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tv   Book Discussion  CSPAN  December 21, 2014 2:00pm-3:01pm EST

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with eric metaxas. his most recent book, "seven men and the secret of their greatness." you're watching booktv on c-span2. >> is there a nonfiction author or book you'd like to see on booktv? send us an e-mail to booktv@c-span.org, tweet us @booktv or post on our wall, facebook.com/booktv. >> as 2014 comes to a close, we look ahead to book fairs and festivals around the country that are scheduled for the new year. ..
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and questions whether organic food is really better for you than nonorganic food. this hour-long program is next on booktv. >> good evening. it is so terrific to be here tonight because it feels like a sister city to eugene. i may have a relatively ibms for talking about the veracity of the label organic. but first, i do want to thank village both and c-span. c-span is here tonight for booktv because my life changed
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in this room a few years ago. the issues for the iraq war was also shot by c-span. when it played on booktv, third on this grade with my e-mail address. i received an e-mail from somebody in the audience that was based on a throwaway line i made about my next book be about bias and the flowers because it is so difficult to write about the iraq war. because of the e-mail which came from an american expatriate nicaragua and operating with the butterfly reserve, i went off the road of book and had extraordinary adventures around the world called the dangerous world of butterflies that not all started in this room and because they c-span. said thank you, village books and thank you on the c-span.
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it also plays directly to what i am talking about tonight. as a journalist, i find so much of the work i do comes to me serendipitously. that is what happened when this book, "organic," my quest to find the truth he had food labeling. i wasn't sure there was a trader joe's here and i didn't know, but there certainly is one here and there is one where i'd lived. my wife brought home a bag of walnut, organic. now i suffer from having this terrific wife who doubles our grocery bill by buying almost everything allegedly organic. she believes in this stuff. this book, my investigation is not an investigation into the benefits or lack of benefits organic food.
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it makes sense to me. if there's poison on this stuff, i don't want to d-day. but she does sometimes i think overboard, doubles or gross report it is walnut street brought home from trader joe's, which i think wasn't then our rate killer market and certainly after what i learned is not our regular marquee. these were printed. so that is no big deal. you bring back anything you wanted to give your money back. so i brought them back msm is looking at the bad before it went that the store, i am looking on it and it says walnuts, organic product of classic vm. they obviously were walnut and who knows if they were organic. but when i read product of
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cosmic stan, that seems so strange. i've done a lot of work as a journalist in the former soviet bloc and i'm well aware of the corruption that exists still in that region and the idea, especially with the in the valley where b., just if you appear on such extraordinary local produce. the idea sent him coming in, let alone could be far fetched to me. i tip a setback to the manager appeared to the manager appeared to manage this collegiate looking guy. one of her students at the university of oregon. we laugh together about the label. he gave me my money back. but first i went and bought another bag of walnuts. these were so-called conventional in product
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california and we certainly grow plenty of walnuts in california. so that was just a household event. but a couple of weeks later, my wife was on the phone to a company called natural direction, which you may be familiar with. try the labels for independent groceries here to the same company coming unified groceries that operates the western family brand that you may be familiar with. they saw the money, nothing wrong with that. but to $30 billion every year even to the organic sector. that's only 4% or 5% of the grocery dollars. they started to bring out a so-called organic line. i continue to modify the word organic because it is so problematic as i learned. she was on the line not about the organic. these were black beans like one in the back of the room.
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she was concerned about bpa in the line mean of 10. on the other end of the number the operator said if you look at the top of the can, it will say where the beans are from and i can value whether there's bpa in the lining. i have the can right here. here it is natural direction black beans. so my wife looks at the top of the can. i happen to be at the kitchen table while she was doing that. she reads to the 800 number lady product of bolivia. if you want to get into some sort of competition as to who is more corrupt, i am not going to bet on that one. i've done work in bolivia, too, as a journalist working on stories that deal with cocaine
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trafficking. i started to think about the strange reality of not knowing what that label means relief and then see in this staff coming from so far away, especially to a place like the valley in oregon where we have such extraordinary produce. so i decided i was going to go in reverse engineer both of these products. this is what i do. i'm a journalist. i find curious about this and wondering if this stuff is real, then my job is to go find out. i think this is going to be extraordinarily easy. i am going to call a trader joe's. they are so fun. they've got wind shirts, rock 'n roll music from the 60s. we all danced on the island by
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pretzels filled with peanut butter and they say gap, sure, here is the trail and go find the walnut orchard. i figured i'd do the same thing with natural direction and they would take me to the bean fields in bolivia. so i did what we do these days and got on the keyboard.old -- that's not correct. first i went to my manager about in the trader joe's store. i said where are these walnuts coming from? how do i get the address of that orchard? he said no problem at all. get a hold of the e-mail. get a hold of the corporate headquarters. it turned out to me to be relatively entertaining interaction with trader joe's via e-mail. i wrote to them and said i want
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to know specifically where these walnuts came from. i received this e-mail message back. we value your comments and we'll do our best to get back to you as fast as humanly possible. that is because, this is the cuteness of trader joe's, because a few humans are basically we did in responding to all of the great customer feedback. if this requires immediate attention, contact your local trader joe's to speak with one of our crew members live. it is fastest way to get a response, plus they might tell you a good joke. cute is part of their deal. that's fine. part of the fun of shopping there if you find that fun. i had of course already talked to the local guy and he told me to send an e-mail. the notes ends with the hollow, the hawaiian thank you because they are island themed. who owns trader joe's? trader joe's is owned by all
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these. all these is a huge discount supermarket chain that is headquartered in germany, founded in germany in headquartered there. but no said they would get back in touch. i received an e-mail a few days later from somebody named kerry. i do apologize for the disappointing experience you had and i'm so glad you took advantage of our product guaranteed refund. kerry explained that the nuts were in the store because the walnut demand was greater than the american grown supply and continue to say we bought all of the organic california walnuts we can once we have sold through all of those, then we move across to the ones from the rest of the world, including the republic of kazakhstan.
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holiday control, how i know they are organic and where the orchard was, all of that, kerry reverted to this corporate speak. please know a trader joe's is a piece of the utmost importance from our quality assurance requirements products, will not offer an item that trader joe's would not buy or sell them enjoy. our international suppliers are at the same high organic certification in fda standards. we also contract with u.s.-based third-party certification companies to make sure that our international and domestic suppliers. i hope this helps kind regards, kerry. there was no bricks and mortar address for kerry. there was no telephone number. there was no postal address. there was the e-mail address web relations@trader joe's.com. so i went one more round and told her or him that i am a journalist and the university
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professor and i am researching this and i wish to arrange a trip to the orchard. would he or she please help me. and ladies and gentlemen, did i ever hear from kerry again? the chorus, please? that is correct. i never heard from kerry again. so trader joe's is famous as a corporate entity for the opposite of transparency. even their corporate headquarters if you shop there at all will at all on the road to allow for the addresses. i've addresses. i went down to the headquarters. there was no sign up here. that's not exactly correct. there is a sign out there at 800 shamrock avenue across the street from immaculate conception, the church that has on the front of it ordinary conceded without sin, pray for us, which i thought was so appropriate given what i was facing with trader joe's. the only sign at this great
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corporate headquarters is a harsh no trespassing sign that has the subtext violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. that was kind of a momentary dead end. for probably most of you in the audience in search of money for a hope most journalists, that means full speed ahead. if you are not familiar with it, this is the structure in this country for the usda organic stamp to be on a package. we need not an hour. we need three hours. but that is why there is a book. the usda organic stamp means that the product supposedly needs the usda regulations and
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criteria. that does not mean it is 100% organic, however you define organic. in order to get the stamp, the grower, processor, retailer, whoever is involved in that product getting towards your table must have a certified. certification in this country is done by private companies. these private companies might be of the highest repute. in fact, right down the street at the beginning of the current surge of organic interest. i embrace oregon tilts. however, they don't have the majority of the market. something called quality assurance international does and you maybe have recognized their styles i.q. on the back of linux that you see. quality assurance international
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was created in its current incarnation as a for-profit business. and here's where it gets a little tangled. the processors, the growers must pay for the certification. now in a competitive environment such as we have in this country with our system, that means there are various certifiers in addition to quality assurance international who are vying for the trade. that creates an inherent, in my opinion, and after studying the, conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest. but it's worse than that because even if you were to trust quality assurance international, once we got once we got half the voters, most of the time they send out first that word to in country that supposedly are
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meeting usda standards. so in order to try to back myself around not, i booked a trip to barcelona to the global food safety conference, which is an annual event and it deals with food safety in general as the name suggests, but also has subsets with organic and erin met with the delightful quality assurance international representative and talked about what i wanted to do. i wanted to trackback this products. he said that's a great idea. it's always great when you're university of oregon professor and you can trade on a football team. you should buy for all of you one of these playpens as a duck head on the top and you push it and actually quite. i gave him wine and not secured our relationship and he told yes nse got back to the days he would did in touch with their public relations department and they would begin to organize the
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trips so that i could track these products back. i was feeling really good and i went down to the district and got myself a nice lunch with some nice red wine and relax and thought i am on the way. no such luck. so yeah, i've got these two tracks and i want to decide which way to go with you. let me tell you about gretta houlihan. gretta houlihan is the pr out quality assurance international. i wrote in senate tacked to to the guy there are barcelona and you already know about me. i want to follow these two back. greta right back, there's a couple of tricks here in case any of your thoughts in the
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various activities. one, don't talk to journalists. and two, don't use e-mail. it is amazing the stuff that i get. it is amazing the people who will talk to me. so gretta then, it's america. we are informal. so gretta tells me that she very much preachy the creativity of my project, the quality assurance international cannot participate, she says, because trader joe's and natural directions is not giving them the go-ahead to it i said davis, greta, but what i don't understand is how trader joe's and natural directions can meet the decision. isn't a key way i certification, is a major companies call? thanks as always. we were still friends. we don't end up friends. the next know from houlihan explains the rationale behind
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her refusal, but does not negate the conflict of interest. trader joe's coming natural direction, would have to provide you, that is me, with their supply-chain information since that is considered confidential business information. where your beans come from, ladies and gentlemen, where your walnuts come from, ladies and gentlemen, that you spend $30 billion a year on is confidential information. in other words, trust me at q. a i., we are taking care of you. this is going on at the same time as edward snowden was releasing all of this staff that question our government from a different day. because remember, all of this is under the national organic program. so i wrote to gretta and i said shouldn't we find a strategy.
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i didn't argue her point. i so shouldn't we find a strategy whereby i can observe the farm to fork certification process that qai is in charge of for the black beans and walnuts without compromising trader joe's or natural directions understandable confidential business information. perhaps we can brainstorm about that. when i was in bolivia busting cocaine dealers, i did not have any trouble working with the dea and not releasing information they didn't want released. you think i might be trustworthy regarding the use and the. so she writes back, i am really sorry, but we cannot find any company. she suggested she was looking beyond the two i was lucky not to can participate in your project. we wish you the best on your book and safe travels. we are americans. so i wrote back, i'm not dead
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yet. it's so easy. you're still in your pajamas, have a cup of coffee and send a note to gretta. how can the public trust sub dives process of the certification process is not transparent. if the independent observers precluded from what is in your work. please help me understand this. hook i say go away she writes back. she didn't write that, but what she wrote back as i understand that i want to help you, but i can't in this case. the certified companies to provide you with the supplied information. next she cited the law that sanctifies the qai subterfuge. so realize it is our law, our federal law, our national organic row grandma that they successfully hide behind. so she tells me, go talk to the usda which a dirty done.
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i appreciate your counsel. i've met with miles mcavoy. but you may know him because he came to the national organic program after working here in washington state and an equivalent type of position. it wonderful fellow. read a great meaning in his office in washington, which i recounted in the book. i say to her, seems to me the consumer may be at risk as suffering from a dearth of information about the products you're considering for purchase. then ask her something that very straightforward and appropriate. mass future ranging interview for me for whoever at qai is the responsible member of the qai seal? she's a pr flack. 60% of the certification business in this country. get out of my face, buddy peter she screams. she didn't say that. she wrote hi peter, this is not something about and discuss in more detail. you can contact him in more
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corporate speak. i went one more time with her in the last message from her did not have any honorifics or salutations. is it merely i am sorry, but we can't be of further assistance. so there i was with no help from trader joe's, no help from qai you one after natural directions. i called the procurement officer. they are in southern california. i said next time you all go down to bolivia, i would like to calm. nothing. nothing, nothing. so i started to look elsewhere and see what goes on elsewhere in the rest of the world because we are number one as you know. we must be doing it right. we must be doing at best. i went over to europe and what did austria, switzerland and denmark. so in austria, they have a
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really intriguing private public combination. they support with consequential subsidy organic farming there. and cash payments go to the farmers and men both government and private certifiers chaddock. if there is a violation, if there is a violation, they've got to give the money back. so what is the extent? and denmark it's all done by the government. so if you trust your government and it would be nice to be able to trust your government, then that should give you some confidence. those two countries and switzerland have the highest per capita consumption of organics in europe. i went down to costa rica and spent some time with another american expatriate who is coffee bean got any gas organic
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coffee. he doesn't bother with certification and with the usda stamp. he develops relationships with its customers, many of whom who come down and visit and he tells them what he does than they are confident in his product. as you may know, you can't do that in this country if you saw more than $5000 a year worth of product. $5000 a year is not much. so as soon as you hit a thousand dollars in one, you are violating the law if he say this is organic and you haven't gone through the certification process. i met them as i said with miles mcavoy. as i told you, i wrote to qai instead i want to talk to one of your executives and they told me to buzz off. i found a high mucky muck in qai
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there are tricks for anyone who wants to go to the household. use the telephone now because no one ever calls anybody. they always be among 202-628-0205, people answer them, especially if they ring before eight or after five if the secretary is gone and they cannot grab the phone. the other good trick and people who just retired, especially these same types, they are going crazy because they working for 40 years another got nothing to do but play golf. he's a delightful fellow. there is a chapter with this guy in the book and boy does he like to talk and it's always so nice when they like to talk. i got a lot of background information and how it all
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works, including what he told me, which i hadn't stumbled on yet and that is you can launch or attempt to launch as an individual consumer a usda national organic program investigation into the veracity of a product when you are suspicious if you have grounds that are adequate for that suspicion that satisfied the u.s. ea such as the beans and the walnuts. so i immediately wrote to miles mcafee since i had this relationship at the top and said i want an investigation. he says we just don't have enough people and we need to have come to have, to have come away to the cops call it, suspicion -- probable cause. yeah, thank you. i had probable cause. i had probable cause. i have done enough homework that i had probable cause. i wrote back to them. you can appreciate a friend this night, when i was doing the research it was $28 billion a
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year in this country and the national organic program had, and this includes everybody from the janitor to the top guy. so that is not just investigators. they had 28 or so employees. that means one employee per billion dollars of trade. nonetheless, because what i wrote the second time around i had enough information. i have to watch the clock because i want to get your boss, but the details are in the book. they did launch an investigation i will tell you what happened in a minute because it is a modified ba. we are not at home plate yet. the next thing i did was organize my trip down to bolivia, which again there was zero help from the retailer.
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however, we have a spectacular local market chain down in oregon that you may be familiar with, market of choice, which mixes the french's mustard. you can get pretty much everything you want there. i checked in with the boss and he knew people at natural directions and be allowed to this particular product, he sells 50% of all of the black beans of natural directions markets. so they answer his call and he got a little bit of information that led me to where it was likely these beans came from. in fact, i went to santa cruz they lack the area in bolivia and connected with a producer there a processor, he being
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processed there who hooked me up with one of his employees. we went in a four-wheel drive pickup trucks seven hours on dirt roads is, the region where paraguay, brazil comes together in way that was a farmer in sa recounted above, i'm pretty sure he is the guy responsible for the beans. there are two things of note that are interesting. i have this storybook meeting with this guy and i had a bag of black beans for the organic black beans valley. i'm going to give him the use and show him this can. and we did that in them is fun. i've been a nice picture of a shaking hands. i said to him, do you have a message for those of us in oregon? he said you bet i do. he said look where you are. the kitchen is outside.
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the lamp, night time powered by propane or some kind of gas. he said look at this. we have no electricity. we have no running water. we have one tractor that we all share here. you tell that to the people who are buying black beans. it was a sobering moment. the other thing was remember this is like 6000 miles from my campus where these beans are coming up from. before we got in the pickup trucks for the seven hour drive to get some supplies for the road and i saw a canned beans they are -- they are. they were beans in the supermarket that were from louisiana. they were from louisiana, said they are going down there and they are coming up here. even if you don't care about
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buying locally, even if you don't care about organic, how about the gasoline? it is quite unbelievable. it is never-ending. so just about at press time i got a note back from the usda. it was one of those notes but was so much fun to receive as a journalist came from matthew michael. the director of the national organic program compliance enforcement division. it said this. your complaint alleged that trader joe's organically labeled walnuts and they came in a bag like this. i bought this yesterday because i oftentimes stopped at trader joe's all of the country and see if i can find another one.
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never going to do that again. these are supposedly from california and supposedly organic and based on their appearance, they are in the walnuts. and so, from the usda come your complaint alleged that trader joe's organically labeled walnuts identify kazakhstan as the country of origin. although there is, this is from the usda, no evidence of cultivation. the trader joe's representative stating that trader joe's walnuts from context and -- kazakhstan. this is where these guys certainly seem in bed with each other. in response to your complaint, trader joe's, quality assurance international conducted a trace back of trader joe's walnut sourcing and suppliers found in
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qai found no evidence that trader joe's walnut came from saturday. the official investigation concurred with my conclusion was satisfied in indicating, that the investigator in regard to the e-mail exchange with the trader joe's representative, qai determined that the employee misspoke and incorrectly stated that trader joe's sourced walnuts from sunday. he didn't miss a beat. it was in an e-mail, but it was printed on the back. so the note ended. thank you for bringing this to attention. so i wrote back and said please don't close this investigation. please answer why trader joe's
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is labeling walnuts as organic from kazakhstan when there's no organic walnuts grown there. are the walnuts by trader joe's labeled as organic and not from kazakhstan? if so, where are they grown? touted qai determined trader joe's does not buy walnuts from kazakhstan? did they determine the air on its own? what was qai struck back process that they would not let me participate in. how does it at qai certification companies from kazakhstan did not determine that there is no organic sector in kazakhstan parts of my complaint. isn't that their job? excuse me for yelling. does the fact indicate a consequential flaw in their search vacation process? did the usda contact trader joe's after making a determination? if so, what was trader joe's response that they are selling a
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product that is grossly misleading because it is mislabeled. what does the usda intend to do if they are buying, will the usda forced or just to inform customers of the error abroad and change the packaging? so what did i receive back from that letter? that is correct, ma'am. nothing. we have in this country as you know the freedom of information act and i have filed a freedom of information act request to the usda asking for answers to these questions. just this week i received a letter back from the national organic brokering, saying in fact they had accepted the freedom of information act request because that is when the process is and not have to happen. so it's time for some questions if you have some. first i want to tease the fact i
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have great experience and adventure in this book here that i found examples of organic reducers doing marvelous work had one guy in particular. i had a lovely experience that is all an orchard in tunisia. unique this exquisite olive oil. i was on an organic farm where i stayed for a while in italy. these guys do magical work. work until it is a fine operation. so while we have these questions, i figured it would be appropriate that we have a snack. so just pass around the walnuts and tell me, are they organic or are they not? >> again, what are your impressions? >> he is a delightful, delightful man. >> tell me how you thought about the program geared >> i think he is a dedicated bureaucrat now. that is what he is by definition
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doing the best he can under the circumstances to make it worth as best they can. i don't fault him for the problems. i think that the problems that exist he walked into because of whatever the disarray is that the whole system. beyond that, when an operation like trader joe's or national directions is doing the opposite of being transparent and you have the overlay of certification system in this country that is so tangled if not conflict of interest, at least the appearance of conflict of interest that we are lucky to have a guy like him doing the best they can. what's the matter? are used to go to the walnuts? you just say, sir. once i care. i reckon if the guy back there and then you are next. >> did you have any blowback
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from this book? i've got you guys here, c-span booktv. the blowback is like this. there is a lot of interest because we do care i think about labeling. don't we want to know what it is we buy? and don't i want to know what the suit is made of? don't know what to know if it's flame retardant in pajamas is dangerous? in oregon as he went out of the know, i'm from california and i keep thinking propositions. we call them something else in oregon. 93 g mo labeling that lost by a hair sign the ballot in november in what is happening there, cascadian farms owned by general mills is taking trucks and driving them in by the gross in support of the advertising against 93. how can anybody -- 92. thank you him in 92. how can anybody be opposed to knowing what it is in the
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product, even if you want to consume gm owes. fine with need. tommy what is in it. of course, in the context of what we talk about today, in my freezer for some reason there's a cascadian farms bag of mixed berries you nobody should be buying frozen berries, but nonetheless it's cascadian farms. it product of serbia and argentina. that just adds another layer. if you think arjun tien as clean as a whistle and serbia is sturdy, are you going to pull out the blueberries because you think they are from arjun tina? it is not. -- nuts. >> it comes back to the cliché. think globally, buy locally. we are so spoiled.
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in february i can go down to the aforementioned market of plays in eugene, oregon and by beautiful asparagus flown up from peru. so slap my hand and wait until it is fairly strong california. the best thing to do, which we often have the luxury of thing you do in this town because of the co-op another stories and relationships with agriculture here is to get to know if not the farmer, at least the retailers. if you trust the retailers to know the distributor, know the farmer. that is the only way we can deal with this. but i such a spec pakula timon learned so much meeting pedro in bolivia. but we can't go to bolivia to see who is raising the beans and decide if they are clean or not. yes, ma'am. >> what appeared bad idea to boycott general mills from now on?
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>> i don't know the answer to this. what i try to do as a lot of our little ways of trying to do what these things, as we just discussed, to know what the stuff is coming from. and then i think the larger picture, i don't know what boycotts do, but certainly we should be engaging the usda and we should be engaging our lawmakers. if we agree there is something heinous hair, where we are not allowed on why we are supposed to believe the label. yes, ma'am. yes, please. >> for those of us here in the northwest that have connections with fishing or have an affection for wild fish food. it was worrisome to me when i learned there is a push to
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certified farmed seafood as organic. so i attended the standards board meeting in seattle in 2011 and went down to san antonio at the end of april. because not only is the push there to certify aquatic animals as organic, the representatives of the agriculture industry have had their way paid for half a dozen years to come in and be the experts. >> is placed exactly what we were just talking about. that is the national organic program of the usda is under their marketing directory. so that is good on some level. it is great if people are buying organic stuff. but they are not -- they are in the business of looking out for the concerns that you have
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there. there's other guys and i see we are going to get the clock ticking. i recognize this fellow in the striped shirt? >> throughout the book, you tend to make this assertion over and over again that somehow fee-for-service is in itself inherently conflict of interest. again, certification has played away. non-gml project, sustainability and lead projects. where is the example is not necessarily in and of itself just by your assertion or implication that is corrupting is actually corrupting. i don't see it. >> okay, it is corrupting. it is corrupting by definition when you say i'm not finished yet don't shake your head until i'm finished. when you couple it is and you can't see it, buddy. it is corrupting by definition.
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there undoubtedly are more clean operation and dirty ones. i am convinced that the people in general who are engaged and maybe i am pollyanna and naïve, but engaged in america are not trying to solve lawnmowers, fully chewed off and stab you or whatever else. we are good people trying to do good aims. but when you say especially about some you are eating, it is good for you and it's exactly what it says here and that's all you need to know. keep walking. nothing going on here. that is inherently problematic to it doesn't mean once you do open the doors if you do, that was the case in bolivia that it isn't clean. it is clean in bolivia. these and natural direction should've taken me down there. however, wherever the back of walnuts as now his now, that one wasn't. out of two, we were a 50/50. i respect your point and you are
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correct. it is an operative system, but it's coupled with a lack of transparency we've got a problem. yes, ma'am. >> a big example of pay to play is the fact that monsanto ties foreign aid to insisting that we buy their seed, which require for their round up. in places like el salvador and started the disease, there is a much greater cause than all of the other major diseases complying by cancers and disease. if they do that at the highest level to foreign aid is, instead we can make the change. >> is beyond the scope of my research and i appreciate your concern. i sometimes than frivolous in the best i've tied this to my own work is looking at the
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problems that because the the roundup resistant crops that result in milkweed, which is required for the sustainability of the monarchs in the milkweed dying so frivolously i've been suggesting we should develop a roundup ready milkweed so at least we can save the monarchs pair but that's an example that we did at the newsroom and i shouldn't burden you with that. are there other questions here? >> i've got a couple things. i'll be a little bit empathetic and a little bit critical. >> as george bush would say, bring it on. >> i say that i had trouble with the book at the beginning and some of it comes with ballistic integrity and when i read a simple fact that when you made the assertion he found is that
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you don't have credibility as those are true. he never grapples, never grew pairs. he wasn't really purchasing. he was part of venture capitalists at that point. there was a knowledge base pair i wouldn't expect you to know. and made me as a reader question everything going forward. as someone who has been around organics for quite a while. i would also like to say i went a little bit off when you talk about one inspector per billion. >> one employee per billion. >> the reality is there are thousands of organic inspectors out there globally. who are working on it. i happen to know that. >> excuse me for just a second. we shouldn't argue here that we can do it after the fact for the semantic aspect of it. when you request and as i did,
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get the usda to gauge in the investigation, it is germane to know how many employees are in the national organic program. >> yes, but the implication is there is no one overseeing organic certification. i would have to disagree with that. somebody who knows a lot about organic certification, i know that not to be true. >> i appreciate that. i'm sorry that you came away from it with that as the implication. not my intent. >> having said that, i am empathetic to a lot of your point. i am aware of harrell chased them along time ago. >> in prison right now for selling potential. >> i would have to say that i think whoever is the unified grocers label are, they left out in trader joe's blew it. i have to say they are not
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obligated to give that to you because there is a business confidentiality that is involved in business confidentiality when it comes to sourcing. >> i'm going to sapi for second. i would do two things. i'm going to take a question from this lady. since you don't have any natural direction projects -- >> i don't eat canned beans. i cooked my own. >> at any rate, let me take the question here. i appreciate your point of view. my job is a joy and it is a tough one oath. i have to make decisions along the way. i appreciate your criticism and your support. yes, ma'am. [inaudible] -- wholesale produce markets? >> wholesale produce market i did not visit. >> at 110 offices were being labeled organic bear. >> product exists in our
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culture. they're about guys in our culture. as i said, i perhaps naïvely like to think that most of us are doing the right thing. no matter the sector of the business, we are going to find people doing the wrong thing. comments for the rest of you before i conclude? yes, ma'am. >> i have a question. i want to thank you for asking a question and taken the time to ask you a question is off to wonder where it comes from. in fact, the reality is really justified. and shouldn't i be acting quite thank you for doing that. >> thank you for doing that. >> that is wonderful. i'm curious what you would suggest what should we look for? should i buy walnuts that are
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conventional? >> especially in a community like this were so lucky to have the connection to agriculture you have in the retailers that you have to know them as well as you can. for myself, it is not some kind of xenophobia. but i am staying away from products that are coming from what is pejoratively known and politically and correctly called the third world. if something has multiple, national sources in it like the cascadian farms serbia in argentina and a double hit of the third world into different places, it makes me suspect and i am trying to wean myself from having whatever i want whenever i want it.
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i think it is important to question it and have the dialogue i am having with those who see errors in my work from their point of view or disagree, but also we need to hold the lawmakers and the regulators to very high standards. i'm sorry. i have got zero patience for lack of transparent to you. it doesn't make any sense at all to say you can't know this especially when it is just buy it and eat it. it just doesn't make sense to me. yes, ma'am. i thought i saw your hand. >> i just wanted to comment that a lot of times on packages is as distributed by others no information about what country or where it came from. >> that is especially a problem in italy where you can pick up spaghetti sauce and assess product of italy or produced in italy in the implication or at
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lease one i would think as everything in their came from there, but it doesn't mean that at all. we showed, i think, have very clear labels that we understand and know what they mean. part of what is in the book and what goes on with the national organic program includes substance that can be in the products that are not organic, that still allow for it to say that it is organic. one can argue whether there's anything wrong with those and they go through a system of supposedly making sure there is nothing that creates conflict according to the usda policy. all of that should be well known. if you buy a bag of corn chips that says made with organic and that means 70% must be organic
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endoscope in a bath of conventional oil. maybe that doesn't matter at all. maybe it doesn't matter to you, but it seems like it shouldn't be shrouded in the shrouded. there shouldn't be a need tosk these questions because they should be answered by default. yes, ma'am. >> you have any suggestions for people that are trying to get more labeling into the senior center venues here? >> good luck. good luck. [inaudible] >> yeah, all of us, even the general men with whom i had a disagreement, we all are coming at this from wherever we come at it looking for the same and is,
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which is good food and knowledge of what food is. there's nothing wrong with everybody leaving here. you just have to decide that is what you want to do. [inaudible] >> we've actually been there a few times. bananas grow in blue bags in most parts of coaster week. it is also the abu cultures, especially the bananas have the highest death rate of causes. we finally got somewhere going organic man is which you can eat. but i've never looked to man is the same way. >> costa rica, which has as its national slogan, has the highest per capita use of pesticides and
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herbicides. we have a lot of conflicts out there. one of the things for those of you here in washington and those in oregon, we are so blessed with the options that we do have and the opportunities that we do have that it's important also to step back and realize that we have access to the information. we probably have enough money to have access to the product and we need to share this. that is why the transparency issue is so important to me. first i want to thank you all very much for coming. you, i will talk to you later. >> there's no time. i'm sorry, there's no time. i look forward to talking to you. there just are a couple of things. i want to again at village books for the opportunity to speak with you all and thank you all so much for coming out and think
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c-span, but tv for the opportunity to talk to their national audience. i am supposed to be, my publisher's would not be happy. is it in the frame? i'm supposed to be selling the book. i will tell you when you get toward the end, you will be able to find out if in bolivia you can buy organic cocoa. [laughter] are thank you also much. that is the staff ever since the inca days since they turned it into cocaine. thank you all so much for coming. [applause]
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>> here's a look at the current best-selling nonfiction books according to "politico."

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