Bad and Good News on the Sustainable Eating Front

First the bad news-- and a call to action.  If you care about organic foods I hope you also care about the national organic standards.  At this very moment those standards are being threatened.  Here's the situation and what you can do--from the Organic Consumers Association  website:

Now, large corporations such as Kraft, Wal-Mart, & Dean Foods--aided and abetted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and members of the Organic Trade Association are moving to lower organic standards by allowing Bush appointees in the USDA National Organic Program to create a broad list of synthetic ingredients that would be allowed in organic production. Even worse these proposed regulatory changes will reduce future public discussion and input and take away the National Organic Standards Board’s (NOSB) traditional lead jurisdiction in setting standards. What this means, in blunt terms. is that USDA bureaucrats and industry lobbyists, not consumers, will now have more control over what can go into organic foods and products.

Send a quick letter to your Senator online here.

Tell everyone you know and ask them to contact their Senator today.

Threats such as this is what have made the imperative to eat local more important than ever--even more important than eating certified organic foods.  But Jen at Life Begins at 30 has this good news to share:   Perhaps spurred on by the recent August Eat Local Challenge or the momentum gathering around eating within one's foodshed, the food service company Bon Appetit has raised the bar by calling for an Eat Local Challenge of its own to take place on September 29 whereby all of its clients (in 26 states) will serve lunch--or all meals--prepared from foods sourced within 150 miles of its location.  The Bon Appetit website is as inspiring as it is beautiful  I think they have expansion potential in Syracuse. 

Read about their Eat Local Challenge here .

Comments

[Caley]

Thanks for your post. I've recently become really interested in the issue of sustainable eating, especially when it means supporting local farmers, and it's scary that the already low organic standards could be lowered further.
I would love to know what you think about an article I just wrote for our website (I admit I'm somewhat of a novice in this issue), and any other resources I should check out would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.recipe4living.com/content/view/12379/314/