Finding truly GOOD FOOD

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From organic to authentic

By Cheryl Long

As America's interest in natural and organic foods grows, the food industry's hype seems to expand proportionally. Consumers are finally realizing whole foods are more nutritious than highly processed products and seasonal, locally grown produce is a more sustainable, intelligent choice than fruits and vegetables shipped thousands of miles. Awareness about the host of problems caused by chemically dependent agriculture continues to grow.

But even when people are motivated to make better choices, the hype, exaggeration and downright deception of the food industry can make it tough for consumers to figure out which products are the best. Agriculture spends $100 billion each year to produce the food we eat. Food companies spend four times that much - $400 billion annually - to market the resulting products, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates. So much high-powered advertising obscures the truth about many products.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a nonprofit food and nutrition advocacy group, summed up a key part of this problem in a complaint filed with the Food and Drug Administration this summer: "Manufacturers continue to misleadingly represent the ingredient contents of their products, emphasizing the more healthful, costly ingredients far out of proportion to their actual presence in the foods. Those claims imply that such products are rich in such ingredients, whereas they actually contain only small amounts or sometimes none at all." CSPI cited examples to support their complaints: Quaker's "Strawberries and Cream" Oatmeal with no strawberries; Betty Crocker's "Carrot Cake" with more salt than (powdered) carrots; and "Real Fruit Beverages" that are 95 percent water and sugar.