Michigan ‘Nutritious Foods’ Program For Babies Bans Organic Foods
Michigan ‘Nutritious Foods’ Program For Babies Bans Organic Foods
The purported mission of the USDA’s Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program is to provide “nutritious foods, nutrition education, and referrals to health and other social services” to mothers and children in need. The $6 billion WIC program is administered by the states to assist over 8 million people each year. But as a local farmers market manager has discovered, the Michigan Department of Community Health has decided that “nutritious foods” means a ban on organic foods, evidently in a misguided effort to save money.
The Michigan WIC Food Card says “No organic allowed” after nearly every food item — milk, eggs, dry beans, peanut butter, carrots, tuna, cereal, juice, cheese, infant juice, infant formula, and infant cereal. Honey Bunches of Oats, Frosted Mini-Wheats, and other corn-syrup-sweetened cereals are allowed, while organic cereals are not. Cage-free, free-range, Omega-3, and low-cholesterol eggs are also banned. No organic tuna is allowed, even though there is no such thing.
Diana Jancek, co-founder of the Sweetwater Local Foods Market, Michigan’s first all-sustainable local farmers market reported her discovery to a local listserv. In her message, which was also forwarded to the Community Food Security Coalition’s food security mailing list, she describes what she found when she went to the local Meijer supermarket with the flyer:
Allowed: Frosted Mini-Wheats (first three ingredients Whole Grain Wheat, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup), 18 oz. — $3.63
Not Allowed: Meijer Organic Raisin Brain (all organic, no corn syrup), 17 oz. — $2.99Allowed: Jif Peanut Butter, 18 oz. — $2.18
Not Allowed: Meijer Organic Peanut Butter, 18 oz. — $2.59Allowed: Fresh Conventional Carrots, 1 pound — $1.30
Not Allowed: Fresh Organic Carrots, 1 pound — $.99Allowed: Conventional White Eggs — $1.69
Not Allowed: Conventional Brown Eggs — $1.89Allowed: V8 Tomato Juice, 46 oz. — $2.79
Not Allowed: Organic Tomato Juice, 46 oz. — $2.99
Ironically, Michigan has participated since 1988 in the USDA Farmers Market Nutrition Program, which allows WIC participants to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables — without a “no organic” restriction — at local farmers markets like the one Diana Jancek runs. Unfortunately, each participant is only given a single $20 voucher booklet for the entire year.
UPDATE: Tom Philpott at Gristmill notes that the approved Jif peanut butter includes partially and fully hydrogenated vegetable fats, shown to cause severe heart damage as well as diabetes. He writes:
For those who don’t think low-income mothers should be nudged to make such choices, no matter what state they live in, Martha Noble of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition points out that the USDA’s Food & Nutrition Service is currently taking public comments on 2009 reauthorization of several child-nutrition programs, including WIC.
6 Responses to “Michigan ‘Nutritious Foods’ Program For Babies Bans Organic Foods”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Wonk RoomContact Us
Donate
Brilliant! Let’s let all the little ones who are ‘nourished’ by this program get a head start on a healthy lifestyle. Uh, huh. That’s just great.
And, save money? Stretch available food dollars for program participants, maybe. But, save money? The administrators of this program must surely be morons, as clients spend up to an allowed level. There is no ’savings’ involved at all: just a classic push of the substantial resulting costs into the future, and on to other programs. Like an already ridiculously expensive and overburdened healthcare system.
Ah, but I digress…
May 28th, 2008 at 6:23 pmThe WIC program is not allowed to cheat Monsanto out of government funds. So the children must eat “monsanto” foods and not real foods. Why does our government hate the small farmers?
May 28th, 2008 at 6:57 pmThe banning of organic foods to save money just follows the usual Republican prejudice against anything that would come from those liberal, long haired hippies. There may be some additional cost for organic food, however, there are higher costs for a lot of brand name foods that equal and exceed those of organic foods. They do not seem to be banned.
This morning I was watching C-Span. One of the Republican calls completely solved the health care crisis in America – we don’t need any of those socialists (one step away from Communist) programs. We just need to eat less and exercise more.
How do you deal with the conservatives who seem to know so little about healthy eating and the disparity of cost between high fat foods and fruits, vegetables, fish and lean meats necessary to good health. Look at the poor in any country that has progressed beyond subsistence level and you will find the same result.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:45 pmNo, I’m sorry, but I must agree with the decision, if not the reasoning behind it.
The belief that “organic” food is “healthier” has little or no basis in fact. In fact, quite the opposite. EVERY single food recall or “e-coli” outbreak in the past four years can be traced back to “organically grown food”. The “pre-packaged lettuce” scare a while back was traced to organic lettuce that contaminated packaging equipment. Organic corn was responsible for the “Taco Bell” scare a while back that took months to figure out the source of the contamination.
“Organic” food is grown by some of the most unhealthy mean possible, using straight manure for fertilizer; manure that is frequently contaminated with e-coli.
I do not buy organic food and question those who pay twice the price in the mistaken belief it is “healthier”. The next time you hear of a food-born outbreak, I guarantee you’ll be able to trace it back to organically grown food.
While the school board’s motive might simple be “to save money”, the misconception that organic food is “healthier” is a dangerous one… even deadly.
May 30th, 2008 at 9:23 amSorry Mugsy, but you are woefully ill-informed about organic foods and outbreaks. I work in the public health field and the major cause of outbreaks is poor personal hygiene and ill employees. When talking about recalls such as the pre-washed spinach, there was a breakdown in the sanitizing routine in the plant. That is a frequent cause of those types of incidents, much like the peanut butter recall and has nothing to do with organic vs. conventional. Both organic produce and conventional produce must be washed before consumption because the major cause of contamination is the dirty hands of those who handle the product.
There are dozens of studies documenting the levels of pesticides in conventional foods vs. organic, as well as the disasterous environmental impact those chemicals have on the ecosystems. Keep in mind that the majority of those chemicals get washed into waterways.
Finally, as the article points out, organic food has become cheaper and is now many times as cheap or cheaper than conventional food.
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:51 pmAllowed: Frosted Mini-Wheats (first three ingredients Whole Grain Wheat, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup), 18 oz. — $3.63
Not Allowed: Meijer Organic Raisin Brain (all organic, no corn syrup), 17 oz. — $2.99
Allowed: Fresh Conventional Carrots, 1 pound — $1.30
Not Allowed: Fresh Organic Carrots, 1 pound — $.99
*******************************************************
Since the organic product is clearly less expensive than the non-organic product in the two examples — which suggests that there may be other examples — this suggests that concerns over lower costs are not the sole, or perhaps not even the primary, reasons for the ban and that there must be other reasons coming into play. For myself, I couldn’t help noticing the fact that for each of the commercially-packaged foods cited in the example (cereal, peanut butter, tomato juice), the corporate brand was allowed whereas the store or generic brand was not. If this is true more or less across the board– especially given that store or generic brands are often cheaper than corporate or commercial brands — then I think it ought to bring one question to bear: what might be causing this?
I think that one quite likely answer which can’t and shouldn’t be ruled out is pressure from lobbies representing large food packaging corporations such as Kellogg’s and Procter & Gamble and their advertisers who naturally might be concerned that lower-priced generic brands will (if you’ll pardon the inadvertent pun) eat into their market share among people whose purchasing capacity is restricted. They don’t dare admit this, of course — so they use back-office, closed-door, behind-the-scenes tactics like only giving people $20 in vouchers for an entire year at local farmers markets, and striking all organic products from the list of permitted foods. Let’s face it…the top priority for most corporations is getting the most bang for their buck, taking in as much as they can get away with while giving back only as much as they are required to by law and/or as little as will keep the consumer from walking away. They didn’t start putting high fructose corn syrup into our food because it’s good for us — if the increase in health problems such as diabetes and obesity are any indication, it’s anything but. Most likely, they started using it because it’s made from corn and is probably more plentiful and therefore cheaper than sugar. Case closed.
For that matter, what about the pharmaceutical industry? Let’s face it…at this point in time, if the American consciousness with regard to healthcare were to shift from the present-day model which focuses largely on palliative care to a model focusing on preventative care, this would probably have a significant impact on pharmaceutical industry market share in the long term. We can’t have that, can we?
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:51 am