Little Green Kisses

                                   Buying Organic Food
       
    When a brand or company slaps a label on one of their products that says "natural" or "made with natural ingredients" you can bet the price will be significantly higher than that of it's unnatural and chemical-filled counterparts.  If you're going to pay the higher price it's best to make sure what you're buying is actually natural.  Try to keep in mind that 'organic' and 'natural' aren't the same things when it comes to product labels.  There are very few regulations when it comes to putting the word "natural" on product labels.  If the product contains meat, poultry, or egg products and has a 'natural' food label it is required by the USDA to be "minimally processed and contain no artificial ingredients' BUT,"There are no standards or regulations for the labeling of natural food products if they do not contain meat or eggs."  The words in bold print and quotation marks are from the USDA website here:  http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/NOPConsumers
  
   So let's say I'm a company that makes fruit juice and I put some real fruit extract in my juice.  That's natural, right?  Well, yeah, so now I'm going to put a label on the front of my juice that says "Natural Fruit Juice" and of course, "Made With Real Fruit" (and jack the price up, of course). Now, reading that you'd probably think it was all natural, right?  You'd probably think to yourself "Oh, that sounds really healthy, I think I'll buy that".  Well, what you don't know is that a little bit of real fruit extract may be the only natural ingredient in that juice.  There could also be lots of nasty chemicals in my juice, too.  That's why it's best to also read the list of ingredients as well.  But, even then you don't always know 100% that it's natural because there are some chemicals that don't have to be listed.  Companies don't even have to label whether their food is genetically modified or not.  And, unfortunately, a lot of the foods we eat are made with GMOs  (Genetically Modified Organisms).
   
   A better word to look for on labels is 'organic'.  'Organic' labels are held to much higher standards than 'natural' labels.  To be labeled 'organic' the product must contain ingredients that are 95% organically made.  For the product to be labeled "100% organic" it has to be made and processed with only organic ingredients (except for salt and water).  To be labeled "Made with Organic Ingredients" the product must be made up of at least 70% organic ingredients and the product may also list up to 3 organic ingredients on the label.  Products that are at least 95% organic may also have a USDA Organic seal on them.  For more information about the USDA organic regulations and policies go to:
 http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/nop