Emily says:

While I agree that the term “organic” is misused to the point of absurdity, it would be fair to point out that the Earthbound Farm people claim that the FDA, et al, have released information supporting the conclusion that:

“…no organic products of any kind, including Earthbound Farm spinach or other products, have been linked to this outbreak at this time.”

They also admit that the jury is still out.

Andrew says:

Ah, but the FDA disputes the company’s claim:

But FDA spokeswoman Susan Bro dismissed the company’s claim that its organic produce has been cleared of suspicion. “The FDA has not cleared any products from the list and continues to recommend consumers avoid eating fresh spinach products,” Bro said.

Emily says:

All true. Interesting to note though, if Earthbound Farm’s assertion that:

“…all of the manufacturing codes taken from spinach packaging retained by patients are from packages of conventional (non-organic) spinach.”

is true, then the FDA has evidence of where at least some affected spinach came from. As opposed to no conclusive evidence as to where it didn’t come from. It seems like that would be nice info to share with consumers.

Leland says:

They have really got to clean out the Porta-Johns in those fields more often. :P

WILLOBIE says:

Face it Mike, we have a two-tiered food system brought about by the refusal of big Ag to tell us what we want to know about the food we buy. As far as Big-Ag is concerned we don’t need to know if the milk came for a cow that was pumped full of hormones to give twice as much milk as a normal cow -or- that the chicken whose eggs or flesh we eat was pumped full of sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics (which was the direct cause of the killer E-coli that we are now being afflicted with -or- from grain that is so round-up ready that it is regulated as a pesticide rather than as a food.

Big-Ag treated us like children who did not need to know what we were eating and we (the upper tier) embraced the godsend of the USDA organic certification program which tells us what is in our food and how it was treated. Now Big-Ag is scrambling to get on the Organic band wagon to make up for lost sales of factory produced food and concentration camp animal husbandry. WalMart uses factory-made pork, beef, and chicken with water added up to the legal maximum, yet is now trying to present a ‘green’ image by stocking it’s dairy section with organic milk products.

Is it so wrong to treat cows as if they were more than milk machines? To treat poultry well enough to live without constant antibiotic input? To raise food from seeds that were not altered to be resistant to herbicides? So what if it’s more expensive to produce food the old fashioned way. It’s the right thing to do.

WILLOBIE says:

NB; please ignore or delete my previous post. This one has a few corrections.
Face it, Andrew, we have a two-tiered food system brought about by the refusal of big Ag to tell us what we want to know about the food we buy. As far as Big-Ag is concerned we don’t need to know if the milk came from a cow that was pumped full of hormones to give twice as much milk as a normal cow -or- that the chicken whose eggs or flesh we eat was pumped full of sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics (which was the direct cause of the killer E-Coli that we are now being afflicted with) -or- from grain that is so round-up ready that it is regulated as a pesticide rather than as a food.
Big-Ag treated us like children who did not need to know what we were eating and we (the upper tier) embraced the godsend of the USDA organic certification program which tells us what is in our food and how it was treated. Now Big-Ag is scrambling to get on the Organic band wagon to make up for lost sales of factory produced food and concentration camp animal husbandry. WalMart uses factory-made pork, beef, and chicken with water added up to the legal maximum, yet is now trying to present a ‘green’ image by stocking it’s dairy section with organic milk products.
The USDA organic certification program hurts no one, and no farmers have been harmed. If they find it more profitable to get certified and produce organic produce and livestock, good for them. Is it so wrong to treat cows as if they were more than milk machines? To treat poultry well enough to live without constant antibiotic input? To raise food from seeds that were not gene-spliced to be resistant to herbicides? So what if it’s more expensive to produce food the old fashioned way. It’s the right thing to do.

Libellule says:

Well said, Willobie! Andrew, unfortunately there is no proof that conventional farming, with its reliance on pesticides, insecticides, and fertilizers made from fossil fuels will solve the world’s hunger problems. In fact, one study (among many) shows that “[b]ased on 154 growing seasons’ worth of data on various crops, organic crops yielded 95% of crops grown under conventional, high-input conditions” (Liebhardt, B. Get the facts straight: organic agriculture yields are good. OFRF Information Bulletin #10, Summer 2005). As for manure, organic farming has strict regulations regarding it - it must either be composted or applied 90 days before crop harvest - whereas conventional agriculture doesn’t. Plus, it would appear that this outbreak, like previous ones, was caused by farm water contaminated with sewage or farm animal waste. The lesson that should be taken away from the recent E coli outbreak is not that organic produce isn’t safe, but rather, buy local and know your grower.

braine says:

Trick is really? Buy locally. It’s only because of a massive farming operation like that in Salinas that you get sick people all over the country from a single poorly managed spinach growing and/or processing area…my local organic farm has completely trustworthy spinach in the field, but they stopped picking it this past week because “we’re sick of having the conversation.”

Steven says:

It looks like you have bought industrial agriculture’s myth that organic growing can’t feed the world due to lower yeilds. This myth has been perpetuated because it supports the need for continuing to spread poison on our food, but there is no basis to it. Recent research points in the opposite direction, but even this argument is a straw man. The real question, now that organic has scaled up, at least in California to industrial standards with multi-thousand acre farms, is whether small-scale farming can feed the world. The old research that serves as the basis for the myth of yeilds is based on inexperienced small-scale hippy farms back in the 1970s. But the research is scewed even more since they looked at, for example, corn yeild per acre, but if an organic farm is producing dozens of varieties of food instead of a mono-cropping strategy typical of industrial ag, then certainly the yeild per acre of corn is less.

The Rodale Farm in Pennsylvania has over 20 years of research growing organic and pesticide crops side by side and there is no loss of yeild with organic crops. You are merely repeating propoganda crafted by right-wing think-tanks like the Hudson Institute.

Scam says:

Blaming it all on the organic spinach is just a conspiracy from the pissed-off chemical farm users. Ever since organic produce became more popular, these people have been really mad at the organic farm growers!!! It’s all business!! ORGANIC IS SAFER!!! Why do you think cancer rates are so high! Smoking? Then again it’s all the pesticides and chemicals they use in the tobacco too!!!

Cindy says:

Blaming it all on the organic spinach is just a conspiracy from the pissed-off chemical farm users.This myth has been perpetuated because it supports the need for continuing to spread poison on our food, but there is no basis to it.Researchers found points in the opposite direction, but even this argument is a straw man. The real question, now that organic has scaled up, at least in California to industrial standards with multi-thousand acre farms, is whether small-scale farming can feed the world.My local organic farm has completely trustworthy spinach in the field, but they stopped picking it this past week because “we’re sick of having the conversation.”
So what if it’s more expensive to produce food the old fashioned way. It’s the right thing to do.

Leland says:

Cindy went to her computer and composed the following words, “Blaming it all on the organic spinach is just a conspiracy from the pissed-off chemical farm users.” Leland then read those words and fell off his chair laughing!

You’re absolutely right. It’s all a vast right wing conspiracy led by the chemical farmers and spoon fed to the media to dupe the public. The fact they traced the contamination to organic spinach farms had nothing to do placing blame.