Milk is milk blog from Alex Avery.
It came in the mail the other day, my “concerned parent toolkit” from the nice-looking people at Organic Valley. It made for compelling reading. Did I care about nutrition issues and safe food choices for children? Was I concerned about such childhood diseases as obesity, diabetes, and cancer? Heck yes!
My wife and I have recently become new parents so I take issues affecting my child’s safety very, very seriously. But what did Organic Valley want to do? Scare me about the safety of non-organic milk and demand that it not be served to school kids!
Why would Organic Valley - family farmers, they claim to be - want to do such a thing? Because Organic Valley sells over $150 million worth of milk, cheese, butter and other products each year, much of which costs 50 to 100 percent more than their conventional competitors. Organic marketers admit that in order to get consumers to pay these hefty premiums they have to believe the products are better for them - or, to believe that other, more affordable products are somehow bad. The problem is, using organic production methods over conventional methods doesn’t alter the milk one bit. It’s not more nutritious and it’s not safer. That’s a fact according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and even the Organic Trade Association.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
USA Today accurately reported that “USDA carefully points out that it makes no claim that organically produced food is safer or more nutritious than conventionally produced food… a point often misunderstood by consumers. Some people mistakenly construe (organic food) to be safer or more nutritious, or even that it’s entirely pesticide-free… It’s not.” The Los Angeles Times recently noted that organic claims of superiority are growing… but “scientists, policy analysts and some consumers have begun to ask for proof. Where’s the evidence, they ask, for the widespread belief that organic foods are safer and more nutritious than those raised by conventional farming methods? The short answer, food safety and nutrition scientists say, is that such proof does not exist. Indeed, by one well-established measure of healthfulness–contamination with fecal matter and potentially harmful bacteria–some organic foods may pose greater risks to consumers.”
Organic Valley wants me to lobby my local school officials to dump the affordable, nutritious, safe conventionally-produced milk currently served in our schools. Yet, unlike the pricey organic milk we find in our local markets, conventional milk is more likely to be local, fresh (the only thing which might influence a slight nutritional difference in one bottle of milk over another) and affordable. Check out the labels next time you visit the dairy case where you shop - notice the expiration dates on the packages of organic milk and look for the words “ultra-pasteurized.” More often than not you’ll see that expensive organic milk has a shelf life much longer than the affordable local store brands. That’s because this organic milk is often shipped to the store from operations thousands of miles away and due to the higher price requires longer shelf life waiting for those deep pocketed customers. In fact, many of these ultra-pasteurized dairy products don’t even require refrigeration - but most of us wouldn’t buy milk for our kids that we found stuck somewhere on a shelf next to cocktail olives and detergent. (For good food safety, please always keep any dairy product - especially if the package has been opened - refrigerated.)
But let’s not forget about the price difference. Affordable milk is important for many reasons, not the least of which is that school lunch programs are funded by our tax dollars to ensure that all kids, regardless of their ability to pay, have access to a nutritious meal at least once a day during the school year. Hungry kids don’t learn very well, making them less likely to succeed later in life, thus exacerbating the cycles of poverty which caused them to be hungry in the first place. So, if we’re paying twice as much for the milk, that means less money (from a pretty small pot to begin with) to purchase the rest of their meal - which Organic Valley also wants to be all-organic eventually as well. Starting with milk is their way of getting Joe Camel’s nose under the tent.
Organic Valley wants my kids to grow up fearing dairy products - at least those produced conventionally by the local farmer (simply be trying to make an honest living with his or her local family dairy farm). I guess they figure if my kids become paying consumers they’ll be predisposed to buy their higher-priced products down the line (sounds a little like the charges made against tobacco companies). Right after receiving Organic Valley’s alarming parents’ toolkit, I received their “kids activity kit” with comics and posters proclaiming “Pesticides, hormones and drugs, oh my! Get pure… Pesticides, artificial hormones and drugs are three things you’ll never find in Organic Valley milk…” and “It’s Healthy! Organic valley milk gives your growing body Vitamins A and D…” and “It’s pure milk, made without hormones, antibiotics or pesticides…”
Yikes, hormones in milk? Heavens to Betsy, or Bessie! But wait, all milk naturally contains hormones; Bessie can’t produce milk without them. Ooooh, Organic Valley must mean no “added” hormones. But wait again, Organic Valley adds Vitamin D to their milk - they even promote it next to their no hormone claim. The Vitamin D added to milk is a hormone. And Organic Valley, along with everyone else in the milk industry knows it. But, it puts a kink in your marketing of “hormone-free” dairy products to promote that little piece of knowledge.
What about the other claims: no pesticides, no drugs? The truth is nobody puts pesticides or drugs in milk, and all milk is tested to ensure it’s free from any antibiotic residues before it reaches the supermarket. And organic producers do use pesticides: the list of “allowed” pesticides in organic food production but still highly toxic (they wouldn’t be pesticides if they didn’t kill something) products is long. As for drugs, those allowed are larger in number than those not allowed in organic farming. In fact, many organic dairy farmers use antibiotic embedded artificial insemination and the reproductive hormone prostaglandin, both allowed by organic standards. Organic dairy farmers also inoculate and vaccinate their animals against a range of diseases. Vaccines are drugs last time I checked. Hmmm, sounds like hormones, pesticides and drugs to me.
Why do state and federal regulators responsible for protecting consumers, especially children, from false and misleading claims like this - especially on something as important as milk - let this stuff go unchecked? Why don’t organic trade and professional groups demand higher ethical standards for marketing to protect their producers? Organic Trade Association Director Katherine DiMatteo has publicly stated that, “Organic agriculture is not a food safety claim. That’s not what our standards are about.” So why do they allow, and apparently encourage, their members to market products in this manner?
Heck, there are some nasty class action law firms out there just looking to represent tens of thousands of consumers bilked out of millions of dollars spent on an organic food product because of false advertising claims and misleading labels - that alone should scare these guys away from these tactics. And what about the harm this causes to the non-organic, local family dairy farmers just trying to compete fairly and by the rules? Perhaps these farmers might also have a case to press against this unfair competition.
Look, if you want to adhere to the organic philosophy of production, feel free - just don’t scare others into it with false and misleading claims. And please, please, don’t use fear-based marketing to children or scare parents about their kids’ health to make a buck. Unfortunately, the money hungry marketing machine for the multi-billion organic food industry doesn’t feel the same way I do on this matter. You see, this isn’t just a story about one bad apple Organic Valley. The other big guns in the organic dairy business at Stonyfield Organic Yogurt and Horizon Organic have increasingly been targeting advertising, public relations and marketing to parents and children with the same types of fear-laced claims. We’ll look at them next, but today why don’t you take a minute to call Organic Valley at: 888-444-6455 or email them at: organic@organicvalley.com to let ‘em know what you think about their tactics and ask them if their milk is safer or more nutritious, or how their milk is magically made without hormones. Then tell them to keep their money-grubbing, bullying hands away from our kids’ lunch money.
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Next, Stonyfield Farms and Horizon Organic - more examples of despicable black marketing targeting parents and children…