8-29 IAN Label Comprehension

 Is there anything under more scrutiny than food and when I say scrutiny I’m talking about consumers. What’s good for us? What’s bad for us? And those questions become particularly pertinent when it comes to what we are putting in our kids mouths. One way to figure that out is to look at food labels which the government insists on being transparent. So, here’s a little help coming from a farm mom. As parents send their kids back to school - farm mom Chris Chinn - a 2012 Faces of Farming and Ranching winner - is working to help other moms understand the terms they find on food labels in the grocery store.  “There are a lot of terms on the labels today and it is confusing. There’s organic, there’s locally produced, there is sustainable. I want moms to understand everywhere that all the food that they find in the grocery store has been produced by a family farmer like me that cares and that it is all safe and healthy.The terms that they see are just terms to describe a process. The nutritional value of organic food is identical to the nutritional value of non-organic food. They are both healthy options for your family. It is all a matter of choice as to what is important to each family and what works best for each family’s budget.” Chinn also wants parents to understand that the term genetically modified simply describes the science used to create a trait that makes a crop more tolerable and resistant to diseases and drought.