Several months I wrote a story about Bisphenol-A (BPA) in organic food cans.

The post continues to get a lot of views because people are becoming increasingly aware and concerned about the packaging that their food comes in, even in organic food products.

With news coming out of Maine this morning, parents now need to take extra precaution about what they feed their young kids. Why?

BPA, which is known as a developmental, neural, and reproductive toxin, was found in 11 of 12 baby and toddler foods tested by The Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine.

Read more »

For people who are new to organic or have very limited financial means to buy organic, the one thing that I always say is the following:

The absolute number one priority in your household should be organic milk for your kids.

Even if a family thinks that organic food is out of their budget, organic milk cannot be compromised under any condition.

Organic milk is about the health of the kids, and that comes before everything else.

THE SERIOUS HEALTH RISKS OF HORMONAL MILK

Approximately 20% of the milk in the U.S. is hormonal milk. But what exactly is hormonal milk? Read more »

Stories about the toxicity of our food supply just keep rolling in.

As I wrote about recently, numerous samples of conventional apple juice were found to have unsafe and illegal levels of arsenic. And now orange juice is having its own set of problems.

Coca-Cola, which makes Minute Maid and Simply Orange, reported to the FDA on December 28th that some Brazilian growers of oranges that are used in the company’s juices and those of its competitors had sprayed their trees with carbendazim, a toxic fungicide.

As a result, the FDA has temporarily halted (PDF) all shipments of imported orange juice while it conducts field tests. Products already on supermarket shelves that have “low levels” of carbendazim (80 parts per billion) may still be sold. Read more »

As I have been predicting, the class action lawsuits would continue against major food companies for using genetically-modified ingredients (GMOs) and/or synthetic substances in their “all-natural” products.

The trend started first started with Con Agra then moved to Kashi and Naked Juice. Now it is against PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay.

In a class action lawsuit filed (PDF) by law firm Milberg LLP against Frito-Lay, the claim states that the company markets its Tostitos and Sun Chips products as “made with all natural ingredients” when in fact they are not “all natural”.

The lawsuit contends that the ingredients are not “all natural” because the corn and vegetable oils (soybean, corn and canola) that they are using are all genetically-modified. Therefore, they are not “all natural” and are counter to what Frito-Lay is marketing them as. Read more »

I have been writing about the genetically-engineered salmon issue for quite a while now, and last week I put up a story about how Congress held hearings for the first-time ever about this FrankenFish.

As I mentioned in the post, it was a great step in raising awareness of this abhorrent technology and hopefully it will never get approved.

AquaBounty, the company that is trying to receive FDA approval for genetically-engineered salmon, has been telling the public that this “fish” is safe – safe for humans and safe for the environment, both of which is completely absurd in my opinion.

Now we have documentation that calls into serious question the credibility of AquaBounty and its willingness to tell the truth.

According to recently released documents (PDF file), AquaBounty’s research site in Canada was contaminated with a new strain of Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA), the deadly fish flu that is devastating fish stocks around the globe. Read more »

When you follow the organic industry closely and care deeply about health, it is very easy to get frustrated with how our leaders place such little importance on organic.

While we do have a small number of organic advocates in Washington D.C., the overall policy that emanates from our government is one that supports genetically-modified food, largely because the GM-industry uses its vast resources to influence politicians and regulatory bodies.

And if you think the GM-industry hasn’t gotten to Obama, think again.

Not only did he renege on his promise to label genetically-modified food while on the campaign trail in 2007 but he supported the deregulation of genetically-engineered alfalfa, a policy that has disastrous implications for the organic dairy and meat industries. Read more »

Earlier this year, I wrote a post about DHA (Docosahexaenoic acid), an unapproved additive in certain organic foods and organic milk.

Companies were adding DHA and ARA (Arachidonic acid) into their products because they are omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, respectively, and also provide a unique marketing angle. (A majority of the organic food companies are sourcing their DHA and ARA from Martek Bioscienes Corporation.)

This is all fine and good except for the fact that Martek’s DHA and ARA are synthetic and something antithetic to everything that certified organic stands for.

At the recent USDA/National Organic Standards Board meeting in Savannah, Georgia, the issue of DHA and ARA was discussed and voted on. Needless to say, the decision was a big loss for organic consumers. Read more »