Organic

Truth, duty, honesty
Only hype makes organic food healthier
By Judi McLeod
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Thanks to multi-million dollar advertising campaigns, the consumer believes that organic food is healthier for you. The organic and natural food craze teaches John Q. Public that organic foods are somehow safer and more nutritious.
Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.
The latest victims of organic products now include two Toronto residents, paralyzed in hospital after drinking carrot juice that tested positive for a botulism toxin.
"There are two adults who are severely ill in hospital and they had a history of drinking the exact same juice that's been part of the carrot juice recall," Dr. Elizabeth Rea, an associate medical officer of health, told the Toronto Star on Sunday.
Four cases of botulism in the United States have been linked to toxic carrot juice. The juice, produced by Bolthouse Farms in Bakersfield, Calif., was ordered off North American shelves late last month.
California grows about $400 million per year in organic produce and about half of it comes from just five farms.
A Florida woman has been in hospital, unresponsive, since mid-September. Three people in the State of Georgia suffered respiratory failure and are on ventilators since drinking carrot juice a month ago.
Bolthouse Farms, which bottles three brands of "organic" carrot juice, includes three recalled products: Bolthouse Farms 100% Carrot Juice, Earthbound Farm Organic Carrot Juice and President's Choice Organic 100% Pure Carrot Juice.
Ironically, it is the health conscious consumer who looks to organic products as being safer and more nutritious.
Bolthouse Farms, which has been around since 1915, describes its carrot juice as "smooth, creamy with a uniquely fresh taste!"
"Bolthouse Farms is the premium producer of the Earthbound Farm carrots, the most recognized organic produce brand. Our organic carrots have all the quality and reliability consumers expect from Bolthouse Farms‹and they're 100% organic certified by CCOF, an accredited USDA National Organic Program third party certifier. From snacking to juicing, Bolthouse Farms offers a variety of organic carrots to fit our lifestyle," says Bolthouse Farms on its website.
"After four generations of innovation in agriculture, harvesting, and now bottling, we know that everything really important (freshness, great taste and good health) still begins in the fields."
And it's the fields that are the problem.
As the National Review's John Miller reported in 2004,
"Organic foods may be fresh, but they're also fresh from the manure fields."
Earthbound Farms, one of the biggest organic farms in North America, is also the source of the contaminated spinach that is suspected in three deaths and hospitalized at least 29 other people with kidney failure. In total, the poison spinach sickened nearly 200, in 23 states and Canada.
And now lettuce has been added to the potential E. coli contamination list.
Earthbound fertilizes its leafy vegetables with cow manure.
"Most conventional farmers fertilize their food crops with "chemical" fertilizer, and put their livestock manure on feed crops like corn," Hudson's Center for Global Food Issues Dennis T. Avery and Alex A. Avery wrote in canadafreepress.com on Oct. 3. "Organic farmers reject chemical fertilizer. Instead, they compost raw cattle manure for some weeks, hoping that will kill any dangerous organisms that could contaminate the food. Sometimes it doesn't.
"In the old days, when organic produce came from a few little farms, an occasional sick customer was no big deal. Often, the victim refused to believe organic food could cause the illness. But so many people now believe the organic hype that organic farms have gotten big and corporate and the manure-related consumer epidemics make national news."
"A study by the Center for Global Food Issues found that although organic foods make up about 1 percent of America's diet, they also account for about 8 percent of confirmed E. coli cases." (The Center for Consumer Freedom, Jan., 2004).
Meanwhile, the Averys believe "our objective should be to get the manure away from our food crops. Organic and natural aren't safer, or more nutritious: Just more expensive, and far more dangerous."