You have 60 days to make a difference. That's the amount of time the USDA is going to allow for comments on its amendments to add 38 inorganic ingredients to organic food.

Sound like it doesn't make sense?

Here's why it does, according to the USDA.

The 38 minor ingredients contained in the interim final rule are non-organic, agricultural ingredients that may be considered for use in an “organic” processed product. A minor ingredient cannot comprise more than 5 percent of an “organic” product.

Before an organic handling operation can consider using a non-organic, agricultural minor ingredient, the organic form of the ingredient must be first sourced and confirmed unavailable.

So, they basically just have to say an organic component is unavailable and then they can use inorganic. The USDA extended the comment period because they got 1250 responses during the original 7-day listing.

The interim final rule will appear in a future issue of the Federal Register and may be immediately accessed at the National Organic Program website www.ams.usda.gov/nop

Want to make a comment of your own?

• By mail: Robert Pooler, Agricultural Marketing Specialist, National Organic Program, USDA/AMS/TMP/NOP, 1400 Independence Ave., SW, Room 4008-So., Ag Stop 0268, Washington, DC 20250.
• By Internet: www.regulations.gov

Select “all documents” so that you get everything, including comments. Select “Agricultural Marketing Service” and select “All document types” to be sure to get all comments. Keyword: “ams-tm-07-0062” and “any word” for this Notice and all associated comments.

To submit your own comment, the first document indicated is the Notice for the Meeting…. Go to the end of the row on the right side and click on the “bubble” and that takes you into the comment submission process.

The inorganic ingredients under discussion are:

• Casings from processed intestines.
• Celery powder
• Chia (Salvia hispanica)
• Colors derived from these 19 extracts, juices and spices: Annatto extract, beet juice, beta-carotene derived from carrots, black currant juice, black/Purple carrot juice, blueberry juice, carrot juice, cherry juice, chokecherry-aronia juice, elderberry juice, grape juice, grape skin extract, paprika, pumpkin juice, purple potato juice, red cabbage extract, red radish extract, saffron and turmeric.
• Dillweed oil
• Fish oil stabilized with organic ingredients or only with ingredients
• Fructooligosaccharides
• Frozen Galangal
• Gelatin
• Water-extracted gums, such as Arabic, guar, locust bean and Carob bean
• Hops.
• Insulin enriched with oligofructose
• Kelp, when used as a thickener or dietary supplement
• Konjac flour
• Lecithin—unbleached
• Frozen lemongrass
• Unbleached orange shellac
• High-methoxy pectin
• Peppers (Chipotle chile)
• Starches, including cornstarch, unmodified rice starch and sweet potato starch for bean thread production
• Turkish bay leaves
• Wakame seaweed
• Whey protein concentrate