I first hopped on the organic food bandwagon
when my daughter, now nine, was 18 months-old. A friend of mine gave me an article about children entering puberty
earlier and earlier due, in part, to the many growth hormones given to cows so that they reach adulthood more quickly.
My daughter was already a 24/7 handful by that time and I in no way wanted to see her reach puberty before she was due.
That being said, I have made every effort possible to feed my children organic foods over the past seven years. So I was
especially distressed when I recently read an article on the Organic Consumers Association site questioning the methods
of producing organic milk.Dairy farms claiming to produce organic milk just might be pulling a fast one on consumers. In a report issued by the Cornucopia Institute in late March of this year, a couple of the major producers in the organic milk production business have been accused of underhanded practices. With a "wink and a nod from the USDA" these companies are wantonly violating the strict standards to which all organic products must adhere. Two of the largest producers, Horizon Organic, a subsidiary of Dean Foods and Aurora Organic, a supplier to the likes of Costco, Safeway, Giant and Wild Oats, have been buying their milk from large feedlots where the cows are not raised in an organic manner and they do not have any pasture to graze. These large feedlots routinely purchase their calves from farms where a common practice is to wean the young animals on blood as well feed them slaughterhouse waste. The calves are also fed genetically engineered grains and given large doses of antibiotics.
These practices go against everything that organic farming represents. Horizon Organic and Aurora Organic control 65 percent of the organic milk market. Not only are they dooping the consumers but they are also a threat to the farms that truly do raise their cows to comply with the USDA standards. This sort of dishonesty is absolutely unacceptable. What do you think?
21. We were buying Horizon organic skim milk at Whole Foods and Publix but lately it has not been available. I wonder if this is why. We switched to Organic Valley, so this ended up being a good thing! I am extremely ticked off that consumers are being deceived. So many companies are looking for the cheap, easy way to make as much profit as possible and have no conscience about deceiving us - it's despicable!
About a year ago we started buying only organic, hormone-free meats for the same reason; we don't need our girls going through puberty earlier than necessary, not to mention hearing that these hormones can potentially mess up women's periods, menopause, etc. I just hope that we aren't paying these premium prices for this organic meat and still being deceived.
Posted at 8:14PM on Apr 29th 2006 by Sharon