Organic food ‘better for you’ - October 30, 2007
Organic food advocates have been celebrating today after a major new study appeared to show their choice is better than non-organic food. Previously there has been little or no evidence that pricier organic options had any health benefits for consumers. Now a study funded by the European Union apparently shows organic foods have more antioxidants and nutrients than non-organic foods.
The study has yet to be peer reviewed and I haven’t unearthed a press release yet so the best guess I can provide is that the current (mainly British) media storm has been led by articles over the weekend in the Sunday Times (one, two). One of these opines: “The evidence from the £12m four-year project will end years of debate and is likely to overturn government advice that eating organic food is no more than a lifestyle choice.”
That was then followed up other reporters. The BBC notes that “researchers did admit the study showed some variations”, although variation in what it doesn’t say. Other coverage is lacking even this caveat, the Guardian says organic fruit and vegetables contained up to 40% more antioxidants than non-organic examples while organic milk contained over 60% more antioxidants. Discussion of whether or not antioxidants actually benefit health seems to be missing from most coverage (read what the National Cancer Institute and Medline think, or just go straight to New Scientist’s The antioxidant myth: a medical fairy tale).
Organic advocates are having a field day. Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, says the EU project builds on what his organisation has been doing for years and he comes up with this odd quote:
“For the past 60 years, the Soil Association has sought on the basis of practical observation, underpinned where available by sound science, to show the benefits of sustainable, organic farming to the health of people and planet.” Obviously he meant the association has been trying for 60 years to establish whether there is any benefit in organic food; he clearly in conscience wouldn’t want to go into such studies already knowing the result.
The soil association points also to three studies on Organic Eprints as ‘EU studies show higher nutritional values’.
As an aside, here is a list of some of the things that can be used on farms in the UK under DEFRA’s ‘organic’ standards:
Products or by-products of animal origin, including blood meal, wool, fur, hair
Industrial lime
Gelatine (Insecticide)
Lecithin (Fungicide)
Microorganisms (bacteria, viruses and fungi)
Copper
Ethylene
Paraffin oil
Potassium permanganate
Sulphur
Image: Getty
Comments
If the list of things that can be used on non-organic farms was to be put here you would have to scroll for years. Did you know human waste is one of them?
Why the prejudice against organic?
Anything which is allowed to grow and develop as nature intended simply has to be better for you. I don't need a scientist telling me that. A forced-on courgette sprayed with chemicals, or one which has just been allowed to grow... Questions?
Posted by: Catherine Short | October 31, 2007 01:55 PM
I agree... this is an oddly snide post, belittling the report even while 'reporting' on it. Why?
The lack of peer review means that the study isn't ready for political consideration, but it is still significant; for example, you dismiss antioxidants (the health benefits of which are not the focus of the study), but it also mentions nutrients, which you apparently have no way to dismiss, so you don't mention it again.
If you're going to 'round up news,' leave it there, and let us make up our own minds how to take it. This is very sloppy writing.
Posted by: justus | October 31, 2007 11:23 PM
Isn't it weird that "conventional" and "regular" foods are foods that use chemicals during production. I would've thought that it was "regular" for food to grow naturally or organically.
Science is a great tool for humanity to discover the world we live in, but it shouldn't be the defining statement on everything. Don't limit your view on the world by only believing science. There was no scientific evidence that smoking was bad for you in the early 20th century.
Posted by: Jason Andrew | November 4, 2007 11:14 AM
I do'nt understand your anti-organic stance. Living in Switzerland, I can find practically any produce with the swiss official organic logo. I'd rather spend more for clean food than on anything else, and for me, the less chemicals around my food, the better. The only thing that surprises me in those articles on organics being better, is that they were published. Surprising, given the industrial and financial interests in "conventional" (conventional ?) produce. Looking forward to a ban on pesticides, biocides and the like, I'll keep on eating organic whenever I can.
Posted by: Philippe de Rougemont | November 6, 2007 04:46 AM
New research in the latest issue of the Society of Chemical Industry’s (SCI) Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture shows there is no evidence to support the argument that organic food is better than food grown with the use of pesticides and chemicals.
Posted by: chris | October 30, 2008 10:07 AM
Many people pay more than a third more for organic food in the belief that it has more nutritional content than food grown with pesticides and chemicals.
But the research by Dr Susanne Bügel and colleagues from the Department of Human Nutrition, University of Copenhagen, shows there is no clear evidence to back this up.
In the first study ever to look at retention of minerals and trace elements, animals were fed a diet consisting of crops grown using three different cultivation methods in two seasons.
Posted by: chris | October 30, 2008 10:09 AM