What "organic" legally means on food, clothing, cosmetics and everything else

On food, organic is a claim about process: how a crop was grown, how an animal was raised and how the product was handled afterward. The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service says organic products must be made with farming practices that foster resource cycling, promote ecological balance, maintain and improve soil and water quality, minimize the use of synthetic materials and conserve biodiversity.

Three conditions sit under that. The product must be overseen by a certifying agent authorized by the USDA National Organic Program. It must be produced without excluded or prohibited methods, and USDA gives genetic engineering, ionizing radiation and sewage sludge as examples. And it must be produced using allowed substances.

That last condition is worth reading twice. The rule is a list of what may and may not be used, not a promise that nothing was used. Organic does not mean pesticide-free, and it is not a nutrition or safety grade. Whether organic food is better for you is a separate question, covered in is organic food healthier.

The rules apply the same way to an apple and to a box of crackers. For packaged foods such as organic snacks, the label also has to say how much of the product is organic, which is where the four label tiers come in. Our guide to reading a USDA Organic label walks through them.

Mostly no. USDA says that if you make a product and want to claim that it or its ingredients are organic, the final product probably needs to be certified. A company that is not certified must not make any organic claim on the front of the package and must not use the USDA Organic seal anywhere on it. It may only identify certified organic ingredients as organic in the ingredient list, along with the percentage of organic ingredients.

There is one exemption, for very small farms and businesses whose yearly organic sales fall under a dollar threshold set in the regulations. They do not have to apply for certification, but they still have to follow the organic production and handling rules and keep records for at least three years. Their products cannot display the seal and cannot be used as organic ingredients in another company's product.

The seal itself is protected. USDA describes it as an official mark protected by federal regulation and by trademark law, and says people who knowingly sell or label a product as organic when it does not meet USDA standards can be assessed a financial penalty for each violation.

Less than most people assume. The FDA, which regulates cosmetics, says the term organic is not defined in the laws or regulations it enforces for cosmetics. USDA's fact sheet on the subject says the same thing from the other side: the FDA does not define or regulate the term as it applies to cosmetics, body care or personal care products.

USDA does step in when a cosmetic is made of agricultural ingredients and claims to meet the organic standards. In that case the farms that grew the ingredients, the handlers and the manufacturer of the final product must all be certified, and the product is eligible for the same four labeling categories as food. A jar of organic face care with the USDA Organic seal has met the same content rule as a jar of jam.

The gap is everything else. USDA states that it has no authority over the production and labeling of cosmetics that are not made up of agricultural ingredients or that make no claim to meeting USDA organic standards. It also notes that cosmetics may be certified to other, private standards and marketed to those standards in the United States, and that the National Organic Program does not regulate those labels.

One more point from the FDA: an ingredient's source does not determine its safety. Many plants, organic or not, contain substances that can be toxic or allergenic.

Cotton, wool and flax are crops and animal products, so the raw fiber falls under the USDA organic rules. What happens next does not. A USDA policy memo on textiles, first issued in 2011, says the National Organic Program regulations do not include specific processing or manufacturing standards for textile products. Spinning, dyeing and finishing are outside its rulebook.

Two routes are allowed. A textile produced in full compliance with the USDA regulations may be labeled organic and display the seal, which is rare for finished goods. More often, a product is certified to the Global Organic Textile Standard. USDA says textiles produced in accordance with GOTS may be sold as organic in the U.S. but may not refer to National Organic Program certification or display the USDA Organic seal.

A label may also name specific organic fibers and state their percentage, as long as every fiber called organic was grown and certified under the USDA rules. That is a claim about the fiber only. It tells you nothing about dyes or finishes on a set of organic sheets. The GOTS label page and our comparison of GOTS and OEKO-TEX cover what the textile labels add.

USDA regulates the word organic as it applies to agricultural products. A stainless steel pan, a silicone teether or a synthetic cleaner is not an agricultural product, so there is no organic certification for it to earn.

The Federal Trade Commission polices deceptive environmental marketing through its Green Guides, but when it revised them in 2012 it said the Guides do not address the terms "sustainable," "natural" and "organic," in part to avoid duplicating or contradicting other agencies. It pointed to the National Organic Program for organic claims on textiles and other products derived from agricultural products.

In practice, that leaves the word without a specific definition on goods that were never grown. On those products, look for what can be verified instead: the material, the ingredient list and any third-party certification that names what it tested.