Junkstyle Diva

How many people really understand the labels on the food we eat? I just learned something quite interesting recently about all the different 'organic' labels. I thought organic meant 'organic' like 100% organic. Wrong! So, you know I am all about getting our  genetically modified food aka: gmo food labeled in California. I spend a great deal of my time working , rather volunteering to educate people about this important proposition. Thats how I stumbled onto the label organic wagon.

I try to buy mostly organic because, I thought that was the purest food we can buy, or as they used to call it - 'food' when I was a kid.  I read an article in Extraordinary Health magazine that clearly describes all the different organic foods that are sold in the markets.


Here is what I learned:

 The USDA established the guidelines of who could display the 'organic' label. In a nutshell, any foods that contain at least 95% organic ingredients can be labeled as such. What? 95%? What about the remaining 5% then? June 9th, 2007 the USDA added 38 non-organic ingredients to the national list: 19 food colorings, two starches, casings for sausages, hops, fish oil, chipotle chili pepper, gelatin, celery powder, dill weed oil, frozen lemon grass, and a sweetener called fructooligosaccharides. Fructoo what? Even though it sounds bad it is a natural fructan sweetner, and acts like fiber.

Those foods which contain 100% organic ingredients are the only ones who can get the '100% USDA Organic' label. There is nothing but organic stuff in it. Period.


It evens gets more complicated. Some organic food is 70% organic and there is a label that shows that, well not really a label but they can say it on the package. Like the chocolate bar shown here.

 

 

Last but not least there is the 'natural' word on LOTS of food. I bet you don't know that the word natural is NOT regulated. They do not contain additives or preservatives, however, they CAN contain gmos and can be grown with pesticides. Whenever I see the word 'natural' on anything I want to eat, I put it back.

Now this is the label I want to see on ALL our food. And voting Yes on Prop 37 will get this ball rolling.