It appears that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and related industry are attempting to sneak banned conventional ingredients into organic beer, sausage, and processed food. Do I care? Absolutely! Why? For two reasons basically: (1) it represents a serious breach of important principles and practices and (2) it is a laxness in applying standards that can spread more widely than the US.

The USDA has announced a controversial proposal, with absolutely no input from consumers, to allow 38 new non-organic ingredients in products bearing the USDA Organic" seal. Most of the ingredients are food colorings derived from plants that are supposedly not "commercially available" in organic form. But at least three of the proposed ingredients, apparently backed by beer companies, including Anheuser-Busch, and pork and food processors, represent a serious threat to organic standards, and have raised the concerns of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), as well as a number of smaller organic companies and organic certifiers.

Last Modified: Friday, May 18th, 2007 @ 06:45

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