Seems the Feds are messing with our food supplies once again, and this time it isn't pretty!

New rules for "organic" food labelling will allow up to 38 non-organic "baddies" to be present in a product, yet it can still be labeled as "organic".

In order for a food to be truly organic, it must be grown without chemical fertilizers and pesticides. All animals must be raised without antibiotics and growth hormones and must have some access to the outdoors. However, the new Federal regulations will allow as much as 5 percent non-organic "junk" to be included in food labeled as "organic".

Case in point is Anheuser-Busch's Wild Hop Lager, which the Feds allowed them to call "organic", yet it uses hops grown with chemical fertilizers and sprayed with pesticides. Why? Because the hops are only a small percentage of the finished product, since the beer is mostly water.

The allowable non-organic ingredients may be spices, colorings, and flavorings, so they can affect a broad range of food products.

So how do you get food that is truly organic without growing it yourself? It seems we'll need to rely on the research done by our local organic markets, such as Whole Foods Markets, to make sure that what they stock on their shelves are truly organic products.

Linda Slocum, Santa Clarita Realtor

http://HoneyStartPacking.com

http://SantaClaritaRealEstateBlog.com