Dear USDA, When it says “organic,” it better be organic
If Angry Cat were around today, she’d be livid. I mean tearing the paint from the walls livid. See, we don’t know for certain, but Angry Cat may have died from tainted food. And now, in the wake of that – in the wake of the Menu Foods disaster – the USDA, in their infinite wisdom, is considering a rule change that’ll further dilute the meaning of the word "organic."
That’s right, under the new rule, all those big Agri-businesses we already trust so, so much? They can call beer "organic" even if it’s made with pesticide-treated hops.
They can call food items "organic" even if they contain synthetic food colorings, fish oil from farm-raised, mercury-tainted fish, sausage casings from factory-farmed animals, and (among other things) inorganic whey protein concentrate.
Huh. Protein concentrates from crappy overseas factories. Just what we want in our "organic" foods after we’ve been so careful about finding new resources for our surviving pets.
Yeah, Angry Cat would be pissed.
But since she’s not here at the moment, I’m going to send you over to this most excellent diary on Daily Kos, and to the Regulations.gov page where you can leave a comment and tell the USDA just how you feel. (The Daily Kos diary includes detailed instructions for maneuvering through the rather unfriendly comment form. I highly recommend that you write up your comment first and then copy-and-paste to the site; the form has a bad habit of timing out.)
And by the way, because, as we all know, the USDA is indeed infinitely wise about such things and infinitely willing to listen to the average consumer, they’ve given us a teensy window of time for comments. In fact, that time runs out at the end of day TODAY. (Believe me, if I’d known about this a week ago…)
No doubt Agri-businesses had months of lobbying time. Us? We got a week. Thanks, USDA! Love you too. Here, have a burger and some fries. No clue where the ingredients came from, but you told me they were organic.
The USDA deserves some pretty serious karma, don’t they? Insane. I added my comments, though I’m not holding my breath that they will be read.
Yeah, I know what you mean. They provided a little-publicized seven day window for feedback, which tells me they’re not all that interested in feedback. I can at least hold out a smidge of hope that today’s diary on Daily Kos had enough reader/commenters to bombard their comment form for the final 24 hours.
Thank you for bringing up that very important matter to my attention with this post. I added a comment too. Lets hope we can change something…
At least you can add comments. In france they would pass the law totally unnoticed, during the summer months for example.
You’re welcome, Karine. I’m still frustrated I didn’t find out about this till the last minute, but every little bit (we hope) helps.
Wow, Gracianne, I didn’t realize that. How utterly annoying!
I just discovered your blog a few weeks ago. I, too, was wondering about the sudden illness and death of your cat and possibility of the link between the tainted pet food and her death.
It is infuriating to learn of relaxing regulation of the organic food in the light of what just happened to pet food and animal feed industry. I am curious as to whose interest USDA think they are looking after.
Thank you for the wonderful posts. I am sad to learn that the Angry Cat is gone (She was such a beatiful cat.) but still glad to have found your blog. I love your blog! -Jill-
Jill, thank you! I do hope Angry Cat’s spirit lives on around these parts. (And she won’t be the last cat to live in our house — not by a long shot.)
As for the USDA and interests: I’d guess every single one of those ingredients on the new rule list has a powerful corporation lobbying for it. The Kos article I linked to points at Anheuser-Busch being behind the addition of inorganic hops. I’m sure that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s always about putting corporate needs first. Hell, just look at how the USDA’s been dealing with mad cow inspections. Ugh. Scary.
Saw the KOS article when it was posted but god to see you were publicizing it too. This just pisses me off about AC, because AC rocked! (Speaking of cats who rocked, you know the clever grayling? Came home from a concert two weeks ago and found her dead in the road. I spent a week walking around in tears saying, “but she was my special kitty!!!” – and now am sniffling again. But she was my special kitty!!!)