May is National Meditation month, and that seems to be the topic on everyones mind.

On the Money reports that supermodel Gisele Bundchen told a crowd at the David Lynch Foundations Women of Vision Humanitarian Awards that she meditates whenever she can, even in the back seat of a New York City taxi.

Robin Roberts, a co-anchor of ABCs Good Morning America, also told emcee Rosanna Scotto that she now gets up at 3:15 a.m. instead of 4 a.m. to meditate. Her co-host George Stephanopoulos also practices transcendental meditation, or TM.

Roberts and Bundchen were among the honorees at the awards dinner.

Meditation may even have helped actor Leonardo DiCaprio win his first Oscar a prize that had long eluded him as he meditated with Montreal-based expert Lynne Goldberg while he was filming The Revenant in Calgary.

Goldberg is in town to spread the meditation mantra and her app, OMG. I Can Meditate!

While the transcendental meditation taught through the Lynch Foundation, which also uses meditation as a tool to help veterans and victims of sexual and domestic abuse, touts 20 minutes twice a day, Goldberg has an app for 1-, 2- and 5-minute meditation options.

Read the original post:

Meditation is the key to these stars' success - New York Post

Two Helena residents are launching an interactive platform called GuideFul to provide tutorials and guided meditation with a community focus.

Justin Whitaker, one of the co-founders, was raised in Helena before moving to Missoula for college. He was studying business when he took a Buddhism class with a meditation lab. It addressed his anxiety and depression unlike prescription drugs or therapy did. Whitaker changed his major from business to philosophy and took all the Buddhism classes available at the University of Montana. He has since received a Ph.D in Buddhist Ethics and heard teachings from the Dalai Lama.

After teaching for more than a decade, Whitaker said he understood the necessity of connecting people during their meditation practice and noticed it deterred people from sticking with the practice. During a meditation class at Merlin CCC in January, Whitaker and classmate Bob Funk talked about launching a website and app for mindfulness and meditation with the ability to foster interaction.

Whitaker said most existing apps dont provide any interaction among users, which causes them to burn out after a few weeks.

Mindfulness can be a very lonely practice, he said. You need people there to support you.

To provide that support, the app and website will include video tutorials by meditation teachers from around the world, guided and live meditation, community forums and podcasts. Users will have a chance to ask questions and guides will provide answers and feedback. The app will go through beta testing in July and launch in September. The app will be available on iPhones and Android phones for free to download, but with a $9.99 a month paywall to access full services.

Whitaker said theres research that shows meditation can combat anxiety and depression as well as physical ailments like high blood pressure.

Meditation can be a wonderful adjunct or add on to medicine or therapy, he said. But its not going to work for everybody.

Whitaker said after he gives his personal story and talks about research, most people are willing to try it.

Whitaker has been teaching since 2003 and will lead the teaching effort for GuideFul. Hes leading a four week mindfulness and meditation class at Dancing Lotus and has previously taught at the University of Montana, Carroll College, Hot Yoga Helena and Merlin CCC.

Funk, his co-founder, also has a background in mental health care and is developing the platform. He started Awareness Network, a Helena nonprofit covering out-of-pockets costs for mental health treatment.

While GuideFul plans to launch this fall, Whitaker and Funk are crowdfunding on IndieGoGo to raise $5,000 for startup costs and offering 50 percent off a year long membership to anyone who donates.

More:

Helena residents to launch meditation, mindfulness platform - Helena Independent Record

Some vegan and raw food bloggers believe that menstruation is unclean and a curseand that we'd be better off without periods at all.

"If it's so unhealthy for me to go through a period of not having my period, then why did I feel so amazing?" In a YouTube video called "How I lost my period on a RAW VEGAN Diet," vlogger Freelee the Banana Girl tells her 700,000 followers about something occasionally experienced by women who've made a big change to their eating habits: the disappearance of her period.

She says that within a month of starting a "100 percent raw vegan diet," her periods stopped and only returned after nine months, but much more lightly. But instead of being a little worried, as we might expect, she was stoked.

"I still believe that, largely, menstruation is toxicity leaving the body," she explains in her controversial video, which saw heavy criticism from some viewers and eating disorder charity Beat. "So a lot of people are having these heavy, heavy periods and painful periods because they have a toxic body or have a toxic diet."

Instead, Freelee believes a light periodor "mega light," in her wordsis a healthy one, and that uncomfortable periods are "not natural," and down to a fatty or "toxic" diet.

"At the end of the day if you're having a heavy period, if you're having a painful period, then get on a 100 percent high carb raw vegan diet as soon as you can." Her video has attracted over 395,000 views since it was uploaded.

Watch: The History of Birth Control

Missing your period oncelet alone for nine monthsis rarely considered a good thing by doctors unless you're looking to get pregnant. Stress, polycystic ovary syndrome, obesity, and sudden weight loss are among the assortment of cited reasons that a woman might stop experiencing what's usually considered a normal reproductive process.

But a handful of vegan, raw, and clean eating bloggers claim that using your diet to achieve a sporadic and light periodor one that's completely nonexistentis healthier and more natural.

"Many girls who lose their period often worry and try numerous things to get it back," writes Miliany on her blog, RawVeganLiving."It's often advised that to get your period back, you should stop exercising and eat more calories and incorporate more plant-based fats in your diet.

"What if I told you that everything you were taught about menstrual cycles was a complete LIE?!"

Read more: The Strange History of the Extremely Low-Carb Diet Fad

Through Freelee and Miliany espouse different theories, they both come to the same conclusion: that modern society has sold women the idea that menstruation is healthy and that periods are better lighter or halted altogether by adopting raw and vegan diets.

I reached out to Miliany, who told me that she believes "a non-menstruating body indicates the body is clean."

"If a woman or young girl decided she wanted to stop menstruating or lighten up her heavy periods, then I would recommend a raw foods diet to help them with that," she says. "The industry has done a great job of brainwashing too many women into thinking that if they do not get their periods on a monthly basis, that something is wrong with their body and hormones."

However, Dr Jackie Maybin, a clinical lecturer in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Edinburgh, warns against changing your diet in an attempt to alter your menstrual cycle.

"It's difficult to recommend a strict vegan diet without investigating hormone levels and endometrial health in these women," she says of bloggers like Freelee and Milliany. "It's likely that the complete absence of periodsamenorrheaindicates that ovulation is not occurring and could have a significant negative impact on reproductive health."

In comments reported by the Daily Mail, eating disorder charity Beat said of Freelee's video: "Although taken out of the new diagnostic criteria for anorexia as it excludes men, amenorrhea has in the past been used to diagnose anorexia nervosa. Being at a low weight and restricting intake for a significant lengths of time can have other serious side effectslow blood pressure, osteoporosis, organ failure, infertility, restricted growth among others."

Freelee the Banana Girl in her video about losing her period on a raw vegan diet. Screenshot via YouTube

For other bloggers, there is an almost quasi-religious connection between periods and clean eating, the diet turned lifestyle that can sometimes tip over into a form of disordered eating known as orthorexia.

A raw food blog titled RawforLife exemplifies this attitude, asking: "If we were all living natural [sic], in a 'Garden of Eden', without pads, tampons, tissues (or even clothes?), would we all be running around dripping blood all over the place for a few days a month?"

Despite being posted eight years ago, a post called "Periodsthey may be normal but are they healthy?" continues to be one of the site's most shared and commented on pieces today.

"The main aim of this article has been to challenge the prevailing view of periods as 'healthy,'" a raw food blogger called Debbie writes. She claims that menstruation could be a symptom of living a non-raw vegan lifestyle: "Perhaps periodsthe pain, the blood flow, PMT were rightly named a 'curse'a curse on us for falling short of living how we are meant to live physically and psychologically."

This idea comes up regularly among these bloggers: that women hundreds of years agoand animalshad or have lighter periods thanks to a plant-based diet.

Maybin, however, says that these claims have little basis in medical fact. "It's true that women previously had fewer periods; approximately 40 in their lifetime, versus about 400 for modern women in developed countries," she says. "However, I think this is unlikely to be due to a vegan or plant-based diet, but because these women were either pregnant or lactating for most of their lives."

Freelee and Debbie did not respond to comment (Freelee started a new ASMR-themed YouTube channel in April). But when asked directly by followers, they both refute the claim they're encouraging women to stop their periodsthough regardless of their intentions, their influence is clear.

While Debbie's comment section is packed with breastfeeding mothers and those on the cusp of the menopause deliberating these ideas, Freelee's is dominated by young peoplesome teenagers as young as 13thanking her for inspiring them to change their diet.

"The medical industry certainly doesn't tell us the truth," writes one under the "How I lost my period on a RAW VEGAN Diet" video. "Trust your fellow humans, not outdated tradition, disease and corporations who spread lies."

For More Stories Like This, Sign Up for Our Newsletter

But Maybin warns that a very restrictive diet or excessive exercise can also lead to a condition called hypothalamic hypogonadism. "In menstruating women, the brain sends signals to the ovaries to produce hormones to regulate the endometrium. This results in ovulation and, if pregnancy does not occur, menstruation.

"In hypothalamic hypogonadism, the body assumes a state of stress and shuts off the signal from the brain to the ovaries. This reverts the body to a pre-pubescent like state, where pregnancy is not possible as the ovaries temporarily shut down and menstruation does not occur.

"If this state is maintained long term, women can have problems due to low estrogen levels, e.g. risk of loss of bone mineral density and osteoporosis."

While she says that not enough research has been done to know exactly what effects diet can have on menstruation, it makes sense that a "healthy balanced diet"i.e. one that does not excessively restrict certain food groupsis good for all women and their periods.

Despite the risks, these blogs remain popular, including a new video uploaded by Freelee in September: "If you've got heavy periods, that's not normal," she says in the clip, which has been viewed almost 250,000 times. "That is not as healthy as you can be."

Read more:

The Vegan Diet Bloggers Who Think Periods Are 'Not Natural' - Broadly

Published time: 13 May, 2017 17:33

UK-based car manufacturer Bentley is looking into innovative custom-made non-animal materials for its interiors, to try and satisfy peak trend vegan customers, the companys design director revealed.

You cant sell an animal-containing product like a Bentley, with 20 leather hides, to someone with a vegan lifestyle, Bentleys Director of Design Stefan Sielaff said at the Future of the Car Summit in London this week, according to Auto Express.

Read more

Weve been talking to these customers, in California especially, and theyre asking us what we can give them. We do a lot of custom-made and coach-built solutions, in conjunction with our colleagues at [coachbuilder] Mulliner, and therefore we want to satisfy these customers because they are the peak of a trend.

The Crewe-headquartered company, which has been a subsidiary of German conglomerate Volkswagen AG since 1998, plans to utilize several materials that have not yet entered the mass market.

We will shortly present a Bentley with a vegan interior; itll give you a luxury sensation but with a different way protein leather, mushroom leather, jellyfish material, said Sielaff.

While protein leather, or pleather, is already commonly used for upholstery particularly by cheaper car brands mushroom leather, made from caps of the fungi, and reportedly soft and possessed of anti-bacterial qualities, is only being produced by several start-ups. Translucent jellyfish leather has only been to manufacture several individual pieces as proof of concept, though technologically there are few impediments to producing more.

Bentley is one of the most expensive car brands in the world, with the cheapest model in the 2017 range retailing for upwards of $180,000, with interior and technical customizations capable of shooting up the price up by tens of thousands of dollars.

The company, founded in 1919, is not the first to trumpet vegan-friendly models. Last year, the upstart US electric car manufacturer Tesla earned the PETA seal of approval with its first vegan interior, though it restricted itself to using only synthetic leather. Several of the German car giants also offer similar options.

See the original post here:

Mushroom & jellyfish leather interior: Bentley eyes producing Vegan-friendly cars - RT

Exporting vegetable-focused V Street to D.C. may be just the opening salvo for Philly restaurateurs Richard Landau and Kate Jacoby, who tell Eater they may also export experimental sandwich shop Wiz Kid to the area.

The vegan power couple behind award-winning Vedge last month announced plans to bring their global food bar, V Street, to the Apollo development on H Street NE in late 2017. Bringing fast-casual sibling, Wiz Kid, along for the ride appears to now be on the table.

Were all about making people rethink vegetables, Jacoby said. You can do anything under the sun with vegan. Korean street tacos, Chinese food.

Set to debut June 1 next to the flagship V Street, Wiz Kid puts a vegan spin on Philadelphias iconic cheesesteak, loading its potato rolls with shredded mushrooms, seitan, fried onions, pickled pepper relish, and rutabaga wiz. Additional menu items include the KFT (Korean fried tempeh sandwich), and a Reuben with sauerkraut, pickles, tomato, and caraway.

Wiz Kids concise menu has been teased inside a Whole Foods Market in Philadelphia while its brick-and-mortar location gets up and running. Landau confirmed that hes in talks to plant additional Wiz Kids into one or more Whole Foods in the District, though he declined to discuss specifics.

There is interest down there, so we will see. We dont want to get too far ahead of ourselves, said Landau, adding that their D.C. debut has been years in the making.

V Street is the dressed-down sibling to Philadelphias Vedge, considered one of the top vegan restaurants in the U.S. (Landau was a semi-finalist in the Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic category at this years James Beard Foundation Awards).

Landau said D.C.s V Street will have an expanded noodle bar section, with the capability to whip up twice as many (four to five) noodle dishes as its predecessor. He billed the dan dan noodles featuring five spice mushrooms, zucchini, and red chile-sesame sauce as a destination dish. Another hit: the zaatar grilled corn with zhoug butter and grilled tomato, as well as charred broccoli salad with togarashi, burnt miso mayo, and fried rice.

The D.C. location will also be bigger, accommodating up to 65 patrons; theres even an opportunity for patio dining. Were in a narrow, little Colonial Philadelphia town home, Landau said of the existing space. In D.C. were working with new construction.

Having just returned from Vietnam, the duo is full of ideas they got while snacking on the street. We arent trying to reinvent falafel or anything just get inspired by great flavors and capture the soul of the street, Landau said.

The original V Street just nixed lunch service and is moving to a dinner-only model. The plan is to replicate those hours in D.C., with dinner nightly and brunch on weekends.

We hear brunch is a big thing in D.C., said Jacoby.

Read more:

Vegan Sandwich Shop Wiz Kid Could Join V Street in D.C. - Eater DC

Thursday, May 18th: Vegan Eats

Healthy juice and bountiful bowls and treats to top it all off.

Updated: 10:43 AM EDT May 12, 2017

Veganism is a growing lifestyle and not eating or using anything with animal products can be tough. We found two local businesses that say not only can vegan eating be delicious, it can also look almost too beautiful to eat.

There is a comeback of old fashioned board games in this world of technology. We aren't talking Monopoly, today's games are stopping the spread of disease and build medieval European Towns and they play them all at The Granite State Game Summit.

On Fritz Wetherbee's New Hampshire: Potatoes Come to Effingham.

For more information on tonight's stories:

Milk & Honey Juicery + Caf Manchester, NH (603) 420-9308 http://milkandhoneymanchester.com/

Hippie Cakes Vegan Bakery Raymond, NH (617) 460-7065 https://squareup.com/market/hippiecakes

Granite Game Summit http://www.granitegamesummit.com

Hosting this week from:

SkyZone Trampoline Park Manchester, NH (603) 413-3533 https://www.skyzone.com/manchester

Read the original here:

Thursday, May 18th: Vegan Eats - WMUR Manchester

Want to travel to space? Well currently theres no easy way unless youre really loaded to do that in real life, but with virtual reality (VR) there a plenty of options available. Launched back in March,Spacetours VR Ep1 The Solar System enablesyou to travel to our closest planetary cousins on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Originally exclusive to Steam and Viveport, developer Vibrant Visuals has now released the experience on Oculus Home through the Gallery Apps section.

Featuring all eight planets in photo-realistic detail, created from NASA and ESA/O images along with Epic Games Unreal Engine,Spacetours VR Ep1 The Solar System is an interactive learning app where you can freely navigate the solar system at your leisure.

With full motion control support for Oculus Touch, you can select planets to go to or even pick them up in the palm of your hands in gentile surroundings with calm relaxing music playing away.

Spacetours VR Ep1 The Solar Systemretails for 7.99 GBP on Oculus Home with Steam selling the experience for 6.99.

There are plenty of space-based apps and videogames available for Oculus Rift depending on how interactive you want the experience to be. Discovering Space 2, VR2 Space, Mission: ISS, Apollo 11 VR, Star Chartand ADR1FTare just a few examples.

For all the latest VR videogame releases, keep reading VRFocus.

Staff writer at VRFocus who enjoys bringing the latest news to our keen readers all over the world. Obsessive gamer since the days of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, when Peter does step outside he's off to practice Bruce Lee's Jeet Kun Do, or see the latest local live bands.

E-mail: pgraham@vrfocus.com

More:

Fly to the Moon and Beyond with Spacetours VR Now on Oculus Home - VRFocus

When: 3 p.m. today

Where: California Theatre of the Performing Arts, 562 W. Fourth St., San Bernardino

Tickets: $25-$60; students and military with ID are $10

Information: 909-381-5388, http://www.sanbernardinosymphony.org

Anne Viricel, the San Bernardino Symphony Orchestras executive director, has a gift suggestion for Mom.

What better way is there than to spend a Mothers Day afternoon with the family, doing nothing but relaxing and enjoying beautiful classical music, she said, referring to ensembles performance at 3 p.m. Sunday. Taking Mom to the concert will be a truly special way to treat her.

Most season-finale concerts are programmed for a Saturday night, to be celebrated with champagne and balloons. The schedule at the California Theatre of the Performing Arts in San Bernardino didnt allow for that, but opened the door to the notion of creating a special Mothers Day event.

Besides, this is a really beautiful concert, Viricel added. The music is absolutely wonderful.

The program includes Franz Schuberts Symphony No. 6 in C Major, Beethovens Symphony No. 1 in C Major, and Jacques Francois Antoine Iberts Flute Concerto, to be performed by the orchestras principal flutist, Patricia Cloud.

First on the program will be the Schubert symphony.

We believe audience members of all ages will love hearing this piece, said Frank Paul Fetta, conductor. Each instrument is beautifully highlighted to be easily identified and showcased.

Although Schubert died at age 31, his work was discovered and championed by 19th-century greats Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms. Today, he is ranked among the outstanding composers of the late Classical and early Romantic musical eras.

We titled the entire season A Season of Firsts, Viricel said. The programmed work had to be a work this orchestra would perform for the first time, or a first composition by a particular composer. For this concert, we will perform Beethovens first symphony.

Still under the heavy influence of the Classical composers including his teacher Joseph Haydn, Beethoven premiered this symphony in 1800. According to Fetta, the work still bears many of the composers unique and identifiable characteristics, especially the frequent use of sudden, strong musical emphases.

Nestled between the two very familiar works, the Ibert concerto fits into the first category, as the orchestra will be performing it for the first time.

This is a modern piece, Viricel said. Ibert composed this in 1934, but its beautiful, full of gorgeous melodies. Its so difficult for the soloist, and its really long. The audience will really appreciate the artistry which Patricia Cloud brings to the work.

Advertisement

Musicians of Patricias caliber are rare, but San Bernardino is incredibly fortunate to have an orchestra full of some of the finest musicians in the country, said Fetta in a press release.

Cloud is a native Southern California performer and teacher, and has played with Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony and Mozart Orchestra, as well as serving as principal flute for the San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra.

Our mission, in short, is to present accessible music that is fun and good, Viricel said. This concert is well-established classical music fare, and for a good reason. Simply put, it is beautiful music that has proven itself over the centuries to endure and still attract audiences, whether they are aficionados or new to the scene. Thats why we believe this is a marvelous Mothers Day gift.

As a bonus, every mother at the concert will receive a flower.

See the rest here:

San Bernardino Symphony presents a musical treat for Mother's Day - San Bernardino County Sun

Step into any supermarket these days and youre sure to find a wide variety of organic foods on the shelves. From produce, milk and meat to breakfast cereals and snack foods, consumers have their pick of certified organic productsa far cry from the time when you could only find them in natural foods stores. The demand for organic foods continues to soar: According to theOrganic Trade Association, organic food sales saw their biggest dollar gain ever in 2015 with more than 10 percent growth.

Certified organic foods have been linked to manyheath benefits, but they can sometimes be more expensive than conventionally farmed produce. Try these tips to make an organic diet more affordable.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) recently completed an analysis of conventionally grown (non-organic) produce to measure pesticide residue levels. Based on the results of almost 34,000 samples taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and federal Food and Drug Administration, EWG estimates that eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables, referred to as The Dirty Dozen, exposes the average person to about 15 different pesticides each day, while someone eating the least contaminated will be exposed to fewer than two pesticides each day. By avoiding these most contaminated foods, consumers could reduce their pesticide exposure by almost 90 percent.

If you have budget constraints, get more health for your money by choosing organic varieties of the following fruits and vegetables (listed in descending order, starting with greatest levels of pesticide contamination). Download a pocket guide to the Dirty Dozenhere.

If going totally organic is too difficult or pricey, play it safe and eat the following conventional produce items to minimize your exposure. These are known to have the least amount of pesticide residue (listed in ascending order, starting with lowest levels of contamination):

When eating conventional foods, be certain to peel away edible skins and outer leaves (such as those on lettuce), as pesticides are often concentrated there. Remember to wash all produce (conventional and organic) thoroughly with a natural fruit and vegetable cleanser. Peeling and washing can helpreduce (not eliminate) pesticide exposure, but can also cause the loss of valuable vitamins and nutrients, such as fiber.

When you have the choice between an organic item and one thats conventionally grown, choose organic as often as possible. To see EWG's complete study results and the rankings of different produce items, visittheir website.

More here:

When to buy organic & when to save your money - Atlanta Journal Constitution

A shipment of 36million pounds of soybeans sailed late last year from Ukraine to Turkey to California. Along the way, it underwent a remarkable transformation.

The cargo began as ordinary soybeans, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Like ordinary soybeans, they were fumigated with a pesticide. They were priced like ordinary soybeans, too.

But by the time the 600-foot cargo ship carrying them to Stockton, Calif., arrived in December, the soybeans had been labeled organic, according to receipts, invoices and other shipping records. That switch the addition of the USDA Organic designation boosted their value by approximately $4 million, creating a windfall for at least one company in the supply chain.

After being contacted by The Post, the broker for the soybeans, Annapolis-based Global Natural, emailed a statement saying it may have been provided with false certification documents regarding some grain shipments from Eastern Europe. About 21million pounds of the soybeans have already been distributed to customers.

The multimillion-dollar metamorphosis of the soybeans, as well as two other similar grain shipments in the past year examined by The Post, demonstrate weaknesses in the way that the United States ensures that what is sold as USDA Organic is really organic.

The three shipments, each involving millions of pounds of organic corn or soybeans, were large enough to constitute a meaningful proportion of the U.S. supply of those commodities. All three were presented as organic, despite evidence to the contrary. And all three hailed from Turkey, now one of the largest exporters of organic products to the United States, according to Foreign Agricultural Service statistics.

Agriculture Department officials said that they are investigating fraudulent organic grain shipments. But the agency declined to identify any of the firms or shipments involved.

We are continuing the investigation based on the evidence received, it said in a statement.

The imported corn and soybean shipments examined by The Post were largely destined to become animal feed and enter the supply chain for some of the largest organic food industries. Organic eggs, organic milk, organic chicken and organic beef are supposed to come from animals that consume organic feed, an added expense for farmers that contributes to the higher consumer prices on those items.

While most food sold as USDA Organic is grown in the United States, at least half of some organic commodities corn, soybeans and coffee come from overseas, from as many as 100 countries.

USDA officials say that their system for guarding against fraud is robust.

Under USDA rules, a company importing an organic product must verify that it has come from a supplier that has a USDA Organic certificate. It must keep receipts and invoices. But it need not trace the product back to the farm. Some importers, aware of the possibility of fraud, request extra documentation. But others do not.

Regardless of where organics come from, critics say, the system suffers from multiple weaknesses in enforcement: Farmers hire their own inspection companies; most inspections are announced days or weeks in advance and lack the element of surprise; and testing for pesticides is the exception rather than the rule.

These vulnerabilities are magnified with imported products, which often involve more middlemen, each of whom could profit by relabeling conventional goods as organic. The temptation could be substantial, too: Products with a USDA Organic label routinely sell for twice the price of their conventional counterparts.

In recent years, even as the amount of organic corn and soybeans imported to the United States has more than tripled, the USDA has not issued any major sanctions for the import of fraudulent grain, U.S. farmers said.

The U.S. market is the easiest for potentially fraudulent organic products to penetrate because the chances of getting caught here are not very high, said John Bobbe, executive director of the Organic Farmers Agency for Relationship Marketing, or OFARM, a farmer cooperative. In Europe and Canada, he said, import rules for organics are much stricter.

Moreover, even when the USDA has responded to complaints of questionable imports, action has come too late to prevent the products from reaching consumers.

Four months after the soybeans arrived in California and after The Post began making calls about the shipment, county officials acting on behalf of the USDA showed up at the warehouse where the soybeans were being stored. The officials took samples to test for exposure to pesticides.

By that time, about 21million pounds of the 36million-pound shipment had already reached farms and mills. The customers who have purchased the soybeans said they were unaware there may have been a problem until a Post reporter called.

Gauging the extent of fraud in imported organics is difficult because there is little incentive for organic companies to advertise their suspicions about suppliers.

To test USDA claims that organic imports are rigorously monitored, The Post examined pesticide residue testing conducted on organic products in China.

China is the leading source of organic tea and ginger in the United States, and its food exports have drawn repeated scrutiny.

In China, farmers have trouble following their own laws, said Chenglin Liu, a professor at St. Marys University School of Law in San Antonio. So how can Americans expect Chinese farmers will follow U.S. organic rules?

As in the United States, farmers in China seeking the USDA Organic label hire an inspection agency to certify that they meet the organic rules.

Using public-records laws, The Post obtained the results of pesticide residue tests conducted on farms with USDA organic certification in China. Although pesticide tests are not mandatory, inspection agencies are required to take samples from 5percent of their clients, and The Post requested the results from the three most active inspection agencies overseeing Chinese farms.

The pesticide results showed very high levels of pesticide residue on some organic Chinese products. They also showed that the pesticide residue tests are applied unevenly.

One of the largest inspection agencies, a German company known as Ceres, appears to do rigorous testing.

Ceres conducts most of its tests on plant leaves, rather than on fruits, a method that can be more likely to detect pesticide use.

Their results from China, as a Ceres official said, were quite shocking.

Of 232 samples that Ceres tested from the Chinese organic farms, 37percent showed more than traces of pesticide residue.

This is the reality we are battling with in China, said Albrecht Benzing of Ceres.

Some of the problem arises from pesticides from neighboring farms drifting over, experts said, and some is contamination from Chinas polluted soil and water.

For example, in Shandong province, the Laiwu Manhing Vegetables Fruits Corp. harvests ginger that has been grown organically. But the water available for washing the ginger is so polluted that it leaves pesticide residue.

After the ginger is washed, the water leaves behind pesticide residues too high to be considered organic in the United States, said Li Hongtao, a sales manager at the company. He said the ginger is sold as organic in some countries but not the United States or Europe.

The pesticide residue results that were obtained by The Post also indicate that enforcement of USDA Organic rules for pesticides are uneven and possibly arbitrary, with results depending on the inspection agency.

While Ceres found remarkably high levels of pesticide residue, others reported extremely low levels.

For example, Ecocert, a French inspection agency, reported pesticide residue on about 1percent of 360 samples from China in 2015 a level of cleanliness remarkable for any country, let alone China and its well-documented pollution.

This wide range of pesticide use detected by organic inspectors in China nearly 40percent at one company and 1percent in another suggests a variety of methods and standards at work. Ecocert said their results may be low because they chose samples from a large number of farms. Different firms may also use different thresholds for what constitutes a positive result. The next year, Ecocert said, its testing criteria changed slightly, and the percentage of samples with pesticide levels rose to 8percent.

Critics say the disparity in results shows that certifying agencies can make any farm look organic.

The certifying agencies can choose who and when they test, said Mischa Popoff, a former USDA organic inspector turned critic. Thats why the results they can get are completely arbitrary.

Each of the questionable organic shipments of corn and soybeans examined by The Post passed through Turkey, a country whose organic exports have provoked criticism from international authorities.

In 2013, for example, a report by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture found that half of European importers and Turkish handlers had detected pesticide residue on organic products from Turkey.

The United States has seen large spikes in the amount of organic corn and soybeans entering from Turkey, according to USDA statistics. Between 2014 and 2016, the amount of organic corn arriving from Turkey rose from 15,000 metric tons to more than 399,000 metric tons; the amount of organic soybeans coming from Turkey rose from 14,000 metric tons to 165,000. (The three shipments examined by The Post represent roughly 7percent of annual organic corn imports and 4percent of organic soybean imports.)

Such sudden jumps in organic food production draw scrutiny because the organic transition process is slow it can take three years for conventional land to be converted into organic farmland.

Where did all this big production come from? Where are these organic farmers? Miles McEvoy, chief of the USDAs organic program, said to a group of U.S. organic farmers earlier this year.

The rise of imports has helped drop prices by more than 25percent, hurting U.S. organic farmers, many of them small operations.

My neighbor, small farm, lost $30,000 last year on 100 acres of organic corn, said OFARMs Bobbe. In fact, theres so much coming in, were finding buyers who wont take any corn.

To piece together the three questionable shipments, The Post was given records of the transactions by an industry expert who requested anonymity because they may conflict with the mandates of his employer. The documents included company invoices, shipping records and health certificates accompanying the shipments. Warehouse operators, importers, exporters and Ukrainian officials verified key documents and added details.

The first of the shipments arrived at the port of Wilmington in Delaware a year ago. It consisted of 46million pounds of organic corn.

The Romanian company that provided the corn is not a certified organic company, and receipts show that the corn was initially purchased at the conventional price, not the organic one.

The shipper is listed as Hakan Organics, a Dubai-based company with operations in Turkey.

Hakan Organics is listed as an organic handler in good standing with the USDA.

The first intended customer for the corn, Perdue Agribusiness, asked for additional paperwork and then refused to accept the shipment, because we could not confirm all the proper documentation that Perdue requires, a company spokesman said.

The Post could not determine who ended up purchasing the organic corn.

Since then, Perdue has not received any shipments from Hakan Organics, a Perdue spokesman said.

Hakan Organics continued to ship agricultural products to the United States.

Hakan Bahceci, the chief executive of Hakan, indicated by email that he would answer questions but then did not respond further.

The second shipment, the soybeans from Ukraine and Turkey, arrived aboard the Four Diamond at the port of Stockton in December 2016.

A set of health certificates that accompanied the soybeans allowed The Post to trace the soybeans from California back to Turkey and to their origin in Ukraine.

The health certificates and associated receipts indicate that they were not really organic. For one thing, the soybeans were fumigated with tablets of aluminum phosphide, a pesticide prohibited under organic regulations; some of the soybeans originated from ADM Ukraine, a company that does not produce or trade organic soybeans and did not sell or label them as such, a company spokeswoman said; and finally, the soybeans were originally priced at the level of conventional soybeans.

Invoices and other documents for those soybeans showed that they were originally priced at about $360 per ton. By the time they reached the United States, the price reached almost $600 per ton.

Global Natural, the Annapolis-based firm that was marketing the soybeans in the United States, said it has stopped selling all potentially affected product. Company officials declined to answer further questions.

The importer of the soybeans is Agropex International.

Ashley Anderson, who is listed as the president of Agropex International, insisted that the soybeans that arrived in Stockton are legitimately organic.

The third shipment involved 46million pounds of organic corn that sailed from Romania to Turkey and then to Baltimore, arriving in March.

The Romanian producers of the corn, a company called Belor, is not a certified organic company and sold the corn at conventional prices, according to receipts. But by the time the corn from Romania reached the United States, it was labeled organic. Its price had risen 72percent. As with the cargo aboard the Four Diamond, the value of the shipment increased by millions.

Dennis Minnaard of DFI Organics said his company had been set to buy some of the corn but rejected the shipment because the broker did not take away our doubts about its authenticity.

Yet that organic corn continued to be marketed to other customers, according to industry officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the deals.

With the complex supply chain of organic grain, McEvoy, the USDA official, told concerned farmers at the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service conference earlier this year, there are challenges.

Follow this link:

The labels said 'organic.' But these massive imports of corn and ... - Washington Post