USDA "Organic"

[MountainGaurdian]

Actually, "Organic' is a difficult standard to meet, and it's not only that there's a fee for getting registered officially into the program.
It's totally true that most Americans think that food grows in Styrofoam at the store!!!
Most of use are surrounded by fields and lawns that are treated with amazing amounts of amazing products, on land we can't control or afford to own.
Look up the actual definitions of these various statements that show up on products at the store. It's very annoying, at best! Biddy forgot another good one, "Natural", which has no official meaning for foodstuffs at all.
There's so much 'fantasy information' out there on the internet, and understanding, and taking the time, to look up good information is necessary.
Mary

LOL...

I worked to put in a stone and liner pond and stream for this elderly woman a few years back. She is a very wealthy, wife of a college professor and a bleeding heart liberal. My kids have worked for her for years doing yard work, cleaning her house with the 18 rescue dogs and a dozen rescue cats all weirdly dying of cancer once they get to her place. She will not allow the branch of a tree to be cut, you literally have to save every worm you inadvertently dig up etc etc etc. She is emotionally torn up when she sees one of her fish eat a bug, really upset when I unthinkingly threw a bug into her pond for the fish to eat... lol... She was utterly horrified at how I could do such a horrible thing.

This woman basically orders all of her food from the internet and creates about two truckloads of cardboard a month which the kids and I break down and haul off for her to help her out. She orders several cases of chicken products each month as well as some other meat products.

You should have seen the fit she threw when she found out that I "kill" chickens, hogs, goats, rabbits and hunt wildlife to process into meat. She still has not stopped chewing on me about that.. Yet she eats several cases of meat from animals killed and processed for her to eat each month?

I tried going a more natural route to the discussion of meat and what not asking her about a lion hunting an animal on the plains of Africa... Her response was... what kind of "God" would create such a horrible world where things killed each other...

You really cannot talk any sense into people like this, they just don't have it to use or give...

 

[Folly's place]

Again, so true! We are not a rational species!
Mary

 

[OhZark Biddies]

I do think that 'certified organic' is a good thing, worth it to me as a consumer, for many products, although not everything. And I have read the regs for it for many products in the USA.
'Coming close' is also good, and maybe more practical for most of us.
Mary

I tend to ignore all the labels and focus more on buying local and small scale...

We raise, catch or hunt most of our meat, and buy locally quite a bit for whatever we can ... but it’s still tough to find “clean and natural” stuff regardless of label.

But I think it’s tough for any of us to eat good “clean” food these days... understanding what the labeling and regulations are and are not, and doing the best we can is about as good as we can do.

 

[rosemarythyme]

'Coming close' is also good, and maybe more practical for most of us.

That's definitely my aim for both the eggs and veggies I grow. Obviously there's no point in having a personal garden or flock be certified organic but I'm pretty sure I meet most of the criteria, which is "good enough." It's a wonderful feeling to have control over some of what goes into my food from seed (or chicks) to plate.

 

[Acre4Me]

LOL...

I worked to put in a stone and liner pond and stream for this elderly woman a few years back. She is a very wealthy, wife of a college professor and a bleeding heart liberal. My kids have worked for her for years doing yard work, cleaning her house with the 18 rescue dogs and a dozen rescue cats all weirdly dying of cancer once they get to her place. She will not allow the branch of a tree to be cut, you literally have to save every worm you inadvertently dig up etc etc etc. She is emotionally torn up when she sees one of her fish eat a bug, really upset when I unthinkingly threw a bug into her pond for the fish to eat... lol... She was utterly horrified at how I could do such a horrible thing.

This woman basically orders all of her food from the internet and creates about two truckloads of cardboard a month which the kids and I break down and haul off for her to help her out. She orders several cases of chicken products each month as well as some other meat products.

You should have seen the fit she threw when she found out that I "kill" chickens, hogs, goats, rabbits and hunt wildlife to process into meat. She still has not stopped chewing on me about that.. Yet she eats several cases of meat from animals killed and processed for her to eat each month?

I tried going a more natural route to the discussion of meat and what not asking her about a lion hunting an animal on the plains of Africa... Her response was... what kind of "God" would create such a horrible world where things killed each other...

You really cannot talk any sense into people like this, they just don't have it to use or give...

You brought tears of laughter to my eyes this morning. I’ve known a few non-sensible bleeding hearts like this. Teaching my kids to think for themselves, and to value logic...hoping it works in the long run.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

To put it into perspective some just look at something so simple as honey...

There is no congruent law or regulation in America for organic honey. Our trade practise is to not question any foreign labeling. Any product or ingredient labeled organic is resold as such. No need to follow our regulations for that labeling as it is a foreign product and does not require to be so regulated.

Therefore China is our largest, by a long shot, producer of Organic Honey sold in the USA. Yet China's honey is banned from many countries due to being primarily sugar water/corn syrup carried by bees back to comb. Not nectar. To rid itself from surplus honey China routes it through Singapore and other countries to be sold in Europe. Here in America all they have to do is slap an organic label on it and we resell it as such no questions asked.

This is but one product. The rules and how our trade laws are not affected by our domestic production laws is the same for every product. Just sayin'...perspective.

 

[HopeSprings]

Years ago I checked the bottom of a can of organic beans: it was labeled from China. Yeah right! Now there are no labels to let the consumer know where their food is grown. I decided that I had to have an area to grow my own food when I moved here to western NC. Garlic was one of the foods I have to grow as all of the supermarket garlic comes from China. (My original cloves came from a local farmers market.) Aside from mushrooms, and I'm working on that, I grow all of the produce I need, including potatoes, sweet potatoes, dried beans, onions, etc. An addition to the garden is in the works to grow grains for the flock!
Oh, and I have fed them only organic crumbles so far (they're 9 weeks old). Though I do wonder if their feed really is organic!