Prompt Explore the publication Tufts University: Decoding Food Labels (Links to an external site

Management Oct 09, 2020

Prompt

Explore the publication Tufts University: Decoding Food Labels (Links to an external site.).

Notice that there are only 2 labels that mention worker standards and both are "fair trade" certifications for purchases from farmers in developing countries (e.g., coffee, etc.). USDA Organic and other standards do not have worker standards (safety, pay, etc.).

Therefore, you can also explore Food Justice Certification (Links to an external site.) (factsheet for farmers/buyers; full website here (Links to an external site.)) and Fair Trade USA Agricultural Production Standards (Links to an external site.) as examples of a third-party certification for worker standards and other environmental considerations in the United States (for context, here's an NPR The Salt story about Fair Trade USA debut in US in 2017 (Links to an external site.)).

Choose one label that you have seen on foods when shopping, or that you would look for when shopping.

What is the label intended to indicate to shoppers?
Does the guide think that label is reliable--and why?

You will post your response to the discussion before you can see other responses. After you post your response, look at the others and compare reliability of the labels. What do reliable labels have in common? What do unreliable claims have in common? What questions would you ask if you were to see a new label on a product in order to help you determine if is it meaningful and worth paying a higher price for the product?

Guidelines

A complete and meaningful response to the discussion prompt will earn the required points. You may instead choose to respond to another student's original response to the prompt, which will also count as points if it is complete and meaningful, for example, raises additional support for an argument, respectfully challenges a position, or raises meaningful questions.

In each Discussion forum, if you both respond to the original prompt and engage in a dialog with a classmate in an exchange of more than 2 posts (your original post or a classmate's), you can earn an additional one point in that forum, gaining an additional point on the Discussion.

Expert Solution

In high school, I had a nutrition class that taught us how much of a difference grain-fed versus grass-fed beef has on our own health. So now, when I buy beef, I try to purchase grass-fed whenever possible or to opt for a different protein altogether. There is a USDA Grass-fed label that I have seen in the shops. Logically, this would imply to consumers that the cows in question had a diet of exclusively grass because they are grass-fed. However, the Tufts guide says that this label is only valid if it is on the USDA shield. Other producers may market their products as grass-fed but they are not held to any standard without the USDA certification. I have also learned that producers might use a partial grass-fed diet but supplement with grain and still advertised the meat as "grass-fed".

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