Certified plutonium-free!

When you buy eggs at the grocery store, do you make sure you choose the "cage-free" eggs?  Or when you're buying vegetables, do you select the ones labelled "organic" (instead of the presumably inorganic ones?)?  All things being equal, people will most often choose a product that has such a label over a similar product that doesn't have the label.  The presumption, of course, is that the "certified organic" fruit or the "cage-free" eggs, "grass fed" beef, "non-GMO" vegetables, etc. are either healthier for you, better for the environment, more humane to animals, or all of the above.

My co-worker Meg turned me on to this after our book club at work read a particularly disturbing account about where our food comes from.  During our discussion, she gave us all a brief overview of the various labels that were on the food products we all buy and what they mean, and more importantly what they don't mean.  That was a couple of years ago, and since then I read a similar story online from a writer who was in a grocery store and was agonizing over whether to buy the "hormone-free" chicken or just regular chicken.  Someone near her in the store saw her conundrum and let her know that the USDA doesn't allow any hormones to be added to any chicken, so saying chicken is "hormone-free" is the same as saying it is "plutonium-free".  A funny story, but also a little worrisome.

In general, I think if people are given a choice, they will choose foods that are healthier for them, better for the environment, and more humanely produced, but with all the different labels being thrown around, it is hard to know what they really mean and who, if anyone, is verifying them.  Fortunately, the good people at Consumer Reports are once again here to cut through the marketing and get to the facts with their eco-labels database.  This database of popular food labels provides information about who is responsible for the label and how reliable the label is.  For example, did you know that "fresh poultry" is certified by the USDA as never being below 24 F.  Last time I checked, that was frozen.

Anyway, I encourage you to check the database out for yourself and get educated about where your food comes from.  Of course, if you really want to know where your food comes from, you can produce it yourself!