by Tom Philpott.
Dean Foods is by far the largest U.S. dairy processor. According to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Dean processes 40 percent of fluid milk consumed
in the U.S., which it distrubutes in a dizzying array of brands. Its dominance extends to
organic milk, too—Dean’s Horizon brand is the largest supplier of
organic milk.
Dean’s Horizon organic milk generates plenty of
controversy. For years, Horizon has been sparring with the watchdog
group Cornucopia over its farming practices, like use of conventionally raised heifers on its certified-organic farms. Cornucopia also goes after Dean for putting additives in its
“organic” products. The latest dust-up is over a new Horizon product
called “Fat-Free Milk Plus DHA Omega-3.”
According to Cornucopia,
the DHA in question is a “synthetic additive” banned under organic
standards. Horizon counters that it has been using the synthetic DHA for
years in its organic baby formula, with the approval of the USDA.
Cornucopia shoots back that DHA-laced formula has been shown [PDF] to cause adverse reactions in babies—and adds that USDA recently acknowledged [PDF] that it was “incorrect” to allow synthetic DHA in organic products in the first place.
But the purpose of this post isn’t to referee the latest dispute between Dean
and Cornucopia. Rather, it’s to question the vision for organic being
promoted by Dean with its Horizon products.
The organic-farming movement in the West was galvanized 70 years ago by the great British scientist Sir Albert Howard.
His theory of agriculture can be summed up like this: healthy soil
produces healthy plants and animals, which in turn nourish healthy
humans. In short, there’s no need to tart up properly grown food with all manner of synthetic additives
to make it “healthy.”
In his In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan showed that the practice of isolating and synthesizing
certain nutrients and adding them to food is a mug’s game, a marketer’s
trick. It turns out, we don’t understand all that much about human
nutrition, but we do know that eating foods in their whole state tends
to be healthier than loading up on isolated nutrients in the form of
supplements and additives.
Meanwhile, a growing body of research suggests that cows fed on grass produce milk with a healthier fat profile
than grain-fed cows —higher in the very kinds of Omega-3 fats that
Dean is injecting into
its “organic” milk in synthetic form. “Fat-Free Milk Plus DHA Omega-3” is a deeply absurd product—the natural fats have been stripped
out, replaced by ones conjured up in a lab. In promoting such
concoctions, Dean is straying away from a solid notion of organic, and
moving into the marketing-driven, hyped-up world of “functional foods” —which is probably where a company of its vast size belongs, anyway.
It’s a free country, but I don’t see how Dean should be allowed to use
the USDA organic label as a fig leaf for its latest move away from
organic principles.
Related Links:
Your guide to a great green weekend in Portland
The case for labeling GMOs, food for environmentalist thought, and more
The (not so) New Agtivist: Organic movement leader Bob Scowcroft looks back
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