WARNING: Watch out for these two ingredients
Unless you are eating local, fresh, unprocessed, whole organic food, it isn’t enough to just look for the USDA Organic logo—you must become a label reader!
Federal law requires all certified organic products to be made from organic ingredients. If something’s not available as organic, some exceptions can be made if they comprise less than 5% of the product. But any materials used must first be approved by the National Organic Standards Board. The NOSB vets products to make sure they are safe for human health, safe for the environment, and essential (i.e. the product could not be made without them).
So how can two food ingredients be widely used in processed organic foods when they have documented relationships with serious health concerns—even cancer?
OrganicEye’s Director, Mark Kastel, helps decode what to look for on organic labels so you can shop like a pro at your local co-op or supermarket—and discusses what we can do to reform the USDA so they are truly looking after our best interests.
Plant-based foods: Are they healthier for you?
Mark will explain the difference between eating vegetarian food and eating plant-based foods, along with detailing what might be dangerous about these ultra-processed (and oftentimes patented) products. In some cases, it’s a real stretch to call them “food.”
And fasten your safety belt. Investors are cooking up “cultured meat” in the laboratory. There is now some evidence to suggest that the medium that’s necessary to grow these cells comes from fetal calves.
CAUTION: You and your children might be their lab rats.
About Kastel’s Kitchen
Because of lax oversight by the FDA and USDA, choosing certified organic food is just the first step in ensuring that you’re buying the best products for yourself and your family. In our ongoing series, OrganicEye’s Director, Mark Kastel, will tap his many years of experience in the organic movement to decode the best options from the grocery aisles, farmers markets, and online buying sites. His perspective is based on over three decades of personal experience as a shopper, gardener, certified organic farmer, and organic business/cooperative consultant, as well as his work as the country’s preeminent organic industry watchdog for the past 18 years.
Mark first came to organics after nearly being disabled from pesticide poisoning. Even though he was already eating a healthy, whole food diet, he credits his move to all-organic—on the recommendation of one of the country’s preeminent environmental allergists—with his recovery. He now enjoys robust health, not only due to avoiding the agrochemical and drug residues often found in conventional food, but because of the exceptional nutrition inherent in true organic production. He has skin in the game and a passion for protecting the authenticity of everyone’s organic food, including his own.