More Howdini How-To's

How To Tell If Packaged Food Is Organic:
Confused about what all those organic labels really mean?
I break it down for you.



How To Buy Eco-Friendly Local Foods:
Tips for reducing the distance from seed-to-plate.

Platter Chatter

The folks at Sustainable Table asked me a couple of questions for their Platter Chatter blog. Here are my answers. More can be found on their blog.

What’s your definition of local?

I like non-rigid definitions of local. For me, local is the spirit of the food, more than an exact number of feet from my kitchen to the field where the food was grown. With that said, I try to support the farmers in what sociologist Jack Kloppenburg calls my local food shed. I shop at farmers markets when I can and look for tri-state food in the supermarket.

The real spirit of “local” doesn’t mean just measuring your food miles, especially for those items that my community can’t grow locally. For instance, my morning cup of coffee may not be “local,” but when I buy fair-trade certified coffee I know that my food dollar supported communities and didn’t just line the pockets of a CEO.

What’s your definition of sustainable?

I used to have a chip on my shoulder about the word “sustainable.” Most people on this planet don’t want to sustain where they are. They’re struggling; they want change, not the status quo. But I’ve come to see that the term sustainable can be aspirational, too. It doesn’t mean resigning ourselves to what is; it means working toward a vision of a world in which the values of fairness, community, and environmental stewardship are all respected. In this way, I think of sustainability as a process not a place. It’s not easy to achieve, but is a powerful goal to reach toward.

Sustainability takes on special meaning in an era of global warming. Sustainability is no longer optional; the fate of our planet depends on it. And food will play a huge role in either helping us move toward sustainability and lower greenhouse gas emissions, or by making our crisis worse. [You can learn more about the connection between our food system and climate change at this special primer page I’ve created with Sustainable Table.]

When you think of local, sustainable, and community, how would you rank the three (from most important to least) and why?

I often hear a version of this question, when I’m speaking to audiences and they ask: “Okay, so which is it: should we choose organic or local?”

In an ideal word, we wouldn’t have to make this choice. In an ideal world, our elected officials wouldn’t sanction the use on our nation’s farmland of man-made chemicals that are known endocrine disrupters, neurotoxins, or carcinogens.

But, well, we don’t live in an ideal world.

Given that reality, when posed with the hypothetical local-vs-organic head-to-head, I encourage people to choose local food from family farms. Those farms may not be organic now, but they may soon transition, particularly with customer support and encouragement.

But I can guarantee you that if those farms disappear–as many thousands do every year–we’ll lose that farmland forever, and never have a chance to have local or organic food at all.

What’s one thing people can do to be more local and sustainable?

There is so much we can do, I hate to boil it down to one thing, so I’ll cheat and give you two ideas: one that’s really specific and one that’s big picture!

First, if you don’t already, go to your local farmers market or become a member of a community support agriculture farm. (This site has lots of resources to make these choices). This is one of your best ways to connect with farm-fresh food and get to know the people behind your local food system.

The second suggestion is much more vague and really quite simple: Follow your passion. There is so much work that needs to be done on the path toward sustainability. Whether it’s starting community gardens, working with schools to bring in healthy foods, fighting for farmer-friendly policy, educating yourself about genetically modified foods, learning about the connections between the food system and climate change, or simply cooking more, whatever specific act you choose to do, you will be aligning yourself with the millions across the globe walking on the path of sustainability.

A Little Honesty about Honest Tea

With Coca-Cola's announcement on February 5th that it's acquiring a 40% stake in Honest Tea, another up-and-coming company up-and-came.

But you wouldn't have noticed by looking at Honest Tea's label: not much on that end changed.
In fact, it's harder and harder to perceive which of your favorite brands are now sub-brands of the Big Guys.

In Grub, I include a graphic inspired by the work of pioneering food researcher, Phil Howard, of Michigan State University. He's been tracking the consolidation of the food system, particularly in the organic sector, for years. On his site, you'll find eye-opening graphics, like this one:

How To Buy Eco-Friendly Local Foods

How to Find Organic Produce

How to Choose Safe Beauty and Skin Care Products

What Difference Does Organic Make (Really)?

Maybe you’re puzzled, like me, by the headlines that keep popping up, asking some version of “Is it worth it to choose organic?” I remember first stumbling on a newspaper headline posing a variation of this question more than seven years ago. Ever since, I’ve read dozens of articles, all with a similar message: The science is complicated — journalists equivocate. More research needs to be done, they add. The average reader is left scratching our head.

So, is it worth it? Sure, we need more science; we can always learn more. But these articles are confusing because they ignore what we already know. And what is that?

Well, we know that our country is blanketed with pesticides every year. By last tally in the United States, we sprayed 1.2 billion (yes, that’s with a “b”) pounds of “active” ingredients in pesticides. And we know that many of these are known to be neurotoxins, hormone disrupters, or probably carcinogens. And we know that millions more pounds of so-called “inert” ingredients are sprayed annually, with the same not-so-lovely effects on wildlife and human life. But we can’t even estimate the amount because companies are not required to disclose them.

What else do we know? We know these pesticides are unnecessary. Organic practices lead to abundant bounty. Just ask Jules Pretty, and his team at the University of Essex in England, who compared productivity on organic and non-organic farms globally, and found that organic farms performed equally well, if not better, in every country they evaluated. Plus, many of the hazardous pesticides we use in the food system are used just to get our produce looking pretty, anyway.

We also know this: Kids are the most vulnerable of all. Why? Because, pound-for-pound, children eat and drink more than adults. They also have more hand-to-mouth contact. (Spend any time with a baby and you’ll know how quickly everything they touch goes one place: into their mouths). The immune system of kids is also less developed and so provides them with less protection. Plus, children tend to eat more of specific fruits and vegetables, so their exposure to particular pesticides can mount quickly and be particularly high.

We can all think of examples; I need only think of my little brother who was a rabid apple juice fanatic. On the day he was leaving for his first cross-country adventure to visit our grandparents, his only question was “Is there apple juice in Jersey?”

Researchers have also found that turning to an organic diet can have a measurable impact on kids’ health. Researchers in Washington studying preschool-age kids found that those with organic diets had lower levels of organophosphate residues than their non-organic munching classmates. As soon as those kids switched their diets to organic, the researchers found a marked decrease in this pesticide residue. As one of the study’s authors pointed out: “Organic produce appears to provide a relatively simple way for parents to reduce their children’s exposure to pesticides.”

So what can we do to reduce our risk and our kids’ risks? Thankfully, it’s really quite simple; we needn’t scratch our heads at all. We can choose organic every chance we get.

Posted first here.

Love Your Organic Strawberries? Now's the Time to Speak Up!

Join Environmental Working Groups' call to support organic food and farming in this year's decisions about the shape and budget of our new Farm Bill. Sign the petition here.

Why I'm Saying Goodbye to Bumble & Bumble

This morning, as I was getting ready for the day, I stopped mid-hair-brushing to read, for the first time, the ingredients label in my Bumble & Bumble Styling Lotion.

I hadn't been able to get out of my mind the recent news of friends who experienced the nerve-wracking wait for biopsies that their doctors thought might be cancerous (but, thankfully, weren't). Conversations with them got me thinking again about the importance of our food choices, not only for our own bodies but for our role in feeding into or not (no pun intended) the toxic soup we all live in. But the conversations also got me thinking about the cosmetics I wear and the hair styling gel and perfume I spray on my skin, too. And even though I write about these concerns in Grub--and remind us that our skin is our largest organ--I had never thought too carefully about my hair products... until this morning. That's when I landed on this word-- "methylparaben"--among a very, very long list of substances I'd otherwise never heard of... well, mostly that I hadn't heard of (I'm familiar with water, of course, which is ingredient No. 1).

So I decided to see what the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Campaign had to say about my hair product. Their website includes a searchable personal care product safety guide with in-depth information on 14,841 products (yes, 14841 products!). EWG provides safety ratings based on toxicity and regulatory databases, and offers options for safer products. You can search by ingredient, too, which is just what I did. This is what I found out when I went there on my hunch about methylparaben: It's found in 5,907 products in the database and in the summary on health information, the website flagged these four major concerns: Estrogenic chemicals and other endocrine disruptors; Classified as toxic; Insufficient safety data; Immune system toxicants (allergies, sensitization).

Hmm. It wasn't looking too good for my hair styling lotion. Overall, EWG gave B&B Styling Lotion a "2.6" (that's considered "moderate concern"), but that included concerns about ingredients with "Reproductive/developmental toxicity" and those that the industry itself suggests limits on use. Basically, it didn't sound like something I wanted to spray on my hair daily. So, this evening, I bid a fond farewell to my Bumble & Bumble products until they come up with ones that don't mean I have to choose between a good hair day and a toxic spray.

Check out your beauty products' rankings at the EWG website and check out their take action page to figure out what you can do to be part of the safe cosmetics campaign. --Anna

Postscript Part I: As I was researching online, I found out that just yesterday The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, of which EWG is a founding member, announced the 500 companies who have signed onto their "Compact for Safe Cosmetics," a pledge to eliminate toxic ingredients from their products. Companies on board so far include The Body Shop, Burt's Bees, and Kiss My Face. (Notably not on the list are the big guns such as L'Oréal, Revlon, Estée Lauder, OPI.)

With the announcement of the Compact and why we need it, the Campaign is also highlighting the current lack of regulatory oversight of cosmetics safety. On a positive note, The Campaign lauds a California bill that outlaws ingredients in cosmetics known to be carcinogens or endocrine disrupters. Go Cali! Those of you out there in my home state, let your elected officials know you're pleased to see that Arnie passed the California Safe Cosmetics Act, the nation's first state law on chemicals in cosmetics. Signed back in October, the Act went into effect this January. Read about it here.

Postscript Part 2: On the phone with Bryant, telling him about my scary findings, he mentioned this group he learned about at the Earth Island Institute's Brower Youth Awards: Teens for Safe Cosmetics.

Mouths of the World Unite

Mouths are angry, downright pissed off, and they're not taking it anymore. Learn about The Mouth Revolution here. The short film (check out outtakes here) is the latest stab at the junk food and fake food industry from the creative minds behind The Meatrix. The film was made with funding from Annie's Organics (who needless to say has an obvious stake in getting mouths to revolt against the junk food they're competing against) and with non-profit partners who include some of my favorite organizations: Organic Consumers Association, Pesticide Action Network, Campaign to Label GMOs and Trans Free America. Check out the website to get more information about trans fats, GMOs, pesticides and artificial ingredients, and how you can help be part of changing current legislation around these issues. --Anna

Starbucks and Safeway Say Hold the Hormone -- But Why Not Everywhere?

Looks like all this citizen outcry about not wanting artificial hormones in our cafe lattes paid off. The Safeway supermarket chain has said they will only stock rBGH-free milk on their shelves. And, Starbucks announced it will serve rBGH-free milk in its cafes in Oregon and Washington... so what about the rest of us?

rBGH, or recombinant bovine growth hormone, is a synthetic hormone sold on the market under the name "Posilac" and is produced by Monsanto (or, Monsanto). It is supposed to benefit dairy farmers by increasing milk production, but according to every farmer I've interviewed who has tried it, it does more harm than good: with artificially increased growth, cows tend to fall sicker easier. Public health advocates have also raised concerns about the human health impacts of consuming milk products with rBGH. (For more on this tale, read here about the attempt by journalists to investigate the rBGH story, and the reaction they spawned at Monsanto.) --Anna

Who Owns What? Organic Industry Charts Updated

If you've gotten your hands on a copy of Grub, you'll be familiar with the graphic we included based on Phil Howard's research on who owns what in organics. Well, the gobbling up of companies continues and you can find the latest here. --Anna