SOURCE: https://www.wsj.com/articles/food-label-guide-regenerative-organic-meanings-11648827356?st=zqw8ns0ge1bv8xn&mod=pckt_apr22&WSJ-2022_04_16=&position=7&sponsored=1&utm_campaign=POCKET_HITS-EN-WEEKLY-DEDICATED&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pocket_hits, How to Read a Food Label: A Healthy Skeptic’s Guide to the Buzzwords, By Elizabeth G. Dunn, April 1, 2022 11:37 am ET

• Label Conscious
  • USDA Organic
    • This federally overseen certification requires crops to be non-GMO and produced without most synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.
    • Grain and hay must be 100% organic, livestock raised without antibiotics or added hormones and with the ability to engage in “natural behaviors,” like grazing on pasture.
  • Real Organic
    • An add-on to USDA Organic developed by and for producers that farm “to not only the letter, but also the spirit, of certified organic standards.”
    • Additional standards mostly concern growing plants in fertile soil—not hydroponically—and raising animals humanely, on pasture.
  • Demeter
    • For foods grown biodynamically.
    • This includes everything required under the USDA Organic rules, plus more stringent rules for biodiversity and holistic practices, such as relying on livestock, cover crops and crop rotation for soil fertility.
  • Regenerative Organic Certified
    • The most stringent regenerative certification.
    • Farms must be USDA Organic and either carry a recognized certification for social fairness and animal welfare or undergo a thorough audit covering those areas.
    • Additional requirements regard building soil health and sequestering carbon.
  • Land to Market
    • This regenerative verification program looks at outcomes rather than practices.
    • Farms and ranches undergo annual inspections and testing to demonstrate measurable improvements in such aspects as soil fertility, water infiltration and biodiversity.
  • Certified Grassfed by AGW or AGA
    • The term “grass fed” is regulated by the USDA but not strictly enforced. These seals confirm that products come from animals fed a diet of 100% grass and forage, raised on pasture and never treated with hormones or routine antibiotics.
• &English Learned (as English is not my native language and the article is (seemingly) written by an English native)
  • a halo effect so bright it’s blinding
  • eating as virtuously as you think you are
  • to separate spin from substance
  • pasture land
  • every blade of grass is a solar panel
  • cattle are sustained by grasslands
  • animals are 100% grass fed and free of hormones, steroids and antibiotics
  • carry a USDA organic seal
  • wary of having their management decisions dictated from afar
  • resistant to the certification
  • pursuing a different label: regenerative
  • the buzzword du jour
  • lacks a single legal or regulatory definition
  • makes for a complicated answer
  • a holistic approach to
  • increasing biodiversity
  • drawing greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and into the ground
  • a boutique trend
  • …
  • sort fact from fiction
  • …