Organic food is no healthier, study finds

[Carl Skan]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090729/hl_nm/us_food_organic

LONDON (Reuters) – Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007.

A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference.

[nradisic]

1. No pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers...

The crap they put on fresh fruits and veggies is not bad for you now, it may just give you cancer and kill you down the road. Organic is better. It is healthier and it always tastes better...try and organic strawberry next to a regular strawberry - there is no comparison...the organic strawberry will be clean of crap and always taste much better.

[hedgehog]

3. I maintain that nutrition follows flavor - that when there are

a lot of trace minerals and nutrients present,the flavor is more complex. Fresh organic fruit doesn't need sugar to give it flavor. Grass fed beef tastes much more complex than feed lot beef.

[Carl Skan]

12. I'm not going to argue too hard with you on grass fed beef but...

...you can't make that sort of general statement about beef, especially grass fed.

I raise cattle and we do feed out about ten steers a year on a natural, grass fed program. We don't do anything to them other than give them vaccinations (was asked by one person not to but refused, that would be just plain old cruel). You simply can't get the consistency in grass fed beef that you can through a regular feedlot. Grass fed beef is going to be all over the map on taste and tenderness and I tell my customers that.

[onestepforward]

7. In addition, the damage to our environment

and the exposure to people growing and harvesting pesticide and herbicide laden produce. I will always buy organic as my budget allows and I agree, it does taste better.

[MADem]

2. Uh oh....let the games begin!

I think organic food sometimes--not always--tastes better. Sometimes, by the time it gets to market, it's rotted.

I would rather, if I had a choice, eat organic fruit if it doesn't have a "protective skin" that is peeled.

I do think that clever agriculturists ought to make more natural pesticides ( from garlic, marigolds, etc) and encourage more organic practices, even if the crops aren't "purely" organic.

[ThomCat]

4. Okay, who funded this study.

It contradicts previous studies that have shown that organic produce had in many cases 10-15% higher levels of nutrients than non-organic produce. :shrug:

[Carl Skan]

14. The British Food Standards Agency,

[bluestateguy]

5. The yuppies aren't going to like that

Mooooooving along....

[endarkenment]

10. yum... pass the paraquat nt

[Botany]

6. it is not a question of quality of the food .... a carrot is a carrot but what ....

.... the means of production of the food does to the environment and the
supportive capacity of the planet.


A healthy soil structure w/ the right micro-organisms, less use of petro-chemicals,
less CO 2 made by burning fuels, clean water (surface and sub surface), and less
major non-point pollution by fertilizers such as the hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico
all should be goals of agriculture now.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

15. But the study looked at the health benefits of organic vs. non-organic

And found very little difference. But, I don't think they were looking at the environmental impact of non-organic food, and few would argue that organic food isn't healthier for the environment.

[tridim]

8. "Organic" isn't a type of vegetable, it's a growing method..

I'm certain that the quality of commercial organically grown crops will vary greatly.

[endarkenment]

9. less pesticide and chemicals is not 'increased nutrients'.

"nutritional superiority" == "strawman alert"

[Carl Skan]

13. Not straw men, different issues, like the environmental issues involved in it. n/m

n/m

[hedgehog]

16. Actually, the organic community has published a number of recent

reports indicating that organically raised plant crops are more nutritious. A variation is a report published in Organic Gardening that when conventionally raised crops are tested, they have lower amounts of nutrients than the same crops had back in the 40's. (without having the numbers in front of me, say carrots had 50 units of vitamin x in 1940 and now they have only 32.)

I don't have the time to link to the articles, and they are published by advocates, but the articles are out there.

[endarkenment]

17. That is fine, and it might even be verifiable

but ignoring the contamination of product and environment by agribusiness when comparing 'organic' produce to 'non-organic' remains dishonest strawmanery, a non-distinction that ignores the real differences.

[customerserviceguy]

11. Interesting to see this noted here

I applaud you for daring to say that the organic label has no clothes.

I've long believed that it is a sham designed to pry 2x more money out of the wallets of the gullible.

[astral]

18. Organic can be far more nutritious

but then again, if the organic soil is still mineral-depleted soil, the produce will still not be more nutritious than regular produce, just less harmful, or should I say NOT harmful.

I have an assumption that I do not know to be true or false that organic food growers will take measures to ensure they are using healthy mineral-rich soil as part of their growing protocol. But if most of the farming soil in the US is mineral deficient, and has been for 50-plus years, organically-grown food may still be less nutritious than it could be.

So if that's the case we still need to supplement, but if studies can be done to show that the organic soil is more mineral-rich than non-organic, we have something here.

I think you can tell alot by the taste, and in my experience organic usually, but not always, tastes way better. You have to know what you're buying and where it's grown and can't simply trust the word 'organic' anymore. Grocery store items are fraught with not only chemically dirty food, but genetically-modified food, and no it's not labeled for you at the produce stand.

[lovecanada56035]

19. Who came up with this study?

Bill O'Reilley? What utter nonsense.