Study: Organic not necessarily a healthier option
By Elizabeth Weise, USA Today
Organic products have no significant nutritional advantage over conventional foods, even though consumers can pay more for them, a new study finds.
The findings suggest that a key reason behind why many people buy organic products — a $28.6 billion market last year — may not be borne out by the science.
The four-year project began when two doctors wondered what advice they should give their families and patients about whether to buy organic or conventional foods.
“It became much larger than we expected,” says Crystal Smith-Spangler, a primary care doctor at Stanford University and lead author on the study appearing Tuesday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
Eventually, 12 researchers looked at 240 studies conducted from 1966 to 2011 covering nutrient and contaminant levels in foods.
Among the findings:
•There were no significant differences in the vitamin content of organic and conventional fruits and vegetables. The studies looked specifically at vitamins A, C and E.
•Detectable pesticide residue was found in 7 percent of organic produce and 38 percent of conventional produce. However, only three studies found pesticide residue that exceeded maximum allowed limits in the European Union on organic or conventional produce.
This does not seem to be the focus of the study – but what is left out of the discussion (of which the implication is organic farming may not be a benefit) is the myriad other potential benefits of organic farming – such as less pesticide wastes into the environment (soil, streams, and groundwater) which may add to cummulative exposures by humans and exposure by wildlife that may be more suspeptible to the exposure than people), less expose to toxics by farmworkers, etc.
Also of interest is how a grower gets certified as “organic.” Certification has been usurped by big growers and industrial farming. Organic does not mean the family farm by any means, which would be okay if so much of the industry hasn’t been trying to game the system.
A good book to look at to understand the dilema is:
Agrarian Dreams – The Paradox of Organic Farming in California by Julie Guthman, UC Press 2004
Personally, I think organic foods taste better and that could be just me.
http://www.naturalnews.com/037108_Stanford_Ingram_Olkin_Big_Tobacco.html
And what about genetically modified foods? No thanks
It must be an election year
Well I don’t think pesticides are necessarily good for you, and they did find higher concentrations of pesticides on the inorganic fruit. And I think most people assumed the vitamin content was similar.