,

"Whether you have an organic product or not, all products are susceptible to risks. Where you grow a product, it can become contaminated with bacteria like salmonella."

Canada’s organic industry has been growing from 15 to 20 per cent each year, growth that is being fuelled mainly by consumers who are becoming increasingly health-conscious.

May the force be with you — leafy greens edition

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The good microorganisms out-compete the bad, so no one will get ever get sick.

I’ve heard variations of that from a lot of organic growers over the past decade — yet there is no evidence that such claims are true.

But there is lots of evidence that people get sick from fresh produce — organic, conventional, or otherwise.

It’s all about the bugs.

Ian Davidson of BioLogic Systems LLC writes in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning that there is,

"a microbial force field around the plant that is naked to the human eye. By inoculating plants with these beneficial organisms, it is virtually impossible for pathogenic organisims to even touch the plant, because the beneficial aerobic organisms are in such dominance. These beneficial organisms can easily eliminate the pathogen, or simply outcompete it for food resources."

One of my students heard the same thing back in 2000. I sent her on a day long workshop to learn how to be an organic inspector. Microbial food safety was never mentioned, until my student brought it up at the end of the day, and was told, no worries, the good bugs keep the bad bugs at bay.

Yet fresh produce remains the single biggest source of foodborne illness today.

Sure, soil microbiology is complex, but until our knowledge increases, I’ll side with the victims of foodborne illness. And there’s a lot of them,

The vibrant life of oraganics, it’s what we like – really

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Julie Scelfo reports in the Sept. 24, 2007 issue of Newsweek that the boom in restaurants serving local organic produce has come with an unexpected downside: more bugs in our food (you don’t say). She writes that without pesticides to deter them, aphids, ladybugs, caterpillars and beetles are tagging along on the journey from farm to kitchen to dinner table with greater frequency. But the reactions among diners, she says, are as diverse as the critters they’re finding on their plates.

Some are said to be furious, especially considering they’re paying more for organic food (a lot more) — but a surprising number are cheered. To those customers, Scelfo writes that such uninvited guests are proof that the produce really is fresh and pesticide-free.

Ben Long, a communications consultant and foodie from Kalispell, Mont, is quoted as saying "I, for one, would much prefer a bug on my plate to pesticide in my bloodstream."

And sometimes it’s more than just a bug, the story continues. When Richard Samaniego, chef at California’s Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa, opened a box of organic lettuce last year, a frog jumped out. He was quoted as saying, "It was a good thing I found it before we started chopping."

It’s all about the poop

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In my food safety travels, I’ve heard — and seen — a lot of things. And I’ve repeatedly heard that many of those urban vegetable gardens, especially those producing for certain cultural sub-groups, make use of human feces as a form of fertilizer.

A story in today’s Goleta Valley News in California tries to pry into the world of gonzo gardening.  Fairview Gardens is a 12.5 acre urban organic farm at 598 N. Fairview Ave. Unhappy neighbors turned out to an Aug. 13, 2007 planning commission meeting to air their concerns about the farm’s operations and practices.

Steve Chase, Goleta’s director of planning and environmental services, said,

"There were two main issues we wanted to address. Are they using the orchard as a toilet? And are they meeting sanitation standards with regards to the city’s code?"

Charles Hamilton, a retired physician who has been living on Connor Way, a cul de sac that abuts the west side of the farm, since 1964, was quoted as saying,

"I do not want a (human) compost toilet 50 feet from my back yard" adding that he has doubts that the composting toilet will be monitored sufficiently to allow for the proper decomposition of human feces, and the presence of human manure would contribute to the smell, horseflies and potential for illness as a result of the bacteria in the raw sewage."

Linda Halley, who has been with the farm for a year and a half, said human waste is from trespassers, not farm workers  and that,

"We have sold fresh produce grown on this farm nearly daily for well over 20 years, to members of our own community. Zero incidents of food poisoning have occurred. I do not take the accusations of using human manure and being a possible source of E. coli contamination lightly in this day and age of many serious food poisoning incidents."

This week in media — raw milk

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Following the lead of the Washington Post, the New York Times is the latest to write about the market demands and push to legalize raw milk sales.

In today’s Times, Joe Drapes highlights the Organic Pastures Dairy Company in the San Joaquin Valley near Fresno, which in 2000 became California’s first raw milk dairy with certified organic pasture land. The story says co-founder, Mark McAfee, expects it to gross $6 million — up from $4.9 last year. And while his raw milk is sold in 300 stores in California, where it is legal, McAfee has an $80,000 a month mail order business, shipping creams and cheese as well as milk to all 50 states under the pretense that it’s pet food.

Despite staggering sales and demand as reported by Drape, outbreaks associated with the consumption of raw milk continue to be recorded. But of course that doesn’t bother advocates.

“I think the bigger risk is having a salad from Wendy’s,” said a raw milk supporter from a farmers’ market in New Hampshire this past weekend.

And again, from yesterday’s Post, Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, was quoted as saying, "We’re not talking about raw milk from a typical conventional dairy," she says. "That milk could pose a danger. But milk from cows fed on pastures actually have their own antimicrobial components that keep it safe."

Our response at iFSN: Adults, do whatever you think works to ensure a natural and healthy lifestyle, but please don’t impose your dietary regimes on those incapable of protecting themselves: your kids.