Fooling the Public About Organic Dairy: Shame on Walmart? Who's Watching the Cow?
The Problem: Is Walmart Lying and Cheating About Organic Milk?
Horizon Organic and Aurora Organic, sold by Wal-Mart and other retailers, continue to produce “organic” milk under factory-farm conditions that few reasonable people would consider truly organic.
According to the Organic Consumers Association, half of Horizon’s “organic” milk today comes from what can only be considered “factory” dairy feedlots — and much of Aurora’s organic milk does as well. Rather than buy organic calves that have been raised from birth on organic farms, these companies seemed to have discovered it’s cheaper to buy conventional calves that have been raised on conventional farms, install them in factory feedlots, then milk them and call it organic.
The situation has become so alarming that the Organic Consumers Association ultimately called for a boycott, and many knowledgeable consumers are now avoiding the Horizon brand entirely.
The organic milk controversy extends to organic soy milk as well. Horizon Organic’s parent company, Dean Foods, also bought out Silk, the leading organic soy milk brand in the United States. Dean Foods has pushed for lower organic standards in the United States and to allow industrial-style production to be called “organic.”
Meanwhile, major grocery chains import cheap, so-called “organic” soybeans from China, where the workers are treated much like slaves and organic standards are dubious. They are also imported from Brazil where the Amazon rainforest is being bulldozed in order to create more acreage for growing soybeans.
(Source: http://www.newstarget.com/021763.html)
Dr. Shayne’s Comment:
The following comments by Dr. Mercola (mercola.com) and are noteworthy because the organic issue is now just a jumble of confusion. As I myself have predicted, the organic industry is now on shaky ground. The reason for this is that big corporations realized that people are interested in organics, so they had to covet the industry, blur the line of what organics should really mean, and corrupt the industry by changing standards, private labeling and deceiving people. The bottom line is that we are being lied to and fed junky, toxic, poisonous, inferior, chemical-ridden produce…
Dr. Mercola’s Comment:
I’ve warned you before about the destruction of organic standards, especially since mega-companies like Wal-Mart and Dean Foods (the parent company of Horizon Organic) have jumped on the organic milk bandwagon. Evidently, the deception regarding organic milk is even worse than you probably ever imagined.
All of the milk from Aurora Organics and most from Horizon is produced by cows that came from factory dairy feedlots and existed on disgusting diets of genetically modified grains, slaughterhouse waste and chicken manure.
The only good news here is that all the attention paid to this organic problem by news outlets and Web sites like mine is forcing the USDA to act. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean you should be drinking organic milk anyway, considering it’s pasteurized just like all the other conventional varieties of milk found at your corner grocery store.
The real issue is not organic versus non-organic milk, it is raw versus pasteurized.
Secondary issues would be the food source that is given to the cow. Ideally, they should be fed exclusively on grass. When you start giving cows grains, even organic ones, their milk will have lower levels of important nutrients such as conjugated linoleic acid.
Your best bet for your good health is to find a local source for raw milk, which I believe is one of the best foods for most people. If you find this statement unusual then please read my article on the reasons why raw milk is becoming more popular.
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