There’s been a flurry of stories lately about salmonella in peanut products and how the outbreak relates to the organic industry since one of the offending Peanut Corporation of America plants was certified organic. Turns out many consumers assume that “Organic” means safer. Whoops. This is causing the Organic industry to launch a $500 million Web-based ad campaign assuring people that Organic food, in general, is safe.

But, I think the Organic industry would do better to explain to people why it’s important to choose Organic foods. Is it for the environment? Is it for personal health? Is it for food safety? (It is not for food safety.) Having people quoted as asking the following question in a NYTimes story about how “Organic” does not mean “safe” is not a good thing:

“Why is organic peanut butter better than Jif?” said Ms. Devlin-Sample, a nurse practitioner from Pelham, N.Y. “I have no idea. If we’re getting salmonella from peanut butter, all bets are off.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Just some ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.