Identifying True Organic Products
This can be a tricky area to find truthful answers. Many companies these days are using the words such as ‘natural’, ‘green’ or ‘organic’ on their labeling of products.
Unfortunately this does not always reflect what it should. Technically 'organic' refers to something that is a compound of Carbon – so essentially this means anything 'living' can be called 'organic', which is very broad and misleading.
Simply stating ‘Organic’ in the label does not mean the product is FREE of:
- Pesticides
- Herbicides
- Growth Hormones
- Antibiotics
- Genetic Modification
In Australia the area of organic labelling is regulated by The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). They have listed the following as approved organics certification companies:
- AUS-QUAL Limited (AUSQUAL)
- ACO - Australian Certified Organic
- Bio-Dynamic Research Institute
- NASAA - The National Association of Sustainable Agriculture Australia
- OFC - Organic Food Chain
- Safe Food Production Queensland
- Tasmanian Organic Dynamic Producers
In order to know it is truly organic and free of the above nasties you have to look for the following certification symbols on your products;
Remember, if your holding a product and it says 'Organic' but does not list one of these certification symbols - you may not be getting a true organically produced product. Look for these symbols to ensure you are getting safe, spray-free, hormone-free, anti-biotic-free, nutritious food!
If you think a company is making misleading 'organic' claims on their product/s please take a moment to report it here on the ACCC Website. This helps clean up the market for those who are not aware of what we have just learnt.
Please spread the word about these issues to help raise Organic Awareness in our community.
Happy organic shopping!