Pulp Nonfiction

Forests, where sustainability meets the sandwich

Ducere, Usere, Cyclere

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 6/4/08

Most people have no problem thinking of some forest products as items that belong in a pantry - like maple syrup or paper towels. However, it's not likely people think that part of the soft wood load on the back of a logging truck rolling down a muddy mountain road could end up in their salad dressing, cheese or ice cream.

I've had the pleasure to watch the harvesting of 80-foot conifers close up, and nothing in the blue-sweet smell of chainsaw exhaust, splintered pine and diesel fumes makes me think of food. Until recently I probably would have dismissed the claim that fir and pine doesn't just serve for newsprint and lumber but is also served up in many of our snacks and processed foods - even foods labeled "organic."

In investigating Oregon's forests and looking into the question of genetically modified and "Roundup® resistant" trees that are researched and developed at Oregon State University and then planted throughout the Pacific Northwest, I came across references to pulp mills and the production of cellulose for use as a food ingredient.

Disturbingly, modified and pesticide-resistant trees can be certified under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, as the regulations allow each petitioner to define what factors in timber growth and harvesting should be considered in the certification process. Because SFI certification is marketed as the forestry equivalent of "organic," and because of how the key word "sustainable" has been branded in our cultural vocabulary, the public can often remain ignorant to the fact that an SFI-certified forest could likely be a pesticide-heavy tree farm.

Fast growing trees with a high survival rate are key to both timber and to pulp mills, and if GM trees are fed into pulp mills, then GM cellulose will be the product at the consumer end. But it is an invisible and USDA certifiably "organic" route for GMOs and arguably synthetic ingredients to enter our food.

Wood is used as a source for cellulose because wood is 50 percent cellulose. And cellulose has many industrial applications as well as dozens of uses as a food ingredient. According to the 2001 Technical Advisory Panel review of cellulose for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Standards Board, "powdered cellulose may be added to bread to provide noncaloric bulk. It is also used in reduced-calorie baked goods to stay moist and fresh longer, and provide an increased content of dietary fiber."

Other very common uses include use as an "anti-caking agent, used in shredded cheese and spices, in frozen products to maintain texture through freeze - thaw cycles, barbecue sauces, frozen cheese lasagna, frozen guacamole, marshmallow topping, liquid diet products, sandwich spreads, [and] low calorie mayonnaise."

Cellulose also "replaces fats and oils" because it thickens food items and provides a "favorable mouth feel" that makes you think you're eating fat because of the improved "adhesion of sauces [and] salad dressings." Processed vegan products sometimes have cellulose in them to help give fuller and more satisfying textures.

These vegan and "organic" labeled products contain cellulose as a food ingredient even though turning a tree into microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) is a highly industrialized process in which "timber is debarked and cut into chips," according to the USDA TAP.

The document further describes how the chips are then "mechanically ground and then digested (cooked) chemically using either a sulfite or alkali process at elevated temperatures in pressure vessels or digesters." Also, "MCC production uses an additional step involving hydrolysis of the purified wood pulp, using hydrochloric acid to reduce the degree of polymerization."

Though this expensive processing is acknowledged in the TAP, cellulose is allowed as an ingredient in foods labeled "organic" for two main reasons:

First, there is no "non-synthetic" method of active cellulose production that can keep up with demand for this ingredient. Cotton can be used, but the infrastructure and processing plants do not exist.

Secondly, the TAP points out that "cellulose, powdered cellulose, and microcrystalline cellulose do not appear in 21CFR [Code of Federal Regulations] as regulated or GRAS [generally recognized as safe]." It's a catch-22, because it is not listed or addressed anywhere - not even on the National List of organic substances - "powdered cellulose is considered to belong in the 'prior sanctioned category' as a food addition in use prior to the passage of the Food Additives Amendment in 1958. It is considered 'grandfathered' and permitted (FDA, 1986)."

The TAP summary recommendation does prohibit synthetic cellulose, as derived from wood, in products labeled as "95 percent organic." However, for "70 percent organic" products, it is fully allowed.

If nothing else, a detailed critique and examination of USDA documents will draw attention to the highly ambiguous nature of the term and label "organic." Aside from the invisible allowance of synthetic cellulose, the National List of "synthetic substances allowed for use in organic crop production" - 7CFR 205.601(i) - lists streptomycin and tetracycline.

Awareness of these allowances should make you less trusting of the organic label. USDA "organic" certification is not a health-based or environmentally based process. It is one of argumentative rhetoric and economics.

The NOSB TAP was conducted not to certify cellulose as itself organic - the process is characterized as having "many environmental concerns" related to "caustics, sulfites, and bleaching agents" - but to demonstrate how it is necessary to allow synthetic cellulose into products labeled organic. A key example is how only cellulose added to shredded cheese will "keep the cheese from compacting into a non-saleable mass."

So on your next trip to the grocery store, check the ingredients of your favorite products for cellulose powder, sodium carboxymethylcellulose or solutions of xanthan or guar. Then thank a logger.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

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