Organic ─ A Journalist's Quest to Discover the Truth Behind Food Labeling

Part food narrative, part investigation, part adventure story, Organic is an eye-opening and entertaining look into the “anything goes” world behind the organic label. It is also a wakeup call to all eaters and readers about the dubiousness of organic food.

After eating some suspect organic walnuts that were produced in Kazakhstan, veteran journalist Peter Laufer chooses a few items from his home pantry and traces their origins back to their source; along the way he learns how easily we are tricked into taking “organic” claims at face value. With organic foods readily available at supermarket chains, confusion and outright deception about labels have become commonplace. Globalization has allowed food from highly corrupt governments and businesses overseas to pollute the organic market with food that is anything but. The environment is Wild West, oversight is virtually non-existent, and deception runs amok.

Laufer investigates so-called organic farms in Europe and the Americas as well as in his own backyard in the Pacific Northwest. As a counterpoint he also finds an olive grower and oil producer operating at the highest standards in Africa and selling his products at gourmet outlets worldwide—showing that compliance is possible. The book examines what constitutes organic and by whom the definitions are made. The answers will stun American readers, who have been sold a bill of false goods for years.