- Protect Future Generations
- Support a True Economy
- To Taste Better Flavour
- Keep Chemicals off Your Plate
- Prevents Soil Erosion
- Promote Biodiversity
- Protect Water Quality
- Save Energy
- Protect Farm Workers' Health
- Help Small Farmers
- What the Conventional Food Industry Doesn't Want You To Know
- Do You Know What You're Eating?
Protect Future Generations
Children receive four times the exposure than an adult to at least eight widely used cancer-causing pesticides in food. The food choice you make now will impact your child's health in the future.
Support a True Economy
Although organic foods might seem more expensive than conventional foods, conventional food prices do not reflect hidden cost borne by taxpayers, including nearly $74 billion in federal subsidies in 1988. Other hidden costs include pesticide regulation and testing, hazardous waste disposal and clean up, and environmental damage.
To Taste Better Flavour
There's a good reason many chef's use organic foods in their recipes. They taste better. Organic farming starts with the nutrients of the soil which eventually leads to the nourishment of the plant and ultimately our palates.
Keep Chemicals off Your Plate
Many pesticides approved for use by the EPA were registered before extensive research linking these chemicals to cancer and other diseases had been established. Now the EPA considers that 60 percent of all herbicides, 90 percent of all fungicides and 30 percent of all insecticides are carcinogenic. A 1987 National Academy of Sciences report estimated that pesticides might cause an extra 1.4 million cancer cases among Americans over their lifetimes. The bottom line is that pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms, and can also be harmful to humans. In addition to cancer, pesticides are implicated in birth defects, nerve damage and genetic mutation.
Prevents Soil Erosion
The Soil Conservation Service estimates that more than three billion tons of topsoil is eroded from the United States croplands each year. That means soil is eroding seven times faster than it is built up naturally. Soil is the foundation of the food chain in organic farming. But in conventional farming the soil is used more as a medium for holding plants in a vertical position so they can be chemically fertilized. As a result, North American farms are suffering from the worst soil erosion in history.
Promote Biodiversity
Mono cropping is the practice of planting large plots of land with the same crop year after year. While this approach tripled farm production between 1950 and 1970, the lack of natural diversity of plant life has left the soil lacking in natural minerals and nutrients. To replace the nutrients, chemical fertilizers are used, often in increasing amounts.
Protect Water Quality
Water makes up two-third of our body mass and covers three-fourths of the planet. Despite its importance, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates pesticides (some cancer causing) contaminate the ground water in 38 states, polluting the primary source of drinking water for more than half the country's population.
Save Energy
North American farms have changed drastically in the last three generations, from the family based small businesses dependent on human energy to large scale factory farms highly dependent on fossil fuels. Modern farming uses more petroleum than any other single industry, consuming 12 percent of the country's total energy supply. More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate, and harvest all the crops in the United States. Organic farming is still mainly based on labor-intensive practices such as weeding by hand and using green manures and crop covers rather than synthetic. Organic produce also tends to travel a shorter distance from the farm to your plate.
Protect Farm Workers Health
A national Cancer Institute study found that farmers exposed to herbicides had a six times greater risk than non-farmers of contracting cancer. In California, reported pesticide poisonings among farm workers has risen an average of 14 percent a year since 1973, and doubled between 1975 and 1985. Field workers suffer the highest rates of occupational illness in the state. Farm worker health also is a serious problem in developing nations, where pesticide use can be poorly regulated. An estimated 1 million people are poisoned annually by pesticides.
Help Small Farmers
Although more and more large scale farms are making the conversion to organic practices, most organic farms are small independently owned and operated family farms of less than 100 acres. It's estimated that the United States has lost more than 650,000 family farms in the past decade. And with the US Department of Agriculture predicting that half of this country's farm production will come from 1 percent of farms by the year 2000, organic farming could become one of the few survival tactics left for family farms.
WHAT THE CONVENTIONAL FOOD INDUSTRY DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW
House votes to dump state food safety laws
Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Thursday, March 9, 2006
Washington -- The House approved a bill Wednesday night that would wipe out state laws on safety labeling of food, overriding tough rules passed by California voters two decades ago that require food producers to warn consumers about cancer-causing ingredients.
The vote was a victory for the food industry, which has lobbied for years for national standards for food labeling and contributed millions of dollars to lawmakers' campaigns. But consumer groups and state regulators warned that the bill would undo more than 200 state laws, including California's landmark Proposition 65, that protect public health.
"The purpose of this legislation is to keep the public from knowing about the harm they may be exposed to in food," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, a chief critic of the measure.
Several critics argued that the bill was rushed through the House without complete hearings as a favor to a specific industry -- at the same time that members are talking about the evils of lobbying and proposing stricter ethical rules.
Under the bill, any state that wanted to keep its own tougher standards for food labeling would have to ask for approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which has been criticized by food safety groups as slow to issue consumer warnings.
The measure was approved after a debate in which House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco accused the Republican majority of "shredding the food safety net that we have built in this country."
The measure passed 283 to 139, with the support of many Democrats. The Bay Area's 12 Democratic members opposed the bill, while Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, supported it. The legislation faces a tougher battle in the more evenly divided Senate, and there are signs of growing opposition to the measure.
California's two Democratic senators are threatening to block the bill from coming to the Senate floor. A group of 39 state attorneys general, including many Republicans, has warned of the consequences of the measure. State food and drug regulators and agricultural officials also are urging the Senate to reject the bill.
A major target of the legislation is Prop. 65, which was approved by two-thirds of California voters in 1986 and requires labeling of substances that may cause cancer or birth defects. The law has inspired other states to follow suit with their own rules on food labeling that are more stringent than federal standards.
Critics say the laws have added costs for food manufacturers and distributors, who must comply with different rules in different states. The industry's backers claim the different warning labels confuse consumers.
"There is no reason nor is there any excuse to allow regulatory inconsistency to drive up costs and keep some consumers in the dark on matters that may affect their health," said Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga.
But California officials said the new legislation would reverse the gains made through Prop. 65. Many companies, fearing the warning labels, have changed their food to meet the state's tougher standards. Bottled water companies have cut arsenic levels, and bakers have taken potassium bromate, a potential carcinogen, out of many breads, doughnuts and other bakery goods.
"We've had a lot of success in getting them to reformulate," said California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Opponents of the bill complained that it was rushed to the House floor without a public hearing, where state regulators and food safety advocates could have testified against it.
"That is the job of Congress, to hold hearings, to introduce facts, to listen to debate," said Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., who co-sponsored the bill but opposed it on the floor, saying it needed a thorough public debate. "I am wondering right now what the food industry is afraid of. Why are they trying to ram this piece of legislation through the House?"
Critics of the measure also have been frustrated that California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not taken a position on the bill despite being urged to do so by Waxman and Rep. Mary Bono, R-Palm Springs, early last month.
"Your silence on this legislation is inexplicable," Waxman wrote in a letter to the governor. "It not only rolls back essential existing laws, but it takes away your ability, and the ability of the California Legislature, to respond to future public health issues." A spokeswoman for the governor said Schwarzenegger may still jump into the debate.
"The office is reviewing it," said spokeswoman Margita Thompson. "Once the determination is made if the governor should weigh in and how, we will."
The vote Wednesday was a sign of the tremendous power of the food industry in Congress. Corporations and trade groups that joined the National Uniformity for Food Coalition, which backed the bill, have contributed more than $3 million to members in the 2005-06 election cycle and $31 million since 1998, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
The industry also has many top lobbyists pushing the bill, including White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card's brother, Brad Card, who represents the Food Products Association.
A leading fundraiser for the bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., has also been lobbying on the bill. Matt Keelen, a Republican consultant whose fundraising firm raised more than $315,000 in political action committee donations for Rogers in 2001, is now a lobbyist for the Grocery Manufacturers of America, which has led the charge for the measure.
"The food industry wants to take the states out of the picture because they can't control them," said Andy Igrejas of the National Environmental Trust, which opposes the bill. "This is how they do it. They make campaign contributions, and they hire people close to members of Congress."
But Rogers denied there was a backroom deal with the food industry. He said supporters of the bill simply believe federal standards work better than state standards on food safety.
"A chicken grown in Louisiana is going to end up on a plate in Michigan. Peas grown in Florida are going to end up in Louisiana," Rogers said. "This is an interstate matter."
The House passed an amendment late Wednesday allowing states, including California, to continue to issue warnings about the heath effects of mercury in fish and shellfish.
But the House defeated an amendment by Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, that would have let states keep laws that warn consumers about exposure to substances that could cause cancer, birth defects, reproductive health problems or allergic reactions associated with sulfites.
The House also rejected a proposal to allow states to label meat that has been treated with carbon monoxide. The gas is used to keep meat looking a healthy red or pink for longer, but consumer groups say it allows stores to sell potentially dangerous meat that has already spoiled.
E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com.
Do you know what you're eating?
Cotton Candy Ingredients
PURE FUN™ COTTON CANDY
Ingredients: Organic Evaporated Cane juice (retaining all of natures nutrients and minerals), natural flavors, natural colors, air spun
| Maple | Natural Caramel |
| Root Beer | Natural Caramel |
| Licorice | No color added |
| Spicy Cinnamon | Natural Black Carrots |
| Bubble Gum | Natural Red Cabbage |
CONVENTIONAL COTTON CANDY
You’ll be shocked at what regular candy floss is made with! Here are a few examples of non-organic Candy Floss recipes:
Refined white sugar (with all the nutrients that nature provides in sugar removed); synthetic flavors created in a laboratory to simulate a 'tastes like' the real thing, and artificially produced Food, Drug and Cosmetic (FD&C) controlled colors (some of which have been banned in cosmetics!)
Ingredients: Refined White Sugar, Artificial Flavors and Artificial Colors (see FD&C colors below, do your own investigations and draw your own conclusions)
| Blue | Blue Dye#1 (E133) |
| Pink | Red Dye #40 (E129) |
| Grape | Red Dye #3 (E127) + Blue Dye#1 (E133) |
| Orange | Red Dye #40 (E129) + Yellow Dye #6 (E110) |
| Banana | Yellow Dye #5 (E102)+ | Watermelon | Blue #1 (E133) + Red #3 (E127) + Yellow #6 (E110) |
| Cherry | Red Dye #8 (E127) |
| Green Apple | Yellow Dye #5 (E102) + Blue Dye#1 (E133) |
| Lime | Blue #1 (E133) Yellow #5 (E102) + Green #3 |