Is your Organic considered Authentic Organic?

Large companies continue to move into the growing organic marketplace, often through the purchase of small organic companies, in order to capitalize on the growing demand of organic-buying consumers, but to also capture larger margins associated with organic.  There are organic watchdog groups, such as Cornucopia Institute, defining what is true organic , or ‘authentic organic’ and which brands meet that definition, and those that don’t (‘Greenwashers’).  According to this group, brands such as Kashi and Hain Celestial are practically the same as their non-organic counterparts.

For dairy, they have issued an Organic Dairy Ratings (cow star ratings…the more cows, the more ‘organic’).

http://www.cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/index.html

Cornucopia also has an extensive report on cereal products

http://cornucopia.org/cereal-scorecard/docs/Cornucopia_Cereal_Report.pdf

I personally do not buy organic, or better stated, do not pay more for an item because it is organic, so I find this concept of ‘authentic organic’ interesting.  Large corporations push the boundaries of organic to make it more available, but in doing so, they have the organic police crying foul.  So, on one side, if you’re are buying a mass produced organic brand, is it really any better than non-organic?  On the other side,  is there that much difference between authentic organic and ‘greenwashed’ products for someone to search out the true organic products?  Clearly, the plight of the mindful organic consumer is not an easy one.

Source (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/19/mark-kastel-cornucopia-good-food-movement.aspx?e_cid=20111119_DNL_art_1)