'Organic' May Not Mean Healthier
British study finds no better nutrient value than in conventionally produced foods.
WEDNESDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) -- Food that beckons from the organic aisles of grocery stores may not be any better for you than what lines the rest of supermarket shelves.
According to a British review of studies done over the past 50 years, organic and conventionally produced foods have about the same nutrient content, suggesting that neither is better in terms of health benefits.
"We did not find any important differences in nutrient content between organically and conventionally produced foods," said study author Alan Dangour, a registered public health nutritionist with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Nonetheless, the researchers noted, organic foods continue to grow in popularity. In the United Kingdom, the market share for organic foods increased 22 percent from 2005 to 2007, they said.
Likewise, the market for organic foods in the United States has grown at about a 20 percent rate each year since 1990, reaching $13.8 billion in consumer sales in 2005, according to the Organic Trade Association. That represents 2.5 percent of total food sales in the country, the trade group noted.
"As a registered dietitian, it is good to see that a systematic review of the literature supports what has long been believed -- that the nutritional content of traditionally grown foods and organic foods are comparable," said Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis and past president of the American Dietetic Association. "This report provides confirmation for consumers that if they choose conventionally grown foods or organic foods they will be meeting their nutritional needs."
The review zeroed in on 162 studies that dealt with the nutrient content of foods. Only 55 were of what the researchers considered to be "satisfactory quality" -- a strong indicator that, overall, the science on the subject is not up to snuff.
They found no noted differences between conventional and organic crops with regard to vitamin C, magnesium, calcium, potassium, zinc and copper content. Organic crops did have higher levels of phosphorus, and conventionally produced crops had higher levels of nitrogen.
No differences in nutrient content were indicated in the livestock studies, according to the review.
The Oregon-based Organic Center, which promotes organic food, conducted a similar review of the literature, said Charles Benbrook, chief scientist for the Center. That study yielded results similar to those in the British study, but it also found higher levels of healthy antioxidants and polyphenols in organic foods.
"Given that some of the most significant differences favoring organic foods were for key antioxidant nutrients that most Americans do not get enough of on most days, we concluded that the consumption of organic fruits and vegetables, in particular, offered significant health benefits, roughly equivalent to an additional serving of a moderately nutrient dense fruit or vegetable on an average day," Benbrook said.
And there's another aspect to the organic vs. conventional food debate, said Sheah Rarback, director of nutrition at the Mailman Center for Child Development at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
"You have to also look at what you're not getting" with organic foods, she said. "Maybe it's not a big difference nutritionally, but conventional products may have more pesticides."
And that's a particularly important issue for children, she said.
"We know that young children are getting the nutrition, whatever choice they make, but we also have to look at the pesticide issue," Rarback said. "A study published in Environmental Health Perspectives found that children eating conventionally grown fruit had pesticide residue in their urine, which decreased after just five days on an organic diet."
The production of organic food is subject to a variety of regulations, including those that govern the use of pesticides and other chemicals in fruits and vegetables and the use of medicines in animals, the authors of the review noted in their study, which will be published in the September issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Rarback indicated that the ability to get solid research on organic versus conventionally produced products is hampered by variations in the production process.
"There are so many variables," she said. "Where is something grown? Where is it shipped from? How long was it on the truck? There are going to be variables in terms of nutrition just from production methods."
There's more on food and the nutrients in food at the United States Department of Agriculture.
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I have been a vegetarian for 35 years. I have noticed a difference in some organic foods such as brocolli having a richer taste but I don't always buy organic. I do agree that 
it would be hard to grow enough food to feed the world without pesticides. I was in Florida recently at a small winery and I asked them if they had any organic wine and they said "no". They don't use pesticides but have to use something to ritard molding on fruit. I went to a local apple orchard and they told me the same thing. But I bought items at both the winery and the orchard and they were excellent and richly flavored to the taste buds.
One thing I don't sacrifice is on good bread. I want a real whole wheat bread but organic again is not always better. I think all consumers have to be careful. I think the more produce you can grow or buy from local growers the better quality you will get.
The only way to get a worldwide consumption of vegetables and fruits is to grow your own. But even that is subject to weather conditions. That leads me to my last point soybeans and soybean products are way overrated and i question why people who are into organic and things grown naturally would want to consume this foods that takes a great deal of processing to remove toxins. The soybean industry and the organic industry have done a good job of promoting there products and people often confuse fact with a well done advertising campaign. Just like one persons response talked about how real fruit had a smell conversely, get sick every time I eat soybean products and so does my sister in law. I think our bodies are telling us there is something that is not healthy. You can argue this all you want but you won't change my mind on this.
If you can afford organic that's great! But don't judge people you grow food to feed the masses. If you do you should go to a remote place like I did two years ago in Mamelodi, South Africa where thousands of people are living in literal shacks and children still go around barefoot. And food is more important to these kids than toys or gadgets. Whatever you do or whatever stand you take don't judge other people who don't walk down the same road. Try to have peace whatever you do!
Qmatter-
It's ridiculous to make the argument that conventional agriculture is immoral. To make the argument that all producers are in the conventional agriculture system abuse their employees is a prejudice as blind and hateful as any religious or racial prejudice this country has had to fight against. As a producer in your so called "industrial-hormone-cheap human labor- animal insect cruelty-whatever unfair way of production", I’m offended by that description, and I imagine my employees, many of whom are breadwinners in one-worker households, would be too.
You’re disdain for “cheap food” is disgusting. Newsflash- people on this planet are starving. A lot of people. People, even in the U.S., have food security issues. Maybe, you should pick up your soap box, go to a food-importing country like Egypt, and lecture to them about how food’s too cheap and that the government subsidized bread they stood in line for an hour to buy might give them cancer when they are 95.
The funny thing about ag. producers is that the better a job they do producing food, the less money they make. We compete in a price inelastic market, which means that if our total supply rises, the price we receive falls by a percentage greater than the percentage increase in supply. This means if we produce 1.5% more wheat, we make 2.5% less revenue/bushel, and therefore less total revenue.
Why is this important? Producers like me fight people like you tooth and nail for the ability to protect our crops from terrible diseases. In many crops, (potatoes for example), the organic system is propped up by the conventional system. Small pockets of people can farm potatoes because all the rest of us spray for late blight (disease responsible for irish potato famine). We all quit spraying, we all get late blight, organic producers included.
Here’s the great part- if the U.S. were to switch to an entirely organic based production system, within years we’d see catastrophic crop failures in many, if not all, crops. The winners in that situation? Me and people like me. Whatever we were actually able to produce would be worth more than gold. If you thought $147 oil was uncomfortable, try imagining 50 dollar wheat. I’d be driving a lexus, smoking a Cuban, and you would get to explain to the Egyptians and your children why starving to death is better than getting cancer.
I agree that there are benefits to starting off growing vegetables in an organic state. I think one thing that we need to realize, no matter how much we may dislike the oversized cooperate farms, ranches, orchards, etc... and what they may use or not use chemical wise, is that there is pretty much no way that the organic farmers are going to be able to supply the world food needs with what is required. Here in the states, you can go to a Whole Foods, and obviosly find organic products. In most major chains, you can also find a selection of organic products as well.
Unfortunately, when these products aren't in season, here in the states, we do have to import our produce. Yes, we can build green houses and other means of growing organically, but again, how much can we really produce?
I briefly skimmed through one post where someone mentioned something about the larger non-organic farms not putting nutrients back into the soil, and several other items. I'm sure that everyone has their sources. Now, in the great dust bowl era, that was definately true. I grew up in farming and ranching land. If farmers weren't rotating crops that were allowing the soil to put nutrients back into the soil, wouldn't they be destroying the very thing that provides them a living? There has been enough research done over the years, that they now know that they have to rotate crops in order to prevent one crop being planted year after year after year to prevent that crop from robbing the soild of all the nutrients and preventing another dust bowl. A lot of people will drive through somewhere like Kansas when there is a dust storm and say something a long the lines of "look, the farmers are destroying the land", without thinking about the fact that they may be in an area that isn't even in a farming area, but is just in an area that is possibly recovering from a plains fire. Now, i don't know that for a fact, but having lived in states where there are copius amounts of land where there is nothing but sage brush and other native plants, when there has been wild fires, if you were to drive throuth those areas before regrowth starts, and there is a wind storm, well, you are going to be blinded on the highway by dust. has nothing to do with farming, but people can take pictures and say "over farming has done this.".
So my point, is organic farming is a great thing. It can't feed the world though. It has it's place for those who need it, and want their families to eat healthier. It's a good thing.
The larger farms, be them corperate or family, are not all raping the land. If they did, there wouldn't be a single crop grown. Plain common sense tells us that they can't destroy the land, or they wouldn't be able to sustain their own business. There are only so many acres of fertile acres of ground, they aren't going to destroy it. I mean come on, ever drive across Wyoming? They aren't going to start growing crops there out of the blue. These larger farms are going to take care of the lands they are on. It's their lively hood, and the people of america, as well as a lot of the world rely on what they grow.
Now, from someone who grew up when organic food wasn't around, and all those generations before them. My grandparents lived wonderful healthy lives into their 90's. My mom is now 85. I'm 49. None of us had organic food. Yes, there were pesticides. You think there are pesticides now, heck, then, i seriously doubt they were even regulated. I don't even think the EPA existed. If there was an EPA, is sure didn't stand for what it does now. So yes, my family and I, including my mother are glad that they are controlling pesticides, so don't get me wrong. But we can't stop using them and fertilizers all together, it just won't happen.
Lastly, i think to many of you who get on your high horses are way to young to remember. In the 70's, there was a term called "acid rain". It was a scare term which was really nothing more than the government and everyone else saying, "look, the polutants that we create from factories
The taste definitely is much better. An organic (let's say the pink one) it is amazingly tasty although the conventional one could decorate longer your table. Talking about this also, just let the conventional apple outside -any weather- for a long period of time; cockroaches kindly will place it in front of your door as a reminder that it should be in the recycle container as plastic number 4
, along a commercial hamburger. Why I choose a poor apple as an example? Because the pesticides in the conventional one are extremely high. Nonetheless, if I do not have money enough, I would buy sometimes them from local farmers, or places near home. But overall I avoid industrial-hormone-cheap human labor- animal insect cruelty-whatever unfair way of production could be.
Next, they will be telling your organic causes cancer. Bet on it.....Popular Slide Shows
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