Sigh. I'm sad to say that I gave up on organics after the 5th or 6th time I felt fooled into paying extra. Gabe was raised on organic products and I was feeling pretty good about paying extra.
Then I found out that many products labeled "organic", such as makeup and seafood, dont actually have any definition for being organic and often contain substances or were grown/raised in conditions that seem to strongly defy the idea of 'organic'.
Then I found out that many products imported from other countries sport the "organic" label, but not the USDA Organic label, and if the product meets the standards for "organic" in the country of origin, that labeling is okay. In many countries, using hormones, antibiotics and chemicals are okay if it was necessary for the health of the animal/plant, and they may still bear the organic label if they were mostly organically raised/grown most of the time.
Later I discovered that the organic milk I was buying was simply reconstituted milk powder, largely from countries like New Zealand, which may have contained just as many hormones and antibiotics as regular milk from a dairy near my house that doesnt do anything organic with their products. I can add wateer to mystery milk powder for a lot less money. Later I noticed many organic milks have 3-5 "milk ingredients" like powdered milk, skim milk, milk powder, whole milk, and that those can all come from wholesale sources of questionable and little known origins. I started looking for regular plain old milk that had just one milk ingredient: milk.
Then we bought a bunch of hot dogs from Coleman, labeled organic, uncured, no added nitrites. Wow, sounded great! Until I got the consumer reports article later that week that pointed out that there was really nothing any better about these hot dogs, that plenty of nitrites were already in the basic ingredients so none needed to be added anyhow, and that they were near the bottom of the taste ratings to boot. Swell...I paid extra for something no healthier or better and it also tastes like crap.
Then I read how the USDA is going to allow all sorts of spices and other ingredients, including whey proteins and chili peppers, of non organic origins to be added freely to products labeled 'organic' and they can still be called 'organic'.
I now had the picture. People really want organic products and the food industry is willing to play every little marketing game, bend every rule, holeshot every loophole and if necessary, provide me with an inferior product of fairly questionable contents in order to stamp the word "organic" on it and charge me extra.
I now read labels in great detail, and often review ingredient lists closely. And I'm working very hard to buy products with just one or two ingredients. I dont automatically buy organic, if I buy it at all. And I dont overpay unless the benefits are certain, obvious, and unlikely to be subverted by some moron who's one step away from stuffing the product with chemically treated pork flavored cardboard.
They still got me though. Last week I bought crab cakes labeled "Made with REAL lump crab meat!!!!". On opening the package, I smelled the distinctive odor of Surimi, aka "fake K-rab". Sure enough, the ingredients are "Surimi, bread crumbs, water, lump crab meat, etc.". So technically yes, made with real crab meat...just not primarily and not much of it.
Know your food. Dont be fooled.
