Also this issue:

Letters to the Editor

Rendell for Governor
-Howard Altman

The Tale of Two Men and a City
Or, why I won't vote for Ed Rendell.
-Linda Wallace

LOVE Burns Bacon
The man who planned LOVE Park gets on board to protest the skater ban.
-Howard Altman

October 31-November 6, 2002

loose canon

What to Call Your Dinner

by Bruce Schimmel

Here’s a new recipe for ecological activism:

Take generous helpings of new food-labeling laws and combine with several large dollops of high-end marketing. Blend carefully and -- voila! -- everyone can make a political statement with every mouthful.

New food laws now regulate what can be called "organic." In late October, the federal government finally stepped into an arena that for too long had been the exclusive purview of individual states. The feds had to, because what's being termed organic in Maryland might not pass muster in California -- which made everything labeled "organic" suspect.

The new move is a big step, but it's just a step. There is still abuse. Meat companies, for instance, can still label products as "all natural," even though the feed given to their birds is loaded with a pharmacopoeia of antibiotics and growth stimulants.

What's considered "natural" about these drugged-up birds is that they are "minimally processed" after the animals are killed. Ironically, with all the antibiotic-resistant bugs found on some store-bought chicken, I'd opt for a nice long dunking in bleach. It may be less natural, but at least it'd be cleaner.

The new FDA guidelines may not address what's "natural," though at least an item called "organic" now meets the same tough standard across the nation. And although organic food may not necessarily be healthier for humans, we can at least dine on food with greater assurance that it didn't destroy the land on which it was grown.

Meanwhile, menus in fancier restaurants are also rethinking what to call your dinner. A recent Wall Street Journal story singled out the White Dog Café as a leader in this effort. Philadelphia's doyenne of PC dining, Judy Wicks, not only labels where your food was grown, but also how it died. The Alaskan King Salmon on her menu is said to be caught on a hook, as opposed to a net, which indiscriminately kills everything it sweeps from the sea.

But what's claimed on some restaurant menus, the WSJ story points out, may still be misleading. Like the label "natural" in meat packaging, some claims are not what they seem. "Diver" scallops used to mean scallops harvested by hand. Now it means scallops that haven't been soaked in preservative.

It's past time for the feds to talk consistently about everything we call dinner. It's clear that we need further basic consumer protections against fraud in both supermarkets and restaurants. If we pay a premium for food that makes a statement, we need better assurances that the statement is true.