The organic food process has been a miracle of clever marketing that will be taught in business schools for generations to come: They managed to convince the public to pay more for food using reasoning that mostly involved self-identification as being more ethical people and better parents if they did so.

Nothing special about that, except this is food; an organic tomato is no different than any other tomato. Both are grown using pesticides and fertilizers, both have been genetically modified for thousands of years.

But that is beyond the scope of linking to a piece that shows his the Big Umbrella is leaking. Organic marketing (and the scummy political attack groups they fund, such as US Right To Know, SourceWatch, and that lawyer who wrote Proposition 65 in California) was fine being all about being wholesome and creating new fronts to go after conventional food - until one of their efforts got too big.

Dr. Ruth Kava at American Council on Science and Health has the takedown. Big Organic, not satisfied with having a business that is over $100 billion, is turning on Non-GMO food, the very designation they helped create.  Non-GMO, they note, may not be organic, while organic has to be non-GMO.

Well, that is factually incorrect, but so is most organic hype. There are almost 50 synthetic ingredients Big Organic allows with its sticker, and that is because they get to pick the rules for inclusion of their sticker. Meanwhile, the Non-GMO movement is actually more ethical, because it just has to be a non-genetically modified organism.

Sure, that can be rock salt, because salt is not an organism at all, but they are still technically correct. 


Credit and link: MNN and Shea Gunther's friend Jes, who took the picture.