PCC Sound Consumer
February 2001
Organic Standards
by Goldie Caughlan, PCC Nutrition Education Manager
After much breath- holding, and with considerable fan-fare, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released its latest attempt at what it hopes will be accepted as the final rule for Organic Standards. This is the third effort since passage of the Organic Food Production Act of 1990 ...
Wake-up Call - Mergers and acquisitions in the natural foods business
by Trudy Bialic, Editor
A PCC member called the other day, upset when she learned a favorite frozen fruit wasn't provided any longer by "a small, local organic company" but now comes to her from a large national brand. She was dismayed by this buyout of a local label and thanked PCC for stocking an alternative brand, a fruit "in transition" to organic certification direct from a local family operation.
Compiled from reports by Reuters, the New York Times and The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods.
The new Secretary of the U.S. Departure of Agriculture (USDA) is Ann Veneman, a California lawyer who's known as a veteran of biotech and an advocate of global trade.
Dear Editor:
As a long time member of PCC, I am pleased to see that the efforts to develop reasonable national organic standards have been successful ... A crucial part of the process was the role PCC and other organizations played in educating the public about the details of the pending regulations ...
Food Security, Farmland and Your Heart
For most of us, food security is an abstraction. Although homeless and poor people know scarcity and immigrants may remember it, most of us haven't experienced serious food shortages, hunger or famine. But as the march of development occupies nearby farmland and condemns fertile soil to pavement, we are more and more dependent upon food shipped from greater distances. Those of us who remember Puget Sound's Kent Valley when it was a cornucopia can speak of the swiftness of loss.
The online version of the Sound Consumer contains feature stories and regular columns. Information from the "Fresh and natural" pages in the printed version can be found in the products area of the Web site or in our recipe database.