Guide to Understanding Food Labels: Organic? Conventional? Sustainable? What's it all Mean?

Common Food Labels:

What is Organic?

What is Conventional Food?

What is Sustainable?

What is Industrial Food?

What is Demeter USA or Biodynamic?

What is Fair Trade?

What is Natural Food?

Sustainable, local, industrial, organic, bio-dynamic, natural, conventional...wow, the list of righteous food labeling goes on. Believe me, I genuinely care about these idiosyncrasies, but food shopping has become incredibly daunting lately, not to mention uncomfortable at times I received sneers upon asking a local farmers market purveyor whether chemical pesticides are used to grow his farm's produce. "In moderation," he quickly responded without making much eye contact.

Each food label represents a collection of farming practices and ideologies that dictates every process from how food is grown to how it gets to our kitchen tables. This is all very important, right? But truthfully at the end of the day or the beginning of my grocery shopping, I just want to know whether the food is healthy, easy on the environment and ethically produced. Wouldn't it be great if there were only three labels - "Healthy," "Green," and "Ethical?" And only used when food meets 100% of the criteria? That's ambitiously simple, I know.

I do have one more label to add a label that simply reads, "Food." Author and Activist Michael Pollan recommends that we create a Federal Definition of "food."He says, "We need to stop flattering nutritionally worthless food like substances by calling them "junk food" and instead make clear that such products are not in fact food of any kind." He continues to suggest that an edible substance labeled as "'food' must contain a certain minimum ratio of micronutrients per calorie of energy."

Now, you don't have to agree with all of these positions. For example, you may just care about your food's health quality, or may just be concerned with its environmental impact, or the economical, social and spiritual aspect of the food's production. Whichever one compels you the most is surely accompanied today by a slew of labels. Here is a guide to some of the more frequently discussed labels, and how they affect what is important to you. And don't be afraid to mix and match some of the following food methods and philosophies in order to create your ideal plate. Preferably, all of my food would be pesticide and chemical free (organic), produced as close to my kitchen as possible (local), and made on farms that pay its workers an equitable wage (fair trade). But the reality is I don't always have access to food items that meet this perfect trifecta. So, I'm happy as long as my grocery bags are balanced with items from each of these three categories.

Read the next page "What is Organic Food?"