When we buy "organic", are we really getting what we THINK we are?

Not sure of what others think of when they see or hear the word "organic", but I think it's better, not like factories or harsh to animals. It seems just about anything can be "stretched" to fit the meaning, but hide a lot of facts.

Is Your Favorite Organic Egg Brand a Factory Farm in Disguise?



— By [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]| Mon Oct. 4, 2010 2:30 AM PDT


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The chickens pictured on the egg producer Chino Valley Ranchers' Simply Organic [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] look pretty happy. And from the description of their digs, it sounds like they'd have good reason to be: "When you walk into the chicken houses and you see all the birds scratching around in the dirt, running around, flapping their wings and hear the soft clucking from each of them, you can feel their contentment," the copy below the little fuzzballs reads. "It is the way nature intended."An industrial henhouse jam-packed with 36,000 birds, on the other hand, is probably not "the way nature intended." But that is exactly what investigators from the organic food advocacy group [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] found when they visited a Wisconsin henhouse that supplies Chino Valley Ranchers with organic eggs.And Chino Valley isn't alone. A recent Cornucopia [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] revealed that conditions at many facilities that produce organic eggs are often just as crowded and industrial as those at conventional egg farms. And although US organic standards require outdoor access for laying hens, Cornucopia found that at many organic farms, "outdoors" often consists of nothing more than a tiny concrete screen porch adjoining the tenement-like henhouse.Last year, eleven organic egg producers (listed below) signed a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] to the National Organic Standards Board opposing the rule that mandates organic operations to grant their chickens outdoor access. They argued that the rule put too much of a financial burden on producers; the Cornucopia report excerpts a [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] that Bart Slaugh, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]'s director of quality assurance, posted to the NASD: "The push for continually expanding outdoor access and decreasing protection needs to stop," writes Slaugh. @font-face { font-family: "Cambria";}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Cornucopia plans to file an official complaint to the USDA about the conditions at four farms (listed below), including [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], one of the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in the recent salmonella outbreak. While it hasn't been proven that organic eggs are less likely to be contaminated with salmonella than conventional eggs, Cornucopia cofounder Mark Kastel believes that crowded factory-farm conditions can breed disease. "If you are living in these filthy conditions it takes a tremendous toll on your immune system," he says. "And when you are dealing with those incredibly huge industrial scales, you can't pay attention to the health of individual birds."
More information in this link...http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/09/eggs-salmonella-cage-free

The problem as I see it, is that organic simply means only natural ingredients, no chemical pesticides or fertilizers. It does NOT mean free range, or anything of the sort. While organically produced foods may be healthier for you, it doesn't necessarily mean the animals are treated any more humanely.