In 312, Roman Emperor Constantine was told in a dream to paint a cross on his army’s shields.[1]
Based on that dream, he commanded his generals to slap crosses on
pretty much everything. If it went into battle, it had a cross on it.
And lo, when his army faced the rebel army that was twice the size of
his, his soldier guys smote them other soldier guys real bad and got all
pre-medieval on their butts; and Constantine did declare, “Hot
Damascus, it worked!” (Obviously, I am paraphrasing; I don’t speak
Latin.) So, Constantine remained emperor of Rome and a Christian, sort of.
He, being the ruler of the Roman Empire and all, thought
he should nail down what it was he, as a newly minted Christian, believed. As it happened, in the fourth century, there were many Christian, and they believed many things, some of which were diametrically opposed. There were lots of writings
proclaiming what this fellow Jesus had done and what he was. And there
were perhaps hundred of different types of Christians, including some
who thought you needed to follow Jewish traditions, and even get
circumcised. Ouch!
So in 325,[2] he rounded up a passel of leaders of the early Christian movement and sat them down in the city of Nicaea.[3] The Council of Nicaea, as it came to be known, squabbled
for about a month, penned a statement of what they all agreed on (the
Nicene Creed), approved some of these written texts for use in worship
and disallowed others. As you would suppose, this pleased some and
displeased others. But at the end they all shook hands, said, “Well,
that’s that,” and called it “good news,” that is it was now gospel.
This consensus resulted in “winners” and “losers”
throughout the known world. Schisms, splinters and fractures appeared
before the ink had dried on the papyrus. Subsequent Councils worked on
those, and patched some, broke others, and created more. Today the
Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and other Christian denominations still do not
agree on many articles and practices of their faith, each one claiming
to hold to the True Faith.
The point is (lest you think this whole article should
have been placed in the Religion section of some other blog) that just
as Constantine’s government codifying of Christian beliefs in the fourth
century resulted in schisms, today the green faith roils with
dissension regarding its beliefs; including Organic’s doctrines, that
are its beliefs and practices.
The New York Times published an article titled, “Organic Food Purists Worry About Big Companies’ Influence”[4] on July 7, 2012 profiling the founder of Eden Foods, Michael J. Potter,[5]
and his quixotic battle against people who do not believe in Organic as
he does. According to Potter, heretics have infiltrated the Ecumenical
Council—ahem, strike that—the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB).
A little history is in order. In 1990, George H. W. Bush
signed the Organic Foods Production Act creating the National Organic
Program (NOP). At the time, there were lots of people and corporations producing stuff and labeling it organic, and lots of folks felt that it needed to be codified. This act placed the Department of Agriculture in charge
of administrating the program and naming the 15 members of the NOSB, who
were to “assist in the development of standards for substances to be
used in organic production” and advise the Secretary of Agriculture on
implementing the program.
As a result, the NOSB passes judgment on what is or is not kosher[6]—I
mean, what can or cannot be used to produce USDS certified Organic food
or product. What got up Potter’s nose was the fact that NOSB, which has some large corporations on it, has
approved a number of non-organic items. One example of a non-organic
item, though not necessarily a problem for Potter, is baking soda used
in the baking of organic bread.
According to the NY Times’ article, the thrust of Michael
Potter’s complaint is that many on the board have connections with,
gasp, profit-loving, non-believing, big companies. (Yep, Kellogg,
PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Dole, General-Mills, Kraft, M&M Mars, all make
organic foods. Even, the great Satan, Monsanto provides seed for organic
farmers) And, he accuses these heretical interlopers of voting to allow
blasphemous ingredients, such as carrageenan, a substance derived from
seaweed used in cooking, to pass as organic.[7]
So incensed is Potter that he refuses to put the USDA
certified-Organic imprimatur on his own company’s products, which are so
much purer, without blemish, more authentic, and more truly Organic than the so-called certified-organic products being passed off as the real deal to gullible hoi polloi.
(Well, I, for one, am shocked, shocked to find that big,
profit-motivated companies have jumped into the market. Simply put,
organic products fetch a premium price.)
This kerfuffle is not about efficacy but ideological
purity. As blogger, Andrew Potter notes, “….[T]he question of whether
these various ‘synthetics’ should be allowed or not is entirely
political.” And not whether any of the items “are healthy, or good for
the environment, or contribute to the taste of the product.”[8]
In the world of ideological purity, nothing matters as
much as remaining true to the ideal of the ethos, and only those pure of
heart, such as Michael Potter or The Food Babe, can divine such things.
It is soon time for the Organics Inquisition.
[1]
“According to Lactantius, Constantine was visited by a dream the night
before the battle, wherein he was advised ‘to mark the heavenly sign of
God on the shields of his soldiers...by means of a slanted letter X with
the top of its head bent round, he marked Christ on their shields.’” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_I#Constantine.27s_army_adopts_the_Christian_cross (accessed July 14, 2012)
If you don't like Wikipedia, try this: https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/study/module/constantine/
[2] More than a decade later—no sense in rushing into these things.
[3]
“In 325 CE Constantine called the Council of Nicaea, the first
so-called Ecumenical Council of the church, that is the first council at
which bishops from around the world were brought together in order to
establish a consensus on major points of faith and practice.” - Ehrman,
Bart. "Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and Faiths We
Never Knew." Oxford University Press. New York, NY. 2003.
[4]
Strom, Stephanie. “Organic Food Purists Worry About Big Companies’
Influence.” New York Times. July 7, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/business/organic-food-purists-worry-about-big-companies-influence.html
(accessed July 14, 2012)
[5]
You may remember that Potter has been in the news of late for his views
on contraception coverage. ‘Like craft chain Hobby Lobby, Eden Foods
sued the Department of Health and Human Services in a bid to reverse
what its devoutly Catholic founder calls “unconstitutional government
overreach.”’- Clare O'Connor. Eden Foods To Grocers: Stick With Us Despite Birth Control 'Attack.’ Forbes.com.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/07/22/eden-foods-to-grocers-stick-with-us-despite-birth-control-attack/
(accessed 25-07-14)
[6] From the Hebrew word kāšēr, ‘proper.’
[7]
A search on Google reveals a who’s who of purist organic sites,
including The Food Babe’s claiming that degraded carrageenan is a
carcinogen (most things are, really).
However, the Scientific Committee on Food for
the EU concluded in 2003 that “the information available since its last
review of carrageenan as an additive for general food use did not
provide any reason to alter the ADI (Acceptable Daily Intake-ed.) of 0 -
75 mg/kg bw established previously. The Committee notes that intakes
are considerably below the ADI.”source: http://ec.europa.eu/food/fs/sc/scf/out164_en.pdf
[8] Potter, Andrew. “The church of organic.” The Authenticity Hoax – Blog. July 9, 2012. http://authenticityhoax.squarespace.com/blog/2012/7/9/the-church-of-organic.html (accessed July 12, 2012)
Feature image: Galileo in front of the Roman Inquisition, after a 1857 Painting by Cristiano Banti. Credit: National Center for Atmospheric Research/National Science Foundation
