How Far Has Greenwashing Gone? The Conflicts of Natural and Organic Food

GREEN IS GOOD
by Margaret Smith

You're on another weekly trip to the local supermarket, shopping around for the freshest, healthiest goods to stock up on for the next couple of days. Well, "fresh" and "healthy" might not be the best words for it, actually. Walking up and down the aisles there are so many different options it's easy to get confused. Pesticides? High Fructose Corn Syrup? MSG? rBHT? How does the average consumer know how to buy what's really healthy for you?

Well never fear, because there's always that little label on certain products that lets you know what's "healthy" to buy. It's just a small circular sticker, divided in half and colored in green on the bottom and white on the top. The words printed on it say a lot, though: USDA ORGANIC.

In the past couple of years America has seen an unprecedented increase in corporate greenwashing. As people have become increasingly environmentally conscious, more and more companies have been apt to label their products with false green claims in order to attract customers. According to the Greenwashing Report 2009, last year alone 98 percent of green-labeled goods were found guilty of greenwashing. And all along the word organic, whether printed on the box or stamped on with the federal, USDA regulated organic label, has been a sort of lifeboat pointing people in the right direction to healthy living. But could the word organic be the biggest greenwashing dupe of them all?

That's been the issue lately as more and more loopholes are found in the ubiquitous federally-regulated organic label. While the USDA guidelines state that "products labeled 'organic' must consist of at least 95 percent organically produced ingredients (excluding water and salt)", a combination of lax standards, corporate lobbyists and the amount of allowed non-organic substances has stretched the lines between what is organic and what isn't.

The USDA organic label came under scrutiny this past summer when the Washington Post published an investigative report examining the integrity of the label. It's true that some lax standards have simply allowed for concession in organic food. According to The Daily Green, there are 38 non-organic ingredients found in USDA organic foods. Today you can buy organic beer made from non-organic hops and organic baby food formula with synthetic additives.

The real root of the problem, though, comes down to market shares. As a healthy and environmentally-safe lifestyle has become an increasing concern for consumers, the organic food business has become a profitable industry, right now at about $23 billion and growing fast. With numbers such as that, big name companies such as Kellogg and Kraft Foods have positioned themselves in the market, lobbying the government so they can get their products labeled with the USDA regulated organic sticker.

And it doesn't always necessarily come down to what's in the product that's organic. Sometimes, what's more important is what isn't. According to The Washington Post:

Under the original organics law, 5 percent of a USDA-certified organic product can consist of non-organic substances, provided they are approved by the National Organic Standards Board. That list has grown from 77 to 245 in substances since it was created in 2002. Companies that must appeal to the board every five years to keep a substance on the list, explaining why an organic substance has not been found. The goal was the shrink the list over time, but only one item has been removed so far.

Other issues include inconsistent organic standards on fish and personal care products and a directive stating that farmers could use pesticides on organic crops if after a reasonable effort they determined that the pesticide didn't contain any chemicals restricted by the organic labeling rule.

The issue of USDA regulated organic labels has become even more prevalent lately as the difference between organic and natural products has come under scrutiny. It seems lax organic regulations aren't enough for some companies. A growing controversy is stirring up between corporate agribusiness and major retailers who have been accused of blurring the line between federally-regulated organic foods and 'natural' products. Some companies have been using the classic bait-and-switch tactic to try and sell their products off as organic while switching the ingredients they use to conventional rather than organic.

The biggest case this past year has been that of Silk brand soymilk. Owned by Dean Foods, up until early 2009 Silk was made with organic soybeans. Earlier this year, though, the company switched from organic to non-organic soybeans (which are often grown with pesticides and/or using genetically-modified seeds). Dean Foods kept the same product labeling and price for their Silk soymilk, only switching the word "organic" to "natural" on the packaging. The result was a transition that consumers and retailers were both unaware of, and many kept buying the product under the impression that it was organic. The USDA recently began an investigation of the Target Corporation for wrongfully advertising Silk brand soymilk as organic. The investigation was triggered by complaints made by The Cornucopia Institute, a farm policy research group based in Wisconsin.

For many companies, switching their product from organic to natural is easy, largely because there are no federally regulated guidelines for advertising something as natural. Many consumers don't even know what the difference between natural and organic is, making it that much easier for big companies to still pass their products off as completely organic. In reality, "natural" food allows products to be sprayed with all sorts of pesticides, and even includes products like Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans. In fact, today U.S. soybean production is 95 percent dominated by genetically-modified Roundup Ready soybeans. How many of those do you think are labeled as "natural"?

It's clear that "natural" may not mean any more than words like "healthy" and "fresh." In order to make real healthy and fresh choices, though, we need real information about what's going in our bodies. Maybe the green and white sticker can lead us in the right direction now, but until we have a working definition of "organic" and "natural" that everyone can adhere to, we'll still be wandering up and down the supermarket aisles, confused.

GREEN IS GOOD