The Labeling Shortcut

by Guest Sun May 08, 2016 11:37 am

By Margot Pollans

The Federal Food and Drug Administration is currently accepting public comment on the question of whether it should define the word natural. It is asking the wrong question.The word natural is already all over your food packaging—on your cereal, on your milk carton, on your frozen dinner. What does it mean? Many consumers think it means the product is good for them and for the planet. In fact, producers slap the label on almost anything, and the FDA has not yet done anything to stop them. It is considering doing so now in response to loud calls for a uniform legal definition. But can a label actually help make food better for us and for the planet?

Probably not. But in recent years labeling has taken center stage as the regulatory tool of choice for the food system anyway. The fight over genetically modified organism labeling is a prime example, as both proponents and opponents have poured millions of dollars into state-level voter referendums and legislation. Just Label It, a pro-labeling advocacy organization, estimates that opponents spent $45 million to defeat California’s Proposition 37, which would have required labeling of all foods with GM ingredients. Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut have passed laws mandating GMO labels, and legislation is currently pending in many other states. Congress continues to explore options for federal labeling regulation; a recent bill that would have preempted mandatory state laws and created a voluntary scheme passed in the House but failed in the Senate.

Labeling is frequently applauded as less invasive than traditional regulation and more protective of consumer choice. The theory behind labeling as an alternative to direct regulation is that, armed with good information, consumers will make good choices for themselves and, if they want to, for the environment. Producers will respond to these market signals and produce healthier and more sustainable food.But the food system is messy. Even the experts can’t always tell which food is healthiest. In the environmental context, assessing whether the local, organic option is better than a conventional imported product requires a complicated life-cycle analysis. It matters not only how many miles the item traveled to market and whether pesticides were used but also the farm’s soil conservation and runoff management practices, the fuel efficiency of the mode of transportation, the type of fertilizer used, the source of irrigation water, etc.. Most labels focus on one or two of these factors, arbitrarily prioritizing certain data points, such as whether a product was grown with pesticides, in the case of the organic label, over others, such as whether a farm practices sustainable crop rotation. In other words, “transparency” obfuscates.

The difference between natural and unnatural, like the difference between organic and conventional and GMO and GMO-free, is, itself, meaningless. These labels provide very little information either about how healthy the product is or about the size of its environmental footprint. Instead, these labels create opportunities for food producers to take advantage of the subset of consumers willing to pay more for perceived benefits. Indeed, the organic label is administered not by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service or even its Food Safety Inspection Service but instead by the Agricultural Marketing Service.

Even if we assume labels can help consumers identify healthier or more sustainable foods, reliance on labeling to regulate the food system risks leaving some, or even most, consumers behind. Not only does it take money to buy truly high quality food but consumers must also have the time and resources to research the available options. Label advocates argue that transparency protects consumers’ freedom to prioritize. Some prioritize health, and others prioritize affordability. But is this a trade-off consumers should really have to make? Relying on transparency alone essentially creates two food systems: one that provides nutritious, safe, and environmentally responsible food to the wealthy; and a second, much larger system that provides chemical-laden food to everyone else, with dire environmental and health consequences.

Even more fundamentally, do we want consumers to be responsible for arbitrating this trade-off? Transparency burdens consumers with the responsibility to wade through reams of information armed only with their disposable income, such as it may be, as a means to fix massive systemic problems. More powerful food system actors—corporations that process, distribute, and market the vast majority of food eaten in this country and government agencies that regulate them—are off the hook.

Continue reading by clicking the name of the source below.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2016/05/the_fda_s_quest_to_define_natural_won_t_give_us_better_food.html

by eddie Sun May 08, 2016 11:42 am

Food labelling is full of lies and uses clever wording to get round the fact that a lot of it is shit.

Lies and lies and more lies.

by nicko Sun May 08, 2016 12:32 pm

Like labelling all Conservatives nasty, and all Republicans idiots, witch some on here like to do!

by eddie Sun May 08, 2016 1:59 pm

nicko wrote:Like labelling all Conservatives nasty, and all Republicans idiots, witch some on here like to do!

Yep.

by Original Quill Sun May 08, 2016 3:55 pm

eddie wrote:Food labelling is full of lies and uses clever wording to get round the fact that a lot of it is shit.

Lies and lies and more lies.

That's why the FDA steps in. Ricky Gervais has an ad out that mocks this: Yes, it's the best coverage over Kansas. But when the FDA steps in, whatever it is has to meet minimum standards of contents, etc.

I don't know about defining 'natural' though. This is a good philosophical question? Isn't everything natural?

Ok, let's take it from an different angle: what isn't natural?

Still looking?

by Victorismyhero Sun May 08, 2016 7:12 pm

Original Quill wrote:
eddie wrote:Food labelling is full of lies and uses clever wording to get round the fact that a lot of it is shit.

Lies and lies and more lies.

That's why the FDA steps in. Ricky Gervais has an ad out that mocks this: Yes, it's the best coverage over Kansas. But when the FDA steps in, whatever it is has to meet minimum standards of contents, etc.

I don't know about defining 'natural' though. This is a good philosophical question? Isn't everything natural?

Ok, let's take it from an different angle: what isn't natural?

Still looking?

didge????

by Guest Sun May 08, 2016 7:15 pm

Lord Foul wrote:
Original Quill wrote:

That's why the FDA steps in. Ricky Gervais has an ad out that mocks this: Yes, it's the best coverage over Kansas. But when the FDA steps in, whatever it is has to meet minimum standards of contents, etc.

I don't know about defining 'natural' though. This is a good philosophical question? Isn't everything natural?

Ok, let's take it from an different angle: what isn't natural?

Still looking?

didge????

Nah, not an alien like you lol

by veya_victaous Sun May 08, 2016 11:04 pm

Original Quill wrote:
eddie wrote:Food labelling is full of lies and uses clever wording to get round the fact that a lot of it is shit.

Lies and lies and more lies.

That's why the FDA steps in. Ricky Gervais has an ad out that mocks this: Yes, it's the best coverage over Kansas. But when the FDA steps in, whatever it is has to meet minimum standards of contents, etc.

I don't know about defining 'natural' though. This is a good philosophical question? Isn't everything natural?

Ok, let's take it from an different angle: what isn't natural?

Still looking?

that which is man made and not evolved in nature.

really MOST stuff in argicutlre is not natural
Cows Not Natural
Sheep Not natural
Chickens Not Natural
None of these things would exists as they are by nature. it is only mans fiddling that has created them.

Plus you also have refined and processed products that are not natural either they are broken dowen in to raw components and recompiled into a state other than their natural one.

by Guest Mon May 09, 2016 3:30 am

Food For Thought
What Is 'Natural' Food? A Riddle Wrapped In Notions Of Good And Evil
May 8, 2016 7:00 AM ET - Alan Levinovitz
I.
Americans have until May 10th to help the Food and Drug Administration with one of philosophy's greatest riddles: What is the meaning of "natural"?
Given our current attitudes, the riddle might be better described as religious. Data show that 51 percent of us shop for "all natural" food – shelling out some $40 billion a year on these products. We even choose natural over organic, market analysts have found. Natural has become the non-denominational version of kosher, and orthodoxy is on the rise.
The religiosity is apparent in the 4,863 public comments that have already been submitted to the FDA online. Natural and unnatural read like Manichean synonyms for good and evil. Some comments are explicitly theological: "Natural should be limited to those ingredients that have been created by God." Others refer to violations of Mother Nature's intentions. Behind virtually all of them pulses an intense desire for salvation from modernity's perceived sins: GMOs, pesticides, chemicals, artificiality, synthetics. We ate, greedily, from the tree of scientific knowledge. Now we are condemned to suffer outside of Eden, unless we find a natural way back in.
Fair warning, though: Crowdsourcing theology is no easy task. This latest effort is actually round three for the U.S. government. Back in 1974, the Federal Trade Commission proposed codifying a simple definition: "Natural" foods are "those with no artificial ingredients and only minimal processing." Public comments poured in. The FTC deliberated for nine years, then gave up.
"A fundamental problem exists," explained then-chairman James C. Miller. "The context in which 'natural' is used determines its meaning. It is unlikely that consumers expect the same thing from a natural apple as they do from natural ice cream."

The FDA's first attempt met with a similar fate. In 1991 the agency invited input on the definition of "natural," noting widespread belief that natural foods are "somehow more wholesome." But like the FTC, the FDA also gave up, this time blaming the failure on us: "None of the comments provided FDA with a specific direction to follow for developing a definition."

That was fine until 2009, when a wave of lawsuits started to hit food manufacturers. Plaintiffs argued that Snapple's "all natural" designation was deceptive because its drinks contained high fructose corn syrup. Ditto for many of Nature Valley's products — which, it was noted, were deceptively festooned with "images of forests, mountains, and seaside landscapes." Twin lawsuits against Ben and Jerry's and Häagen-Dazs helped to clarify what consumers expect from "natural" ice cream — not Dutch-processed cocoa, apparently, which is alkalized with potassium carbonate, a synthetic ingredient. Even Whole Foods — the Church itself! — is currently being sued for advertising its bread as "all-natural," despite containing sodium acid pyrophosphate, a synthetic leavening agent allowed in organic products (you might know it as baking powder).
Fearing endless and ambiguous legal woes, representatives of the food industry issued petitions requesting that the FDA standardize the term. At the same time, the Consumers Union, a non-profit associated with Consumer Reports, called on the FDA to prohibit any use of the word or related derivations. (One wonders how the group envisions this playing out for Nature Valley, Back to Nature, Amy's Naturals, Organic by Nature, and the countless other companies whose names incorporate derivations of natural.)
I spoke about the wisdom of defining natural food with Georgetown Law professor and false advertising expert Rebecca Tushnet. "My initial reaction is that it's a good idea," she tells me. "People think natural is better than organic, but natural doesn't have a specific meaning. That's confusing. Corporations also need a clear definition so they can use the term and stop getting sued."
Her position makes sense. After all, rabbinic courts have established rules about the meaning of kosher. Otherwise the kosher seal would be useless. The time has come for government authorities, with our help, to do the same for the meaning of natural food.

II.
Before attempting to answer this question, it's worth noting that until recently, no one really asked it.

Though the distinction between natural and artificial — that is, made by man's art —dates back at least to Aristotle, the popular romanticization of natural food stands in stark contrast to pre-modern culinary philosophies. In keeping with the idea that you are what you eat, refined people ate refined food. According to historian Rachel Laudan, "for most of history people wanted the most refined, the most processed, the most thoroughly cooked food possible. This was regarded as the most simple and natural food, because all the dross had been removed by the purifying effects of processing and cooking, particularly fire. Ideal foods were sugar, clarified butter or ghee, white bread, white rice, cooked fruit, wine and so on."
Similarly, classical Chinese texts routinely express pity for early humans who, without the benefit of agriculture and cooking technology, were forced to eat directly from nature. "In ancient times," reads the Huainanzi, "people ate vegetation and drank from streams; they picked fruit from trees and ate the flesh of shellfish and insects. In those times there was much illness and suffering, as well as injury from poisons." Only through the alchemy of cooking, these Chinese philosophers concluded, could "rank and putrid foods" be transformed into something good to eat.
Both in the East and the West there have always been a minority of ascetics who denied themselves cooked, flavorful food and the products of agriculture. But unlike today, such ascetic denial was intended to distance the practitioner from the physical world, nature included. The ideal wasn't unprocessed food, but rather no food at all. Early Daoist tales tell of "spirit men" who subsisted entirely on wind and water.
"Food was flesh and flesh was suffering and fertility," [url=https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=9DUgmJGxZyEC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=christian+monastic+fasting&ots=iBGalbgzSJ&sig=_LAmihPO92N815TUOp29SraAFSY#v=onepage&q=renouncing ordinary]writes[/url] the scholar Caroline Walker Bynum, describing the attitude of pious medieval Christian women. "In renouncing ordinary food and directing their being toward the food that is Christ, women moved to God...by abandoning their flawed physicality."
The turn towards redemptive natural foods didn't begin until the 18^th century, when Romantics, led by Rousseau, began looking to the culinary past for guidance. Haute cuisine was blamed for the vices of the rich; country food bred virtuous peasants, their nature unspoiled by human artifice. "Our appetite is only excessive," wrote Rousseau in 1762, "because we try to impose on it rules other than those of nature."

"On my table are two books on the diet question, written by two well-known physicians. One proves at great length that the natural diet of man is the vegetable diet. Meat, this author claims, is unnecessary and injurious. ... The other author differs from the forgoing very radically. In his view the natural diet of the normal man is largely flesh food. When doctors disagree who shall decide?"
Only with the dominance of mechanized food production did the argument over "natural" begin to focus on the deleterious effects of processing, and come to look something like what it does in the FDA comments. In the mid-19th century, health food pioneer Sylvester Graham (of graham cracker fame) advocated for vegetarianism, but also for the superiority of whole grains and natural, unprocessed foods.
"It is nearly certain that the primitive inhabitants of the earth ate their food with very little, if any artificial preparation," he wrote approvingly, in stark contrast to the ancient Chinese. "Food in its natural state would be the best."
During the same period, food chemistry exploded — accompanied by concerns over dangerous chemicals. In her history of sugar, Wendy Woloson reports that as early as the 1830s, the medical journal The Lancet carried articles warning about popular British candies, exported to America, that were adulterated with "red oxide of lead, chromate of lead, and red suphuret of mercury." These candy makers also used cheap, poisonous dyes to attract children. Nor was it just children: People suffered the ill effects of strychnine in beer, [url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rkc3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA646&lpg=PA646&dq=suphate+of+copper+pickles+poison&source=bl&ots=qAZSeJQG9k&sig=ytD_fyAa44TWUKwhydglBdZNl6A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjnlJ-JocDMAhWG2SYKHeE0CWwQ6AEIHzAA#v=onepage&q=suphate of copp]sulphate of copper[/url] in pickles, and countless other poisonous additives that proliferated in a largely unregulated food industry.
Notwithstanding increased oversight — most prominently the 1906 establishment of the FDA —20^th century agricultural developments brought additional concerns. In her 1960s bestseller Silent Spring, Rachel Carson called attention not only to the environmental harms of pesticide use, but also to their presence in our foods. "Packaged foods in warehouses are subjected to repeated aerosol treatments with DDT, lindane, and other insecticides, which may penetrate the packaging materials," she wrote. To make matters worse, Carson warned that the government was powerless to protect us: "The activities of the Food and Drug Administration in the field of consumer protection against pesticides are severely limited."
Given the last hundred years of food history, it's hard not to sympathize with those who venerate natural food. Medical authorities have come to agree with Graham on the benefits of whole grains. Diets rich in highly refined carbohydrates – the kind found in cookies, chips and other processed snack foods – and sugary drinks are implicated in rising obesity rates and related health problems. Meanwhile, articles run on a near daily basis about the potential dangers of synthetic chemicals used to produce and package these foods. The powerful corporate giants that produce them spend heavily to influence science and public policy. Worst of all, there appears to be a revolving door between the companies and regulatory agencies.
It's no wonder that people are scared. Skepticism seems warranted — which means that faith in the most recent incarnation of "natural" food, far from being irrational religiosity or a relic of the romantic past, might be a good way to keep ourselves and our families safe.
****For the entire article > > > http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/05/08/477057872/what-is-natural-food-a-riddle-wrapped-in-notions-of-good-and-evil

As my ancestors were farmers and the very grains that they planted have been genetically modified from the seeds that were purchased and hand planted by their grandfathers before them --- it's what humans do.

We find the imperfections and we pull them out and we select the best from the previous years and cross pollenate with other varieties to produce more viable types of heads per stalk per plant. The fear comes when the ability to become an 'air borne' pollinated GMO to a 'Non-GMO' field and then the crop is refused at the elevator/purchaser because the farmer can't prove his source for purchase --- and the ripple effect grows in proportion to the magnitude of the rumor.
Does Monsanto Sue the farmer for having 'GMO' grain that he didn't purchase or he can't prove he purchased for his planting season? Hasn't been a court case yet; according to Monsanto!
Is this much ado about nothing 'natural vs GMO' altered grains...I don't know; but it seems to me that with all of the flavor/color/preservative additives in all of our foods and none of our seeds haven't been touched or altered --- we've changed everything from it's 'NATRUAL' state to something uniquely different.

by eddie Mon May 09, 2016 11:16 am

Wal-mart being the world's biggest company (thisn that's right?) are responsible for selling a whole lot of crap food to America - we have them here in the guise of ASDA and I some of the food is substandard.

They are the reason (along with mcds) that the US has a massive problem with obesity I'd imagine.

http://grist.org/food/why-you-should-be-skeptical-of-walmarts-cheap-organic-food/

by veya_victaous Mon May 09, 2016 10:49 pm

Labelling needs to go hand in hand with regulation of the labelling, here it works because we have legal defintions for things like Organic, the big on being legisated on at the moment is 'free range' specifically for eggs, but we also see things like free range bacon and pork so they are looking into how to legally define that too.

and we can regulate it because we have stringent advertizing laws, in the USA if they cant stop them lying about 'medicine' they got no chance of them putting organic or free range on the box correctly.

by Guest Mon May 09, 2016 11:36 pm

veya_victaous wrote:Labelling needs to go hand in hand with regulation of the labelling, here it works because we have legal defintions for things like Organic, the big on being legisated on at the moment is 'free range' specifically for eggs, but we also see things like free range bacon and pork so they are looking into how to legally define that too.

and we can regulate it because we have stringent advertizing laws, in the USA if they cant stop them lying about 'medicine' they got no chance of them putting organic or free range on the box correctly.

But even that 'FREE RANGE' definition can be a 'split the hair' issue as well:
I'm certified seller of 'Free Range Egg's but my hens do not forage out daily as free range hens 7 days a week - they may get out 3 hr's 2 or 3 days a week no more than 3 hours daily. But they have outside green pens that they are allowed to forage into and I toss alfalfa flakes bales into their pens for them as well.
So once a certification is obtained doesn't mean that the hens get to 'roam freely' every day --- I'd be out of a flock and the egg business as rapidly as those predator red-tail hawks discovered my flock of hens! Between that and the stray dogs --- if I'm not out supervising their forage time while I garden --- I have less to call home when it's time to pen up for the evening! Sad

by veya_victaous Mon May 09, 2016 11:42 pm

So the current push is for this to be legislated as the legal defintion

For eggs to be labelled free range, the Model Code of Practice says there should be a maximum of 1500 hens per hectare.

https://www.choice.com.au/food-and-drink/meat-fish-and-eggs/eggs/articles/what-free-range-eggs-meet-the-model-code

Your method would probably be classified as 'Barn eggs' here
the bad one is caged eggs.

by Guest Tue May 10, 2016 12:32 am

veya_victaous wrote:So the current push is for this to be legislated as the legal defintion
For eggs to be labelled free range, the Model Code of Practice says there should be a maximum of 1500 hens per hectare.
https://www.choice.com.au/food-and-drink/meat-fish-and-eggs/eggs/articles/what-free-range-eggs-meet-the-model-code

Your method would probably be classified as 'Barn eggs' here
the bad one is caged eggs.

EXACTLY...that finite method of word usage and what constitutes 'Free Range' in one country or state vs another region or international area.

My interest was highly peaked when reading the article from the PBS article and the posted section that I supplied back up there
clipped from my article & post > > >

"It is nearly certain that the primitive inhabitants of the earth ate their food with very little, if any artificial preparation," he wrote approvingly, in stark contrast to the ancient Chinese. "Food in its natural state would be the best."
During the same period, food chemistry exploded — accompanied by concerns over dangerous chemicals. In her history of sugar, Wendy Woloson reports that as early as the 1830s, the medical journal The Lancet carried articles warning about popular British candies, exported to America, that were adulterated with "red oxide of lead, chromate of lead, and red suphuret of mercury." These candy makers also used cheap, poisonous dyes to attract children. Nor was it just children: People suffered the ill effects of strychnine in beer, sulphate of copper in pickles, and countless other poisonous additives that proliferated in a largely unregulated food industry.

We've been screwing around with some seriously dangerous ingredients to our food chain for years, with some dire results.
As my mother suffered with an incurable recurring UTI and we even were sent to the MAYO Clinic for further research --- mom was part of a clinical study about bacteria in the gut - transferring into the bladder and becoming a antibiotic resistant newer improved form of UTI that wouldn't/couldn't be stopped with aggressive treatment.

They combed over her history of diet and all of her holistic things that she self-diagnosing and had taken without telling her heart doctors and internist. SMH...one thing that they'd pounced on was her main diet of mass produced poultry; those poultry are injected with antibiotics - are feed antibiotics when they are being raised and that in turn becomes something we ingest that makes us a factory for breeding a SUPER BUG in our own body. The Labeling Shortcut 2190311264

by 'Wolfie Tue May 10, 2016 6:49 am

eddie wrote:
Wal-mart being the world's biggest company (thisn that's right?) are responsible for selling a whole lot of crap food to America - we have them here in the guise of ASDA and I some of the food is substandard.

........................

NO, NOT quite....
IT ALL depends on how you're measuring a company's size..

APPLE is the world's largest corporation, by stock market capitalisation.

TOYOTA is the worlds biggest automobile manufacturer, (followed by Volkswagen and GM..)

EXXON is the largest oil/energy company traded on the world's stock markets.
BHP-Billiton is the biggest mining company.
MARS is the biggest confectionary/food processing company.

WAL-MART is the #1 Retail corporation in the USA..
And possibly the world...
The Walton family is also most probably the wealthiest family on the planet..

ON total Annual turnover, the US Federal guvm'nt is often referred to as "the biggest business in the world..".

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