OTA News Briefs: Organics, More Products, Better for the World, Better for People

Latest Organic News Briefs Contributed by the Organic Trade Association   Consumers continue to find more organic products offered by retailers, eating establishments and other venues: * Visitors to the Statue of Liberty who stop in at the Crown Café will find organic food offerings on the menu. Evelyn Hill, Inc., which operates the restaurant and a gift shop on Liberty Island under contract with the National Park Service, also sells organic t-shirts in the gift shop. * Canyon Ranch, a leader in health and wellness vacations, recently added organic milk, eggs, chicken and beef to its organic offerings, which include juices, coffee and tea, olive and canola oils. It operates resorts in Tucson, AZ, and Lenox, MA, as well as SpaClubs at The Venetian in Las Vegas, at Gaylord Palms Resort in Kissimmee, FL, and onboard the ocean liner QM2. A new Canyon Ranch Living healthy living community will open in Miami Beach in early 2008, and another is planned to open in Chicago in 2011. * Supermarket chain Pathmark Stores, Inc., has introduced organic coffee to its grocery shelves, including 10- and 12-ounce packages and self-serve bulk displays. * Bigg’s, a Midwest supermarket chain, has been awarded organic retailer certification for produce by Quality Assurance International for its 12 stores in the Greater Cincinnati, OH, area. * The Kroger Co. is expanding its Private Selection organic food line by 60 products, including pasta, waffles, tea, peanut butter, snacks and milk. The line will carry the USDA Organic seal. * U.S. military commissaries have recently tripled the organic products offered recently, according to the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Commissary Agency as reported July 31 by Sustainable Food News. Some companies are taking extra steps to make it possible for consumers to learn about the farm that sourced specific organic products: * Wholesome Harvest, a coalition of many small family farms, now includes a three-digit farmer identification number on every package of meat it sells. Consumers buying a package of Wholesome Harvest meat in a supermarket can visit the Wholesome Harvest web site (www.wholesomeharvest.com), enter the code, and read about the small American farm family who raised the meat. * Similarly, Dole Fresh Fruit International, Ltd., includes stickers bearing farm codes on its organic bananas sold in U.S. stores. Dole encourages consumers to visit its www.doleorganics.com web site and enter the code to see information about the farm where the organic bananas were grown. Research studies in the news recently show some exciting findings concerning organic products.  * Nutritional profile: Preliminary findings from the four-year European Union-funded Quality Low Input Food (QLIF) Project indicate some organic foods have more nutritional value than their non-organic counterparts. Findings announced by Professor Carlo Leifert of the Tesco Centre for Organic Agriculture at Newcastle University, United Kingdom, show organic fruit and vegetables have up to 40 percent more antioxidants than non-organically grown produce, while organic milk contains up to 60 to 80 percent more antioxidants than conventionally produced milk in the summer, and 50 to 60 percent higher levels in the winter. Organic milk also was found to contain higher levels of vitamin E. The research is scheduled to run for an additional year. * Organic enhances human milk: A European research team led by Swiss scientist Lukas Rist has found that mothers consuming mostly organic milk and meat products have about 50 percent higher levels of rumenic acid, a conjugated linoleic acid, in their breast milk. Study results were published in the June 2007 British Journal of Nutrition. Meanwhile, other research raises additional questions about practices not allowed in organic production: * Dead Zone update: The coast-wide extent of the Gulf of Mexico “Dead Zone” mapped along Louisiana and Texas totaled 20,500 square kilometers (7,900 square miles), similar to the size of New Jersey, according to an update from Nancy Rabalais, chief scientist for Northern Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Studies, Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. The low-oxygen waters extended from near the Mississippi River across the Louisiana/Texas border towards Galveston, she reported (ww.gulfhypoxia.net/news/documents/PressRelease07.pdf). * Plants and antibiotics: Evaluating the impact of antibiotic feeding in livestock production on the environment, scientists at the University of Minnesota conducting a greenhouse study found that food crops can accumulate antibiotics from soils spread with manure containing antibiotics. Results from the study, published in the July-August 2007 issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality, showed that corn, lettuce and potatoes all take up antibiotics in the soil, with concentrations in plant tissue increasing correspondingly to the levels in the manure. Not only were antibiotics found in plant leaves but also diffused into potato tubers, indicating that root crops that directly come into contact with soil may be particularly vulnerable to antibiotic contamination. Antibiotic use is prohibited in organic livestock practices. * Pesticide-autism link? A California Department of Public Health study has concluded that women living near California farm fields that are sprayed with organochlorine pesticides may be more likely to give birth to children with autism spectrum disorders. However, because of the small number of women and children studied, researchers cautioned that this finding is “highly preliminary.” The research, entitled “Maternal Residence Near Agricultural Pesticide Applications and Autism Spectrum Disorders Among Children in the California Central Valley,” is available on the Environmental Health Perspectives web site. * Pesticides and brain cancer: French research published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine online in June 2007 found that agricultural workers with extensive exposure to pesticides had elevated risk of brain cancer. Dr. Isabelle Baldi of the University of Bordeaux and colleagues in France studied 221 adults who developed brain cancer between 1999 and 2001 and 442 adults from the general population of the same age who were free of the disease. The overall risk of brain cancer was 29 percent higher for those with occupational exposure to pesticides. However, farmers, vineyard workers and others with the highest exposure had a two-fold higher risk of developing a brain tumor.