United States Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan (left) took another step in her ongoing rehabilitation of the USDA Organic program by targeting the use of two synthetic additives in the organic baby formula industry. From the Washington Post:
Most U.S. manufacturers of conventional and organic baby formula have supplemented their products with the fatty acids DHA and ARA for several years in order to make them more closely mimic breast milk. Some studies suggest the omega 3-fatty acid DHA and the omega-6 fatty acid ARA promote cognition and eyesight in babies.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which isn’t challenging the safety of the additives, is responding to complaints from activists that the Bush administration ignored proper procedures when it decided to include synthetic versions of the fatty acids on a list of nonorganic ingredients that are nonetheless allowed into products that carry the USDA’s organic seal.
Kathleen Merrigan, an organics expert and second-most powerful person in the Agriculture Department, said in an interview Monday that organic regulators in 2006 misinterpreted the federal guidelines and erred by not seeking public comment on the 2006 move.
At issue is the fact that synthetic DHA and ARA are created using hexane, a chemical that has not been approved for use in USDA certified organic food processing. According to a report by the organic industry watchdog group Cornucopia Institute, hexane is used to extract oil from grains as well as protein from soy. The chemical is so widely used that, in 2007, grain processors were responsible for more than two-thirds of hexane emissions in the United States. The report also pointed out that hexane, which can be be found in final food products, has been linked to “severe diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration, and gastrointestinal pain in some infants.”
As for the synthetic DHA and ARA, the biotech company Martek may be the big loser here. Via Washington Post:
The largest supplier of these ingredients is Martek Biosciences Corp., Columbia, Md., which extracts DHA and ARA from microorganisms using the chemical hexane, a solvent long used to make cooking oils. Martek’s process sparked a food fad about eight years ago by giving manufacturers an alternative to using fish-oil-derived fatty acids.
A recent attendee of Natural Products Expo West told Fair Food Fight on Twitter that a Martek rep was telling conference-goers that the hexane-produced products were excellent because they’re vegan (not produced from fish).
As for which companies use the synthetic DHA and ARA,
Martek spokeswoman Cassie France-Kelly said Monday the company’s synthetic fatty acids are used in organic products offered by Abbott Laboratories’ Similac infant formula brand, the Earth’s Best brand owned by Hain Celestial Group, and Dean Foods’ Horizon milk brand.
It’s important to reiterate Dep. Sec. Merrigan’s point (stated in the Washington Post article) that these companies are not “getting away” with anything. Hexane-produced DHA and ARA did not go through the proper approval process during the Bush years and, as a result, these companies were operating in good faith.
That said, Fair Food Fight applauds Dep. Sec. Merrigan closing this loophole, and the tireless efforts of the Cornucopia Institute must be lauded as well. Other sectors of Big Food seek to obfuscate and dodge abuses in the industry, so much so that it’s difficult to imagine an obscure point like hexane-produced DHA warranting an article in WaPo (indeed, despite its apparent health-hazards, hexane is perfectly legal as a processing chemical in every other sector of the U.S. food system). But the organic world holds itself to a high standard and has a history of policing itself for the betterment of the label and the confidence of the organic shopper.
So here’s to more police-action from Kathleen Merrigan and more watchdogging from Cornucopia.
