New York Times
By Andrew Martin

The latest battle over what can be called organic involves beer and gelatin, food colorings and casings for sausage. The Department of Agriculture, the final arbiter of all things organic, is poised to approve a list of nonorganic ingredients that can be used in food stamped with its green-and-white organic seal.

The list includes hops for beer, dill weed oil for flavoring pickles, and elderberry juice coloring for making foods bright red to blue purple. There is also chia, an herb from Central America that is used in some baked goods, and fructooligosaccharides, a bulking agent that adds fiber.

In all, the organic advisory board to the Agriculture Department recommended that 38 nonorganic ingredients be added to a list of approved ingredients. Rules on organic labeling dictate that 95 percent of a product must be organic to obtain the department’s label; the remaining 5 percent can be nonorganic if it comes from an approved list.

To get on the approved list, an organic alternative to the ingredient must not be commercially available.

But purists say that this list of ingredients is the latest example of big business trying to water down organic standards in an effort to cash in on the increased demand for organic products. They argue that allowing the nonorganic ingredients will weaken the integrity of the organic label.

“More than 90 percent of the food/agricultural items on the proposed list of materials in this rule are items that can easily be grown organically,” said Merrill A. Clark, an organic farmer from Michigan and a former member of the organic advisory board, in comments to the Agriculture Department.

She said that allowing such nonorganic ingredients are “totally unhealthy for the organic industry down the road,” and are “opening the organic rules to ridicule and unflattering public exposure.”

Jill M. Cataldo of Huntley, Ill., told the Agriculture Department that her family ate only organic beef to avoid exposure to mad cow disease and other health risks. But she questioned the integrity of organic sausage that would be wrapped in nonorganic casings made from the intestines of animals that can be fed such things as bovine growth hormones.

Organic crops are grown without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Similarly, organic meat comes from animals that are not injected with growth hormones or fed antibiotics.

The ingredients in dispute are already being used in organic products. But two years ago, a federal court ruled that the Agriculture Department had to approve each nonorganic agricultural product that was being used in organic food.

Previously, nonorganic agricultural products could be used as long as a certifying agent agreed that that they were not available as organic, at least not in the form, quality or quantity needed.

The court gave manufacturers two years to find an organic alternative or to petition the Agriculture Department to include the ingredients on a list of approved nonorganic agricultural products. The deadline was Friday, and the department was expected to make a decision by then.

Officials at the Department of Agriculture could not be reached for comment Sunday. Andrea M. Caroe, the chairwoman of the advisory board, said she expected a decision within days. Even if the list is approved, she said, manufacturers would still need to show that the ingredients were not available in organic form.

For instance, she said hops were included on the list because there is a large variety and some are not grown organically in adequate quantity for beer brewers.

John Foraker, chief executive of Annie’s Homegrown, argued that nonorganic annatto was a crucial ingredient in the company’s macaroni and cheese. “Organic annatto is not readily available and does not deliver the same cheese color,” he said in a May 14 letter to the Agriculture Department. “Making orange colored macaroni and cheese is an important element of our offering. Without annatto, our macaroni-and-cheese products would be white.”

Mark Sammartino, a brew master at Anheuser-Busch, said the company used four varieties of hops that were not available in organic form for two new varieties of beer: Organic Wild Hop Lager and Organic Stone Mill Pale Ale. The hops “represent unique flavor and aroma characteristics due to variation in essential oils,” he wrote in a petition to the Agriculture Department that was received in January.

The fact that Anheuser-Busch may get an exemption rankled many organic food adherents.

“Hops are a crucial ingredient for beer. Why can’t they use organic hops?” said James A. Riddle, an organic consultant and a former chairman of the organic advisory board.

Mr. Riddle also complained that manufacturers had two years to petition for nonorganic ingredients to be allowed in organic products. But the advisory board allowed only seven days for public comments once they had posted the list of 38 recommended ingredients.

“To give the public seven days to comment is really insulting,” Mr. Riddle said.

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