Feeding You Lies: How to Unravel the Food Industry’s Playbook and Reclaim Your Health

In the late 1940s, publisher J. I. Rodale decided to become a farmer. He’d spent most of his life in New York City, but he’d become increasingly interested in farming methods that didn’t rely on toxic pesticides or big doses of nitrogen fertilizer. Although this “old-fashioned” style of farming had been the norm a few generations before, it had been largely replaced by industrial techniques that promised farmers higher yields and less labor.¹

Unfortunately, these new agricultural techniques soon created some major problems. During the Second World War, for instance, farmers were no longer able to buy their chemical fertilizers, since those same chemicals were needed to make munitions for the army. (They also required vast amounts of energy to produce, but that’s another story.) The shortfall of chemicals revealed the destructive impact of even a few decades of industrial agriculture, as farmers were forced to deal with the sudden “nutrient poverty” of their soil. While old-fashioned farming techniques helped maintain a healthy topsoil, industrial methods depended on a steady influx of chemicals. Take away those chemicals and harvests plummet.

Rodale wanted to start a farm that could preserve “old school” chemical-free farming techniques. (He’d been influenced by British pioneers like Albert Howard and Lady Eve Balfour.)

“Organics is not a fad,” Rodale wrote in 1954. “It has been a long-established practice—much more firmly grounded than the current chemical flair. Present agricultural practices are leading us downhill.”² And so Rodale founded a 333-acre farm in rural Pennsylvania that featured livestock (for manure), composting, multiple crops with crop rotations, and various chemical-free techniques that kept the soil healthy and reduced the chemical load. One of Rodale’s fundamental insights was that healthy living required a healthy agricultural system. If the dirt was full of poisons, our food would be full of poisons too.

Since Rodale helped start organic farming in America, his small experiment has become a major growth industry, with organic food accounting for roughly 5 percent of the total American food market. A few years ago, we could buy organic apples and broccoli. Now most grocery stores stock a full array of organic items, from pasta to yogurt, coffee to cookies, grapes to kale.

With these new alternatives come hard choices. Each week, you stand in a supermarket aisle looking at the bins of lemons. To your right, there is a small selection of organic lemons; to your left, conventional mass-produced lemons. The first is significantly more expensive than the latter. And so you ask yourself: Is organic worth it? Should I be willing to pay significantly more money for food that’s grown without pesticides and chemicals?

For me, the answer is a definite yes. I believe that buying quality organic food ultimately saves you money down the road in medical costs, prescription drugs, and doctor visits. After I switched to eating primarily organic foods, everything changed in my life. I went from being overweight and sick to feeling vibrant and healthy. My skin issues vanished. I was able to stop taking my prescription medications.

My own experience with organic food is why I feel so strongly that organic food is an essential feature of a healthy diet. I’m aware of the chemicals that are used in conventional farming, and I know how bad they are for our health and the environment. I also know how bad they make things taste.

I like the purity of strawberries that have not been sprayed with dozens of pesticides. I prefer meat that has not been laced with growth hormones and antibiotics or raised in cruel feedlots. Organic fruit may not always look as pretty, but it tastes better. (So do organic meat and chicken.) This is what food should be.

And it’s also better for your health. Many of these chemicals can make you tired, destroy your gut, wreak havoc on your complexion, and cause mood issues. Even worse, they may put you at risk for terrifying, life-shortening diseases like cancer.

So when I eat organic food, I know I’m making the right choice for my health and my body. When I buy organic food, I know I’m doing something positive for the environment and for the farmers who grow food in a sustainable manner. When I serve organic food, I know I’m not feeding synthetic pesticides, GMOs, growth hormones, or antibiotics to my friends and family. When I go organic, I have peace of mind. For people like me, organic food is more than just a label: it’s a lifestyle.

But not everyone agrees with me. Regardless of the truth, the conventional food and chemical industries have gone to great lengths to spread a dangerous lie. In short, they want us to believe that organic food is neither better nor healthier than conventional food, and that it’s definitely not worth the extra expense. And they’ve gotten a lot of help from the media in broadly disseminating this lie:

Who is really telling the story here? Remember that Big Food and Big Ag rely heavily on front groups to promote these types of messages in the media, and they even go as far as to train seemingly independent farmers, bloggers, and scientists to act as expert sources for journalists. It’s an elaborate con that the media keeps falling for.

Because here’s the truth: Big Food is waging a war against organic food, with the good guys being battered by industry front groups armed with millions of dollars from food and chemical companies. In 2015, the advocacy group Friends of the Earth produced a report called Spinning Food: How Food Industry Front Groups and Covert Communications Are Shaping the Story of Food.⁸ Their report exposed the dirty tactics that Big Food and agrochemical companies have implemented to combat the organic food movement. It reveals how they are using their deep pockets to launch stealth public relations campaigns and push coordinated messages that attack organic food and activists like me. At the same time, these groups defend the continued use of synthetic pesticides, antibiotics, GMOs, and chemical food additives.

As was documented in this report, four of the largest food and chemical trade associations have spent insane amounts of money—over half a billion dollars from 2009 to 2013 (which includes, but isn’t limited to, public relations activities). This just goes to show, they’ve got deep pockets! They also uncovered that 14 of the largest front groups working for the industry spent about $126 million during that same time period, often without fully disclosing where their funding comes from.

One of these industry groups, the Alliance for Food and Farming, is funded by conventional produce farmers. They continually attack EWG’s Dirty Dozen Guide on pesticides in conventional produce. Other industry groups such as the Council for Biotechnology Information and the Coalition for Safe and Affordable Food advocate for GMOs (GMOs are banned in organic farming), while Keep Food Affordable advocates for conventional meat and egg producers.⁹

The Pork Network warned farmers about “Crunchy Mamas”—demonizing moms who prefer organic food and are concerned about the conditions on factory farms.¹⁰ The BlogHer Publishing Network conferences (the largest women’s blogging network in the country) have been sponsored by several Big Food companies and the front group CommonGround¹¹ in an apparent attempt to influence the content on their network of blogs. In 2014, Monsanto paid bloggers $150 to attend a brunch following the BlogHer conference to learn “how farmers are using fewer resources to feed a growing population.”¹² When I spoke at BlogHer Food in May 2016, Monsanto and its PR firm were in the audience taking notes feverishly. As a female activist, I’m particularly disgusted with these attempts to try to undermine and discredit me and other female bloggers, especially mothers who are trying to change our unhealthy food system.

If you believe in organic foods and farming, as I do, I recommend you familiarize yourself with the key PR players and front groups—and most importantly, share that information far and wide. All of us who are advocating for a safer food system are up against huge corporations (and shady front groups) capable of spending tens of millions of dollars to preserve the status quo, which is leading to skyrocketing rates of obesity, diabetes, and allergies. If we are going to get the truth out there, we all have to work together.

Organic Pop Quiz

How well versed are you in organic foods? Take this quick quiz to find out.

How can you tell the difference between organic and nonorganic foods?
1. If one food smells fresher than another, it’s organic.
2. It bears an organic label.
3. The organic variety will always cost more.
4. There’s no difference.
What portion of food must be organic to permit a food manufacturer to use the USDA Certified Organic seal?
1. 10 percent or less
2. 25 percent
3. 25 to 75 percent
4. 95 to 100 percent
To bear the organic label, a food cannot be produced with:
1. Roundup weed killer
2. GMOs
3. Irradiation
4. All of the above
Organic foods often cost more than conventional foods because of:
1. Higher taxes to organic farmers
2. Production costs
3. Greed
Besides buying organic foods, you can avoid toxins and other harmful ingredients by:
1. Eating a variety of fresh, nonpackaged foods, such as fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.
2. Eating food that is labeled “natural” or “all natural.”
3. Eating food that is labeled “free of artificial ingredients.”
Organic fish can be found in the supermarket.
True

False
For organic meat, the USDA standards require that animals are:
1. Raised in conditions that accommodate their natural behaviors.
2. Given organic feed.
3. Not administered antibiotics or hormones.
4. All of the above.

Answers:

The correct answer is: It bears an organic label. The label will state “USDA Organic.”
The correct answer is: 95 to 100 percent. Foods with 95 percent or more organic ingredients can use the USDA Certified Organic label or label their product as organic.
The correct answer is: All of the above. This is the beauty of organic food; it is grown and manufactured without toxins and processes that are harmful to health.
The correct answer is: Production costs. Not as many organic ingredients are available. So companies that buy them may have to pay more for them. Organic farming also is more labor intensive, which often leads to smaller yields.
The correct answer is: Eating a variety of fresh, nonpackaged foods. Labels on packaged foods like “natural,” “all natural,” and “free of artificial ingredients” can be misleading to consumers, as they may be made with conventionally grown crops sprayed with Roundup, and may still contain GMOs and controversial additives.
The correct answer is: False. The USDA has not yet determined standards for what would make fish organic. The best option for fish is “wild” versus “farmed” varieties.
The correct answer is: All of the above. This standard applies to organic eggs and milk as well.

The biggest perpetrators of lies about organic food are Monsanto and other big agrochemical companies, like Dow and Bayer. Think about it: Their best-selling products—Roundup, pesticides, and GMO seeds—are banned on organic farms. If all farms went organic, their most profitable products would disappear. Any messaging that organic food is better than conventionally grown food is thus harmful to their business, so they dig into their deep wallets to push back against the evidence and sow mistrust of organic farming. They don’t want Americans to question where their food comes from, because that would threaten their fat profit margins.

In this chapter, I’m going to present the case for organic food, as well as address some of the longstanding lies about organic farming, so you can decide what is best for yourself and your family.

Understand What Non-GMO Means—It’s Not the Same as Organic!

There’s a lot of muddled information and debate about what non-GMO and organic labels really mean. The labels are very different! It’s crucial to understand the difference if you want to pick out the healthiest and safest food for you and your family. Every time we decide to buy a product, we are supporting so much more than our bodies. We are helping shape the policies and priorities of the entire food system. And this is why I want you to understand what the “non-GMO” label means.

The Non-GMO Project offers a third-party verification service for food companies who want to label their products as non-GMO. If you’re in the U.S. or Canada, I’m sure you’ve seen their “butterfly” non-GMO label on products at the store. This verification label indicates that the product undergoes ongoing testing of all at-risk ingredients and the manufacturer complies with rigorous traceability and segregation practices. The Non-GMO Project verification is audited every year to ensure compliance.

That said, this is not the primary label that I look for on the food I buy. When I have a choice, I always choose Certified Organic foods instead. That’s because organic beats non-GMO every time. Here’s why:

Certified organic foods are also non-GMO. USDA organic regulations prohibit any genetically modified (GMO) ingredients in a Certified Organic product.
Organic crops cannot be grown with synthetic pesticides, and contain much lower pesticide residues than conventional crops overall. Organic regulations prohibit certain toxic pesticides from being used on crops, but there are no special restrictions for non-GMO crops. As a result, non-GMO crops can be grown the same way as other conventional crops and can still be laden with toxic pesticide residues, including organophosphates that are linked to lymphoma and leukemia.
The most widely used herbicide on the planet—Roundup—is prohibited on organic crops. Non-GMO crops such as wheat can be treated pre-harvest with glyphosate.
Organic ingredients aren’t processed with toxic hexane. Most vegetable oils (canola, soybean, corn, sunflower) are extracted using the neurotoxin hexane (distilled from crude oil), and some residue may remain in these oils. Hexane is also used in the processing of many soy ingredients like soy protein and textured vegetable protein. There’s nothing prohibiting hexane-processed ingredients in non-GMO products, but hexane is banned from production of USDA organic products.
Organic crops are prohibited from being fertilized with sewage sludge. Conventional non-GMO crops can be treated with “biosolids,” a polite term for the treated waste that’s flushed down the toilet, along with waste from hospitals and industry. This waste can be contaminated with such things as heavy metals, endocrine disruptors, pathogens, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and dioxins—it’s basically a toxic chemical soup!
Organic meat isn’t produced with risky growth-promoting drugs, such as ractopamine. Packaged non-GMO foods may contain meat that has been raised on ractopamine.
Organic animals aren’t fattened up with growth-promoting antibiotics. Antibiotics aren’t just used to fight infection in farm animals; they’re also used to fatten them up. The overuse of growth-promoting antibiotics is creating superbugs that could threaten the entire human population. There is nothing prohibiting the use of antibiotics in non-GMO products containing meat.

Eating organic certainly does you no harm, but does it truly enhance your health? While the scientific data is a bit limited, several studies point to organic foods being significantly more nutritious. For example, researchers at the University of California, Davis analyzed organic tomatoes and found that they had higher levels of flavonoids than nonorganic tomatoes.¹³ Another study published in PLOS ONE found organic tomatoes had more vitamin C and lycopene (an antioxidant).¹⁴ And a 2014 statistical analysis published in the British Journal of Nutrition found up to 69 percent more antioxidants in organic foods versus their nonorganic counterparts.¹⁵ These researchers also found that organic foods contain lower levels of the toxic heavy metal cadmium and pesticides. Another large 2016 analysis published in the same journal found greater amounts of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids (about 50 percent more!) in organic meat and dairy.¹⁶ This is because organic animals typically dine on more grass than conventional factory-farm livestock, producing a healthier fatty-acid profile.

Yes, I’d like to see more studies like these. But limited scientific evidence doesn’t mean we should deny the data that does exist. Furthermore, it’s important to understand why there aren’t more studies about the benefits of organic food. One main reason is that a lot of nutritional research is funded by those with anti-organic interests, especially the biotech, Big Ag, and food companies that don’t produce organic food. Needless to say, these companies have no interest in paying for science that documents the inferiority of their products.

Of course, the benefits of organic food aren’t limited to additional nutrients: eating organically may also help you stay thin. Antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides, and synthetic preservatives are just a few of the chemicals that researchers have defined as obesogens.¹⁷ The theory that obesogens in our food and environment could be making us fat has been gathering steam ever since researcher Paula Baillie-Hamilton published an article in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in 2002, presenting strong evidence that chemical exposure caused weight gain in experimental animals.¹⁸ As was reported in a New York Times piece “Warnings from a Flabby Mouse,” exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals can promote weight gain.¹⁹ This is important because many of the synthetic pesticides found on conventional crops are endocrine disruptors. Minimizing your exposure to obesogens by choosing an organic diet may be the boost you need to lose weight and keep it off.

In my own experience, eating organic also makes it much easier to avoid those highly toxic processed foods that are so unhealthy for us. By choosing Certified Organic food, you’ll automatically avoid many potentially dangerous food additives—like TBHQ, BHT, artificial sweeteners (aspartame, sucralose), and artificial food dyes (Yellow #5, etc.), which are all banned from Certified Organic products. Although you always need to read the ingredients list, even on organic products, with organics it’s easier to find products without a crazy long list of additives and that actually contain real food.

Eating organic foods helps you avoid a cocktail of synthetic chemical pesticides, including the herbicide Roundup (which we discussed in the last chapter). One of the most fascinating reports on the problem of pesticides comes from a large project commissioned by the European Parliament. Experts from around the world were asked to study whether organic food and farming are healthier for us—and their findings run counter to everything you may have heard about organic food in the media. Quoting the coauthor of the report, Philippe Grandjean, adjunct professor of environmental health at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, here are some of his conclusions:

The fundamental goal of organic farming is to produce food without using toxic pesticides. Crops are managed in a way that prevents the need to use chemicals. When produce from farms has been tested, organic typically has far less pesticide residue than conventional (nonorganic). A 2014 review published in the British Journal of Nutrition found pesticide residues four times more frequently on conventional crops.²¹ By eating organic, you can significantly decrease your exposure to these chemicals that were designed to destroy other living things.

Also, pesticide consumption can have a cumulative effect, both in the immediate and long term, says the Pesticide Action Network.²² Over time, this can damage your kidneys and liver, both of which have to work extra hard to remove these poisons from your body. And it’s not just your major organs: pesticides wreak havoc everywhere. In general, the consumption and overload of pesticides may contribute to a slew of health issues, including:

Pesticides are even more damaging to children than adults. The damage starts in the womb—something corroborated by the American Academy of Pediatrics in the following statement:

Let’s not forget about the impact that conventional agriculture has on farmers. Tens of thousands of farmworkers are poisoned by pesticides each year in the U.S., according to EPA reports²⁴—and there are likely many incidents that go unreported. The effects on farmers and nearby communities are devastating.

In 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services President’s Cancer Panel issued their annual report revealing a link between exposure to synthetic pesticides and an increased number of cancer cases in farmworkers, as well as leukemia in children living in farming communities.²⁵ If this is what happens on the farm, what are these chemicals doing to our bodies when we eat them in small amounts day after day?

Food Babe Truth Detector:
The “Dose Makes the Poison” Fib

Critics say the amount of pesticides on food is too small to do any damage, but this isn’t the case when talking about some of these chemicals, which are endocrine disruptors. According to the President’s Cancer Panel: “The entire U.S. population is exposed on a daily basis to numerous agricultural chemicals, some of which also are used in residential and commercial landscaping. Many of these chemicals have known or suspected carcinogenic or endocrine disrupting properties. Pesticides (insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides) approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contain nearly 900 active ingredients, many of which are toxic.”²⁶

Endocrine disruptors are substances that disrupt hormones and lead to reproductive problems, early onset puberty, obesity, diabetes, and some cancers. They are prevalent in our environment—we can’t totally escape them. We come into constant contact with them on a daily basis through dietary and environmental exposure. When it comes to endocrine disruptors, it’s been shown that chronic small exposures are damaging: “the dose makes the poison” mantra simply does not apply.²⁷

It’s not that easy. Many of the chemicals used on conventional food are systemic: meaning they’re absorbed into the food and you can’t simply just wash them off. There are often multiple pesticides in each fruit or vegetable—residue rates are rising, in fact—and there’s no legal limit on the number of different pesticides found in food. When it comes to nonorganic packaged foods, you obviously cannot wash those. That’s why so many of those processed snack foods that we discussed in the last chapter tested positive for glyphosate residues.

Big Food and Big Ag claim pesticides are needed to help “feed the world.” But this is deceptive, since these very chemicals are badly damaging the environment. Experts at the U.N. recently warned that pesticides end up in our water systems, damage our ecological system, contaminate soils, are responsible for bee deaths, and are a huge environmental threat to the future of food production.²⁸ The issue of world hunger is due to poverty, inequality, and distribution—not lack of food.

“It’s time to overturn the myth that pesticides are necessary to feed the world and create a global process to transition toward safer and healthier food and agricultural production,” stated the U.N. Special Rapporteurs on Toxics and the Right to Food in March 2017.²⁹

Certified Organic Label Lingo

What constitutes “organic”? Here’s what all those labels actually mean.

100% organic. Products are able to make this claim only if they are made with all organic ingredients (excluding water and salt). They may also put the USDA Organic seal on their packages.
Organic. Products can also use the USDA Organic seal if they contain at least 95 percent organic ingredients (excluding water and salt). The remaining 5 percent cannot contain substances banned from organic foods, such as GMOs or artificial dyes.
Made with organic ingredients. When you see this on a package, it contains at least 70 percent organic ingredients. These products are not permitted to use the USDA Organic seal.

Source: USDA Organic Labeling Standards³⁰

Many consumers are confused about whether organic food production can ever involve pesticide and fertilizer use. Yes, they can—but with important distinctions. Organic farmers can apply organic certified pesticides and fungicides to their crops, as outlined and approved by the USDA Certified Organic program. They can also fertilize their crops with livestock manure. Before you turn up your nose, that’s quite different from the sewage sludge (human waste) allowed in conventional farming. Scientific analysis has found that sewage sludge (aka “biosolids”) is full of nasty bacteria, pharmaceuticals, toxic heavy metals, flame retardants, and other hazardous chemicals. (Now you can turn up your nose.) It’s been shown that some of these contaminants are absorbed into (or remain as residue on) the crops we eat. Organic standards prohibit the use of this practice.³¹

Organic-approved pesticides are only allowed to be used as a “last resort“ on organic crops after other methods fail, such as planting cover crops and mechanical weeding. Furthermore, farmers have to demonstrate the need for the pesticide to their organic certifier. In general, organic farmers are reluctant to use pesticides. When organic farmers do use them, they generally use natural and nontoxic substances derived from plants or bacteria.

Before a pesticide can even be approved for organics, it goes through many hoops and is more rigorously reviewed than other pesticides. That’s why there are only about 25 synthetic products permitted on organic farms, while nonorganic farms have upward of 900 agrochemicals at their disposal.

These rules aren’t perfect, but they help explain why tested organic produce contains much lower pesticide residues than nonorganic conventional produce.

Food Babe Truth Detector:
The Rotenone and Copper Sulfate Fibs

Critics argue that horribly toxic pesticides are used on organic crops, and that they’re used in much greater amounts. Untrue. One of the pesticides they routinely bring up is rotenone, but this pesticide isn’t even used in America. It was once approved for organic crops, but the EPA has banned it from U.S. crops (it’s only registered for use as fish kill). Some other countries still use rotenone, and those crops may be imported as organic into the U.S., but the National Organic Standards Board has passed a recommendation to prohibit it outright.

Another one critics mention is copper sulfate. This can be used by both organic and conventional fruit farmers as a fungicide, but conventional farmers reportedly use more of it and their versions contain riskier “non-active” ingredients. Organic farmers are required to monitor copper sulfate use and aren’t permitted to continue using the chemical if it accumulates in high levels in the soil.

If you eat meat or dairy, choosing organic is even more important. Conventional meat, eggs, and dairy can be contaminated with even more synthetic pesticides than plant-based foods. Pesticides used on feed accumulate in animal tissues over time, and pesticide residues have been found in conventional beef, egg, milk, pork, and poultry samples.³² Using only Certified Organic feed is a requirement when raising organic animals.

Most conventional animals are also raised on growth-promoting steroids, antibiotics, and other drugs, and these residues have been found in meat.³³ The overuse of growth-promoting antibiotics is creating superbugs that contaminate the meat, putting us at greater risk of antibiotic-resistant infections. These drugs are prohibited in the raising of organic animals.

Any food claiming it is organic and that has the USDA Organic label on it is not allowed to have GMOs in any of the ingredients.

Be careful when choosing animal foods, too, since a majority of livestock in the U.S. are fed GMO grains, or are treated with the GMO bovine growth hormone rBGH—another Monsanto product. Do you really want to drink “Monsanto Milk” or eat “Monsanto Butter” derived from animals that have been fed GMO corn and soy heavily sprayed with harmful weed killers?

We definitely need to eat more fruits and vegetables. The evidence is strong and overwhelming that they help protect against heart disease and cancer, ensure a healthy microbiome, and allow us to maintain a healthy weight. So keep produce front and center on your plate. I realize, of course, that some organic fruits and veggies can be rather expensive and are not always available, so if you can’t go 100 percent organic, I suggest sticking with those fruits and veggies that generally have the least pesticide residue. Here’s information from the Environmental Working Group that will help you make the best choices.

The Dirty Dozen

Make these foods a priority on your organic shopping list because conventional versions of these foods have been found to have the most pesticide residues:

Strawberries
Spinach
Nectarines
Apples
Grapes
Peaches
Cherries
Pears
Tomatoes
Celery
Potatoes
Sweet Bell Peppers

The Clean 15

The following foods, organic or not, are least likely to contain pesticide residues:

Avocados
* Sweet Corn
Pineapples
Cabbage
Onions
Sweet peas, frozen
* Papayas
Asparagus
Mangoes
Eggplants
Honeydew melons
Kiwis
Cantaloupes
Cauliflower
Broccoli

* A small amount of fresh sweet corn, papaya, and summer squash sold in the United States is produced from genetically modified seeds. Buy organic varieties of these crops if you want to avoid genetically modified produce.

Source: 2018 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce by the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org³⁴

Next time you hear that organic food is a scam, remember which companies are paying for that message. They have a vested interest in convincing you that pesticides and herbicides are harmless. The evidence suggests otherwise.

Ultimately, the only person you can trust is yourself. Going organic is a personal choice, and with sales of organic foods increasing about 10 percent each year for the past decade, it’s also an increasingly popular choice. Make the switch to organic food and see how you feel.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Some things are worth paying extra for.