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Once upon a time, sales of organic and natural products were growing in double digits most years. Enthusiastic grocers and venture capitalists prowled the halls of trade shows looking for the next big thing. Grass-fed beef? Organic baby food? Gluten-free energy bars? But now, shaky consumer spending is dampening the mood. It turns out that when times are tough, consumers may be less interested in what type of feed a cow ate before it got chopped up for dinner, or whether carrots were grown without chemical fertilizers — particularly if those products cost twice as much as the conventional stuff....

Organic food. To me, this is one of the biggest scams out there. If a company slaps an organic symbol on their packaging, people will pay twice as much as the “non-organic” equivalent. Now, I may not have been the best organic chemistry student in college, but I do seem to remember that organic is anything carbon based, usually referring to something found in a living species, specifically a plant or animal. So, isn’t just about everything we eat organic? Can’t I clip some toenails into a box, and label them as “organic soy crisps?” Yes, I am being facetious,...

The organic industry has gone wild in the last decade, but you wouldn't know it at the Department of Agriculture. Despite year after year of double-digit growth, organics receive a pittance in financing and staff attention at the department, which is responsible for writing regulations about organics and making sure that they are upheld. The National Organic Program, which regulates the industry, has just nine staff members and an annual budget of $1.5 million. A Florida real estate developer named Maurice Wilder received more than that in farm subsidies in 2005, some $1,754,916, to be exact, according to a subsidy...

With its premium price tag, shoppers expect organic chicken to be both tastier and healthier than cheaper battery-farmed birds. But organic poultry is actually less nutritious, contains more fat and tastes worse than its mass-produced equivalent, research has shown. Tests on supermarket chicken breasts showed that organic versions contained lower levels of health-boosting omega 3 fatty acids than other varieties, including non-organic free-range poultry. The compounds, present in high levels in oily fish, are thought to be responsible for a host of health benefits, from combating heart disease to boosting intelligence. Organic chicken, which typically costs nearly three times as...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spinach company faces unwelcome scrutiny By JORDAN ROBERTSON, Associated Press Writer SAN JUAN BAUTISTA, Calif. - Earthbound Farm, the country's largest grower of organic produce, is facing unwelcome scrutiny after federal officials linked a nationwide E. coli outbreak to its bagged spinach. The company, also known by its legal name Natural Selection Foods LLC, recalled and stopped shipping all its spinach products after E. coli outbreaks killed one person and sickened more than 100 others in 19 states. Earthbound officials were working with state and federal health inspectors to pinpoint the source of the contamination, spokeswoman Samantha Cabaluna said...

Tainted spinach traced to California By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 43 minutes ago WASHINGTON - A California natural foods company was linked Friday to a nationwide E. coli outbreak that has killed one person and sickened nearly 100 others. Supermarkets across the country pulled spinach from shelves, and consumers tossed out the leafy green. Food and Drug Administration officials said that they had received reports of illness in 19 states. Twenty-nine people have been hospitalized, 14 of them with kidney failure. The outbreak was traced to Natural Selection Foods, a holding company based in San Juan Bautista,...

Organic food consumers are as careless of the environment as the drivers piloting those massive Humvees around our city streets. Both are wasting money and natural resources to gain snob appeal–with no other benefits

The New York Times reports that Wal-Mart, the bane of all limousine liberals and aging hippies, has entered the "crunchy granola" market: Beginning later this year, Wal-Mart plans to roll out a complete selection of organic foods — food certified by the U.S.D.A. to have been grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers — in its nearly 4,000 stores. Just as significant, the company says it will price all this organic food at an eye-poppingly tiny premium over its already-cheap conventional food: the organic Cocoa Puffs and Oreos will cost only 10 percent more than the conventional kind. Organic food will...

CHICAGO - Buying organic milk these days - or organic apples, eggs, or beef - no longer has to mean an extra trip to a Whole Foods supermarket or the local co-op. Organic products now line the shelves at Safeway and Costco. And Wal-Mart - already the nation's largest organic-milk seller - says it wants to sell more organic food. Large companies including Kraft, General Mills, and Kellogg own sizable organic- and natural-food brands. Now, they are developing organic versions of their own products, too. Still, while some organic-food fans welcome its broadening appeal and availability, others worry that the...

Organic food annoys me. Despite what the organics will have you believe, research just doesn't indicate that there are any real health benefits that come from eating organically produced foods. This doesn't mean that there aren't any studies that have turned up positives for organic food, because studies have been done that show organic foods has some benefits. The problem is that for every one of these "pro-organic" studies there are other studies that show organic foods offer no real benefits. This ladies and gentlemen is a lack of scientific consensus. But now thanks to data uncovered by Louis Guillette,...

(CNSNews.com) - A new study on food safety reveals that organic produce may contain a significantly higher risk of fecal contamination than conventionally grown produce. A recent comparative analysis of organic produce versus conventional produce from the University of Minnesota shows that the organically grown produce had 9.7 percent positive samples for the presence of generic E. coli bacteria versus only 1.6 percent for conventional produce on farms in Minnesota. The study, which was published in May in the Journal of Food Protection, concluded, "the observation that the prevalence of E. coli was significantly higher in organic produce supports the...

Organic farming is a billion-pound industry. It is promoted by a stream of propaganda from green lobby groups, notably the Soil Association, and subsidised by government. Supermarkets like it because premium prices increase profits. Every lifestyle magazine regards organic food as synonymous with healthy living and every TV chef tells us that organic food tastes better. To question claims made by the organic lobby is not just akin to doubting the virtues of motherhood, but to reveal indifference to the poisoning of the nation and the fate of the planet, perhaps even to be guilty of corruption by American multinationals...

LONDON (Reuters) - If you believe the organic salad you just ate was good for you and for the environment, think again. Chances are, its ingredients flew half way across the world, polluting the air and burning more energy than was saved in growing them. Environmentalist groups say that by eating tomatoes and lettuce from New Zealand and Zambia, consumers are effectively eating oil because of the vast amounts of energy spent in transporting them. And Britain is among the worst culprits because it imports more than three-quarters of its burgeoning organic food needs. "More and more food is being...

<p>When Warren Weber and a band of other shaggy Northern California farmers started growing organic lettuce in the 1970s, they never thought it would come to this: organic Cheetos.</p> <p>Frito-Lay, maker of the popular neon-orange snack food, is plowing into the organic market. So are dozens of other mega-producers -- the very companies that organic farmers once derided as part of a chemical-dependent, agri- industrial complex choking the American food supply and deadening its farmland.</p>