Free-Range Food Labels: Can My Groceries Really Help The Planet?

Life Kit

NPR

Health & Fitness, Self-improvement, Kids & Family, Education, Business

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2019

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

So many food labels proclaim their eco-virtues these days — organic. Pasture-raised. Cage-free. Non-GMO. What do they actually mean? Here are six ways to make sense of it all.

- "Natural" or "sustainable" labels have no legal standard.
- "Organic" means it's better for the planet, but may not be better for you.
- Non-GMO is not organic. The food was still grown with pesticides.
- Labels like "Animal Welfare Approved" mean the animals got to live outdoors.
- "Fair Trade" products deliver a little extra money to small farmers in cooperatives.
- Don't let labels stress you out. When it comes to solving the world's problems, your shopping decisions aren't nearly as important as your political decisions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Let's take a walk through the grocery store.
0:04.0	Past the boxes of cereal, the cartons of milk and eggs,
0:08.0	and you know they're talking to us with labels that proclaim their virtues.
0:12.0	Organic Pasture Reh.
0:14.0	H3 Non-GMO
0:16.0	I'm Dan Charles. I cover food and farming for NPR.
0:19.0	And I'm wondering what should I make of all these labels?
0:23.0	A lot of you apparently have been wondering the same thing.
0:26.0	What does organic, what does that really mean when it says all natural?
0:30.0	What does that mean?
0:32.0	What does it mean if it's non genetically modified? Is that better than?
0:36.0	Some is it worse organic? Like are there different levels to it?
0:40.0	It just seems like such a big broad umbrella term.
0:44.0	I want to know the answers.
0:47.0	Because it does matter how foods grow.
0:50.0	Farming is connected to all kinds of environmental problems.
0:53.0	Pesticides, polluted rivers, disappearing habitat for wildlife.
0:58.0	I don't want to make it worse.
1:00.0	I want to do right by the chickens and cows. I want food that's healthy.
1:04.0	But these labels, all natural, sustainable bird friendly.
1:08.0	Experts agree it's a mess out there in the grocery store.
1:12.0	I sometimes jokingly refer to it as the NASCarring of our food.
	...

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