Organic

June 23, 2014
It’s a testament to Laufer’s skill as a writer and reporter that he can make an interesting and edifying book out of idle musings on the origins of some organic walnuts and black beans he bought at Trader Joe’s and a local health food store. The question of whether the walnuts from Kazakhstan or the beans grown in Bolivia came to Laufer’s table in Oregon without a boost from pesticides and chemical fertilizers becomes an examination of the $27 billion organic food business. His investigative zeal is spurred by the “obsessive secrecy” of Trader Joe’s PR response to his inquiries about the identity of the Kazakh farmer whose spoiled walnuts got him thinking about the compromises that “make every package of food certified organic suspect.” The book suffers somewhat from its inability to point to truly severe consequences of falsely labeled organic foods, and the one story of a successful prosecution of an Oregon farmer who passed off fake organic corn recalls a point Laufer raises early on: while this is important issue, it doesn’t make for “a very sexy story.”

May 15, 2014
Former NBC News correspondent Laufer (Journalism/Oregon Univ.; The Elusive State of Jefferson: A Journey through the 51st State, 2013, etc.) investigates the "need to know what we're eating and how it came to our dinner plates."The author became suspicious when a package of ostensibly organic walnuts from Trader Joe's tasted rancid. Checking the label, he found that they were grown in Kazakhstan. When Trader Joe's refused to reveal their provenance, his "journalist's radar kicked in." As someone who had reported on "the culture of bribery and corruption that lingers in most former Soviet republics," Laufer found it unlikely that Kazakhstan was supporting a well-regulated organic food industry. Some months later, a check on the label of a can of "organic" black beans revealed that they came from Bolivia. As someone who had covered the drug trade in that region, Laufer was skeptical again. His suspicions were reinforced when an American case of fraudulent labeling made headlines: Businessman Harold Chase was convicted of passing off 4 million pounds of conventional corn as organic. In the United States, the organic sector has become a big business "worth over two dozen billion dollars a year." At that size, it is "ripe with opportunities for hustlers," and the certification process is flawed. Laufer interviewed the U.S. Department of Agriculture official in charge of the National Organic Program, who informed him that, due to understaffing, prosecutions are rare. For comparison purposes, the author traveled to Europe to speak with officials there and found a more regulated food industry, but loopholes and opportunities for fraud still abounded.A lively, highly informative expose capped by trips to Kazakhstan and Bolivia, where Laufer settles his questions about the walnuts and black beans he purchased. Now, how to fix the situation so that not all foods labeled organic are "suspect"?

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August 1, 2014

Many will remember Laufer from his award-winning days as a broadcast journalist for NBC News; this is his 18th book about social change. Here he investigates consumer deception in the worldwide organic food industry. The author has an engaging storytelling style that appeals, interspersing facts about the organic food industry into interviews he conducted with a wide variety of individuals, from farmers and consumers to producers and brokers in various countries. Because of his depth of knowledge about the social and political situations of many nations, Laufer is able to identify possible red-flag products, such as walnuts from Kazakhstan. He then uses his connections and investigative skills to track the products back to their sources, providing unsettling answers to the question: "What does that 'organic' sticker on my food really mean?" Mixed with the bad are also shining examples of farmers who strive to produce the highest quality organic foods possible, encouraging us to continue our pursuit of healthy provisions even as the whisper of "buyer beware" echoes in our ears. VERDICT Enlightening and engaging, this title has an important message that will appeal to health-conscious readers.--Crystal Renfro, Georgia Inst. of Technology Lib. & Information Ctr., Atlanta

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