Once again, Unexpected Environments is happy to share a post from the Cornucopia Institute, which
supports strong organic labeling standards and calls out corporate
agribusiness for greenwashing unethical farming practices and diluting
the value of the USDA Organic certification. Charlotte Vallaeys, the institute's Director of Farm and Food Policy, takes Time Magazine to task for continuing the corporate media's campaign to slander organic agriculture as "elitist" and its produce no more healthy than chemically-laced corporate food. For more information, follow this link to the Institute's website.
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Dr. Oz in Time Magazine slanders Families Who Choose Safe, Organic Food for Their Children
As
Americans become increasingly aware of the story behind conventional
foods—the ecologically destructive monoculture fields, the petrochemical
fertilizers, the toxic pesticides and dangerous fumigants—the
agrochemical industry has launched an all-out media offensive against
the booming organic industry.
The
agrochemical industry’s communications specialists have apparently
found willing partners in major nationwide media outlets like The New York Times and Time
magazine, which have recently published articles discouraging people
from buying organic foods. The message is nearly always the same, as
industry-friendly researchers and reporters downplay the role and harm
caused by agricultural chemicals and focus instead on the differences
between a handful of common nutrients. Despite overwhelming scientific
evidence to the contrary, the conclusion is always that organic foods
are not worth the extra price because the nutritional differences are
minimal.
First,
we must set the record straight. Scientific studies show that milk
from pastured cows contains higher levels of beneficial fats. Beef from
grass-fed cattle and eggs from pastured hens are lower in cholesterol
and saturated fat and higher in healthy omega-3 fatty acids and Vitamins
A and E. Organic strawberries and tomatoes contain more healthy
antioxidants. These are all undisputed facts laid out in a myriad of
published, peer-reviewed scientific papers.
Consumers
increasingly turn to organic and grass-based foods, based on this
scientific evidence that has been reported in magazines, including Time, in recent years. Now, the Dec 3rd issue of Time
mindlessly repeats the agribusiness mantra: “Nutritionally, an egg is
an egg.” Milk is milk. And canned peas, with toxic pesticide residues,
heated to extreme temperatures during processing, and then placed in a
container lined with a suspected endocrine disruptor, are just as
healthy as those for sale at a farmer’s market, picked fresh from a
local field just hours ago.
The
purpose of these media reports and stories seems to be to pull
Americans away from thoughtful discourse about our food and back to
blissful ignorance. Concern over pesticides, animal welfare, fostering
local economies, and pollution turn people toward organic and local
foods—and that’s bad for business for the chemical and industrial
farming industries. No wonder they want us all to look at an egg,
whether produced on a factory farm or laid by a free-range, pastured
hen, and see nothing more.
The
paternalistic message—to shut up and eat our food—is no longer
working. Americans are no longer ignoring the mounting scientific
evidence that pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, hormones, antibiotics
and other drug residues are harming us, even at extremely low levels,
and especially our children.
This
scientific evidence about pesticides’ harmful effects, most recently
reviewed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and covered in the latest
issue of Pediatrics, will continue to be a major driving force behind the booming success and growth of the organic food movement.
The
agrochemical industry will not win the hearts and minds (and stomachs)
of Americans, especially when the health of our children is on the
line. So they have turned their latest attempt to bring Americans back
to blind trust in conventional foods by focusing on our collective class
resentments. A more sinister message has taken hold, likening a diet
of conventional foods to “The 99% Diet” and a chemical-free organic diet
as "elitist."
In Time
magazine, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who once told millions of viewers, “I want you
to eat organic foods” and “your kids deserve better than to be part of a
national chemistry experiment,” has seemingly changed his tune and
turned the decision to buy organic foods into a political and class
issue.
Not
only did Dr. Oz write that conventional foods are nutritionally equal
to organic foods (he never mentions pesticide contamination), he calls
organic foods “elitist.” Suddenly, a middle-class mother who decides to
pay extra for a safe haven from pesticide contamination is called
“snooty” and a “food snob” by the very same celebrity physician who once
urged her to protect her children from agricultural chemicals by
choosing organic.
Of
course, the scientific evidence has not changed since Dr. Oz told us to
buy organic. The study, for example, that showed statistically
significant higher rates of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD) in children with higher levels of dietary pesticide exposure has
not disappeared, and is considered as scientifically sound and
convincing today as it was when it was first published in 2010 and
reported in media outlets including Time.
The
conventional food advocates are now attempting to dissuade Americans
from buying organic foods by turning the issue into one of class and
privilege. The tactic is to paint food as a reflection of one’s
position in society, like owning a Mercedes or fancy yacht, rather than a
question of health and safety—organic food is painted not as a safe
haven from pesticides, but as an elitist food for the “1%.” Would any
of us 99%’ers want to be considered a “snob?”
Middle-class
Americans who prioritize personal finances and choose to protect their
children from harmful pesticide residues should be proud of this
decision, and should not be bullied or shamed by Oz. Our children, as
Dr. Oz once noted, should not serve as the human equivalents of lab
rats. Rather than malign organic foods as elitist, we must recognize
the very real and indisputable health benefits of organics and work to
make pure, wholesome, uncontaminated foods more accessible and
affordable for all.
Charlotte Vallaeys, M.S., M.T.S.
Director, Farm and Food Policy
The Cornucopia Institute
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