You only need to take a quick trip to the grocery store to see the growing popularity of organic foods. The phenomenon of organic foods is good for consumers, but unfortunately there are some misconceptions about these foods that remain very prevalent.
When we see the organic label on the packaging of a food product, we tend to automatically think that the food must be very natural, clean, and healthy. There’s an implication that organic food is free from the loose morals of the large-scale food industry.
This may be true for vegetables, but it’s a different story when it comes to meat. The industry strives to portray organic meat as a product of purity, but that’s not always the case.
Fish provides one example where the organic label doesn’t necessarily mean what we think it does. All that’s required for a USDA organic label for fish is that the fish is wild. However, the label doesn’t enforce any regulations on the amount of heavy metals found in the fish, such as mercury.
The organic label for meat is also a bit misleading, in that it enforces no regulations on the living conditions of the livestock raised for meat purposes.
The organic label does actually regulate the kinds of foods that can be used in the raising of livestock. This means that the animals can’t be fed hormones or antibiotics, which goes a long way towards easing our fears that we’re eating unwanted substances in our meat. Unfortunately, the organic label still doesn’t make any guarantees about the animals’ quality of life.
If you have to choose between organic or non-organic meat, the organic meat will always be a better choice. If you’d like to buy meat with more stringent regulations, however, especially concerning the living conditions of the animals, look for meats with other labels, such as biodynamic certifications and the RSCPA label.
It’s obvious that there’s a disparity between the standards of raising organic meat versus the public conception of what the organic label means. In order to address this problem, two things must happen: the public must educate itself regarding the real qualifications for the labeling of meat, and the industry must enact stricter standards for the organic label.
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