Is it really that surprising? I stopped buying Horizon a long time ago. Their products are too ubiquitous and too cheap to pass the smell test. You might as well buy conventional and save a little money.

Wait wait. So these are cyborg cows? Jesus h.

It's too bad. This is why it's always bad when the little guy gets bought out by the conglomerate. Whatever it was that made them special, sooner or later, will disappear when they "streamline" the process.

PCC should realize that the presence of these big agribusiness entities in large quantity in their stores erodes their credibility.
Madison Market, for example, has shelves loaded with Cascadia, Horizon, Earthbound, and other huge barely organic agribusinesses.
Part of the problem is that non-humanely produced non-sustainable food is subsidized by the federal government. Agriculture that opts out of that gravy train (e.g. cows fed something other than corn and soy) has an initial cost gap to get over. When you add that to the relatively more expensive labor and land requirements of humane and sustainable production you have a rather expensive end product.
It really boils down to this: if you don't want to be part of an inhumane and unsustainable food chain, and you don't have a lot of disposable income to spend on, say, $7.00 lb. hamburger or $17 lb. steak, you pretty much have to be a vegan.
That Horizon and others are so successful is indicative of how little most socially conscious consumers are willing to do to opt out of the evil.

"Organic" doesn't mean anything anymore. You can use selected synthetic chemicals in organic food now.

ALMOST ALL "organic" or "free range" animals never come anywhere near a blade of grass. With chickens, "cage free" means "wall-to-wall on a bare floor", and "free range" means they open a tiny door at the end of the barn six weeks into their eight-week lifespan. "Organic" means only that they don't eat cow brains or very much of certain kinds of fertilized corn. It means nothing of any real importance.

I'm encouraged to see PCC step up against this bullshit co-opting of the "organic" label by industrial farms.

Anyone know if the California organic standards are still around? Before the FDA began labelling organic foods almost always referenced a 1990 law passed in California defining the standards and that the food met them. I noticed you don't see it anymore. So, are they still around? If so, are they the same as they were? And does anybody know if anyone claims to meet those standards?

There are intermediate choices between "$17 steaks" and "vegan". You don't have have 24 oz. of meat on your plate at every meal. Buying "organic" is less important than buying good, fresh, local, REAL food, that hasn't been airlifted in from Brazil or China. And so what if it's a little more expensive? Food is treated like a gross commodity in this country, and we have BY FAR the cheapest food in the world, and spend BY FAR the least portion of our incomes on food in the world. You can afford a little more. It's the most important stuff you buy; you're going to put it in your body!

Don't worry, they'll just sell at Wal*Mart, where fake organics is a way of life.

I drive my hybrid car to Whole Foods to buy organic milk. I'll join Erica in Boycotting Horizon. If we all would eat organic there'd be no global warming.

Matt,

The California law has been superceded by the USDA's National Organic Program. That's why you don't see it referenced any more.

""Organic" doesn't mean anything anymore."

You obviously don't know much about organic regulations. You seem to imply that "organic" used to mean something and that meaning has been recently eroded. The reality is that until the enactment of the NOP, "organic" meant very little. It was merely a marketing assertion, with no actual oversight. Oversight under the NOP is actually quite strict.
"You can use selected synthetic chemicals in organic food now."Actually, with the recent Harvey decision, the exemptions for certain sythetics (which were really quite limited, maybe 30 or 40 chemicals) are a goner.

I trust the "organic" label on the foods and products I buy. My bath towels are even organic cotton. Maybe we're over reacting about Horizon. I'll keep buying Horizon milk untill I find out more. Some people are against Hybrid cars too, but I love mine. It feels good to be doing something about global warming.

sigh, I remember when trolls were something you used a shovel to wack on the head ... and then buried.

I'm so relieved to hear that it was only 30 or 40 synthetic chemicals that were allowed.

"Organic" DOESN'T mean anything meaningful. The "oversight" provided by the USDA is geared ENTIRELY towards very large industrial farms that may use some organic techniques but are mostly symbolic, like the "free range" designation. Cows that are "organic" still eat corn and other ingredients they can't properly digest, even beef tallow, and are still raised in CAFOs.

Or else they're geared towards huge industrial manufacturing plants, churning out highly processed "organic" frozen dinners which contain all kinds of "natural" but not natural ingredients: "Natural raspberry flavor" that contains zero percent raspberry, for instance.

Serious sustainable farms are increasingly turning away from the USDA's idiotic "organic" label and meeting much higher "sustainable" or "beyond organic" standards of their own. The USDA is 100% beholden to ADM and Monsanto and Cargill, and is actively trying to drive small sustainable farmers out of business, requiring small beef producers to slaughter and cut their beef at large slaughtering facilities instead of on their own farms. The ONLY purpose of this is to increase the price of sustainable meat by a dollar a pound.

USDA regulations make sustainable farming almost impossible, as rules designed to protect food from pathogens on monocultural industrial farms are inimicable to sustainable practices. Plants and animals grown according to the natural cycle of life do not develop these pathogens; for instance, cows who eat only corn, instead of the grass their stomachs are designed for, suffer terribly from low stomach acidity, which also allows E. coli to multiply instead of being killed off by the stomach acids as they otherwise would be. Hence they must be processed in special ways to hopefully kill off the poison before it gets to Jack In The Box.

Go to the farmers markets!!!

That the so-called Co-ops in this town are even selling this faux-organic shit show much of a joke they are. The Weekly article said that Madison Market employees were still debating a ban of Horizon. What lame fucks!!

Buying at a Co-op or Un-Hole Foods these days is the about the lamest excuse for calling yours an informed healthy lifestyle, sustainable lifestyle or anything of the sort.

Most of the food they sell comes from massive corporate "organic" monoculture farms or major food corporations that have bought up all the formerly small mom and pop organic brands.

Tom's of Maine, Annies, etc. all sold out to Kraft and RJ Reynolds Nabisco years ago.
And are the Co-ops doing anything about it, no fucking lazy fucking way. Go to one of their bored meetings to see what lying sacks of shit they are!!

I went to a PCC meeting and nobody knew nothing and blew smoke up my ass.
The majority of the fake slacker shit poseurs that work at these places could give a damn about where the food they sell comes from or how it is packaged.
They just want an easy paycheck.

Go to the farmers markets!!!

I went into Madison Market(Co-op??) to ask about seafood and meat that is local and the douche bag working the counter didn't know fuck and gave me a brochure.

Go to the farmers markets!!!

If you are going to pay that kind of money, go buy it from the producer.At the farmers markets around town I get an informed response about how food is raised or caught from the people that do it!
They actually do real work with food!

Not your average bullshit faker employee at the so called healthy food outlets.
I'm so sick of being told " I don't know where this food comes from, I'll have to check in back, or ask my manager" bullshit."
Go get a job at Safeway fucker!!

Go to the farmers markets!!!
Go to the farmers markets!!!

I'm quite impressed by how many commenters appear to have read _The Omnivore's Dilemma_ or related works. That in itself suggests there may be room for a shift in food consumption in the United States, beyond the feel-good industrial organics to actual sustainable agriculture.

I'm also happy to hear of a food cooperative that actually tries to make educated decisions about the products it carries, instead of trying to deceive its customers with feel-good propaganda (Kimberly, do us a favor and read TOD).

I did a bit of snooping around a while ago, looking for decent dairy products and concluded that my money was best invested in Organic Valley products. I wonder--what alternatives would others recommend? Personally, I love ice cream, butter, cheese, and milk too much to forgo them completely for the sake of price.

I'm totally blanking on the names, but there's several outstanding cheese producers who show up at the Ballard and Wallingford farmers markets. One makes only gouda, I think, but it's really, really good, especially the sharp, sour aged stuff. They also have pastured meat.

There's an old French dude at the Ballard market (Sundays) sometimes who makes excellent cheese somewhere in Eastern WA -- near Walla Walla, I think. Wine country. Another guy comes to the Wallingford market (Wednesday afternoons) with a large variety of good stuff.

Beecher's in the Market makes good cheese, and I'm pretty sure they make butter, too.

You're right -- I finally finished The Omnivore's Dilemma just last night after a couple of months of dicking around in various chapters. I've liked his previous stuff, too; I'm particularly enchanted by the idea that our FOOD is growing US just as much as the other way around -- corn, for example, has evolved in ways designed to cause humans to blanket the earth with the stuff, eliminating all competitors. That's gene determination all the way, just as much as trying to plant your seed in a pretty girl!

Reading the comments in this post make me want to go out and gorge myself on synthetic food until it kills me. Anything to be away from you self-righteous shits.

Jesus, I swear you people are never happy.

Sorry folks, but the neighborhood farmer's markets aren't open year round. You could opt for the Pike Place Market year round, but even then your produce choices will be limited to root vegetables and other heartier greens during that time of year. Yeah, it sucks if a company has cute little stories about what they do on the back of a milk carton and make you pay up for what they're supposed to be selling. For the most part, PCC does intense research on where they source their food, but sometimes these things happen. It's not a perfect world.

Wearing a hairshirt because you think your store is the only really "organic" one isn't going to gain you any followers. PCC has some great people working there and I like the selection. I'm sure they'll do their best to provide healthy, organic, sustainable foods.

Trolls for PCC and Whole Foods. You apologists for those "natural Food store" facades are a joke.

PCC and and Madison Market and Whole Foods are bullshit. They don't do any research on anything they sell. They aren't selling anything new that they weren't selling in the last century.

The majority of their employees can't tell you fuck about the actual people and families that grow the food.

Wake up.

They don't give a fuck about you, or they would ban all the corporate bullshit organic, or would be working to find foods from smaller, local sources.
Selling you a "crock of shit" and charging you 30% more for it and keeping all their lame hippie asses in a cozy job is all they are about.

Go to a Farmers Market. Talk to the real local producers about how fucked they are in trying to sell there products to the local "healthy and natural" grocery stores.
They will tell you how fucked up the situation is. PCC, Madison Market, and Whole Foods don't support hardly any local producers.

Don't believe the hype!!

Go to the Farmers Markets!!

That's where you get real food.

I've read that some Farmers Market produce tested higher for pesticides than QFC produce. PCC has been around for years and I trust them. I drive my hybrid car there every week, or to Whole Foods. I'm a "foodie" so what I eat is really important to me.

I have a side I've chosen between Kimberly and Ain't No Co-Op. But I think everyone else here would love to see you two put on some freekin' boxing gloves and duke it out down in front of the Needle. What do you say? Sunday, 4:15?

If you want Kimberly, you could have Ticketmaster sponsor you. :)

And looking into the eyes of the man who sold me Rainier Cherries for $2/lb. this morning just so he can compete, I think I know where I'd rather get my food. And leave tips, dammit.

Interesting blog post about the Cornucopia Institute, which produced the report on Horizon. It looks like it may be financed by Organic Valley, Horizon's biggest competitor. While the blog is the mouthpiece of an angry anti-organic nonprofit, the info they dug up is intriguing.

http://www.milkismilk.com/2005/03/cornucopia-institute-appears-to-be.html

"I'm so relieved to hear that it was only 30 or 40 synthetic chemicals that were allowed.

"Organic" DOESN'T mean anything meaningful. The "oversight" provided by the USDA is geared ENTIRELY towards very large industrial farms that may use some organic techniques but are mostly symbolic, like the "free range" designation."

Again, you obviously don't know what you're talking about. You seem very stuck on the regulations for organic meats, but that is only a part of what the USDA's organic program oversees. And while those 38 big, scary sythetics seem to keep you up at night, the reality is that 38 is a very small number when compared to the tens of thousands of synthetics that are in use in the production of non-organic foods. And those 38 are no longer exempted, so your outrage is a bit late to the party.

The fact is the the vast majority of organic producers are very small companies. Yes, the ADMs and ConAgras have a huge amount of weight to swing around, but actions by both the certifiers and the certified (e.g. the Harvey decision) are keeping the system honest. "Organic" means something; more now than ever. Misinformation peddled well-meaning but woefully misinformed folks such as FNARF undermine the value that the USDA's Organic program provides to consumers.

I'd love to hear more after you've learned how to write English, so we can make out what you're saying.

Writing Standard American English is a sign of culture and intelligence. Any writer who can't spell or uses incorrect grammar should be ignored.

My family's small farm in VT is one of over 350 that proudly provide organic milk to the Horizon Organic Company. Yes they also get milk from 2 large farms out west. These large farms have thousands of acres for their cows to graze on too. A feed lot is not indicative of a factory farm. I respect what Cornocopia is trying to do to protect the "Organic" name, but their pictures are misleading and faulty. Boycotting the Horizon Brand is not the answer. There are hundreds of farms in Vermont alone that provide to Horizon as this brand is still marketed in VT as "Vermont Organic Cow". With the threat of losing more family farms, as we small farmers struggle to make it, do you really want to hinder our future in this way? No farms - no good food.