Sorting out healthy from hoax in organic products

From fruit to fabric softeners to baby formula, organic products line nearly every aisle oftoday’s supermarkets.

However, a number of recent discoveries of fraud have many people questioning what makes a product “organic”, and more importantly, who’s checking to make sure consumers get their money’s worth.

The King Soopers on Uintah sells more organic products than any other location in town.

Most shoppers told KRDO Newschannel 13 they had at least a general idea of what that was supposed to mean.

“I think it means natural, that they don’t use the sprays,” said Dana Pollitt.

“They don’t use chemicals put on to keep away bugs,” said Nancy Babbs.

“They’re supposed to be grown without herbicides,” said Anne Spitzer.

Julie Anderson, a Registered Dietitian with Peak Nutrition Clinic, part of the UCCS Health Circle, believes eating organic can improve your health and even help you avoid diseases like cancer.

“I personally believe in trying to eat things as close to their natural state as you can,” she said.

Anderson, however, admits that it’s easy for consumers to be confused or even misled when trying to shop healthy, due to the high number of terms used to market the products.

–If a product has the “USDA Organic” logo, that means the USDA has inspected its growth or preparation and verified that at least 95% of the ingredients are organic.

–Some products also have an additional 100 percent USDA organic logo, which means that every ingredient in that product has to be 100% organic, according to Anderson.

–On the other hand, if a product simply says “All Natural” or “Locally Grown”, there’s no telling what’s included.

“If something says “natural”, it’s really just nothing. They can say anything they want and say it’s natural,” explains Anderson.

Any company that carries the USDA Organic logo has to be inspected at least once a year, which most often involves a certified inspection agent going through records and examining what chemicals, if any, were used in a product’s growth or preparation.

However, only about 5% percent of certified organic products those companies actually have samples of their products tested each year for compliance.

There’s also no requirement for grocery stores to test the products they sell for compliance either.

That means most of the products sold at supermarkets are rarely or never tested to verify they are truly organic.

Most shoppers KRDO Newschannel spoke with didn’t know if they were ever tested or not.

Last year, the USDA investigated 390 complaints alleging violations of the agency’s organic violations.

An agency spokesman said the USDA doesn’t track how many of those complaints resulted in findings of violation, but it handed out more than a million dollars in fines in 2015.

Penalties include the disallowance of using the USDA Organic label. However, the maximum monetary fine per violation is only $11,000, which many critics believe is too small fortoday’s billion dollar corporations.

To ensure that you’re getting a product that truly meets the regulations to be called “organic”, Anderson recommends not just looking for USDA labels, but also labels from the Environmental Working Group and the Non GOM Project.

Both are nonprofits that independently test organic products for compliance.

The non-profit labels are usually right next to the USDA logo on packages.

“So anytime you can find a secondary inspection label, that’s a really good sign,” says Anderson.

And it’s a good way to make sure when you spend that extra money you spend on the same food, you’re not getting a “lemon”… at least not a lemon with unlisted chemicals.

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