No evidence to support 'organic is best'
August 7, 2008New 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
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.
The study looked at the following crops – carrots, kale, mature peas, apples and potatoes – staple ingredients that can be found in most families' shopping list.
The first cultivation method consisted of growing the vegetables on soil which had a low input of nutrients using animal manure and no pesticides except for one organically approved product on kale only.
The second method involved applying a low input of nutrients using animal manure, combined with use of pesticides, as much as allowed by regulation.
Finally, the third method comprised a combination of a high input of nutrients through mineral fertilisers and pesticides as legally allowed.
The crops were grown on the same or similar soil on adjacent fields at the same time and so experienced the same weather conditions. All were harvested and treated at the same time. In the case of the organically grown vegetables, all were grown on established organic soil.
After harvest, results showed that there were no differences in the levels of major and trace contents in the fruit and vegetables grown using the three different methods.
Produce from the organically and conventionally grown crops were then fed to animals over a two year period and intake and excretion of various minerals and trace elements were measured. Once again, the results showed there was no difference in retention of the elements regardless of how the crops were grown.
Dr Bügel says: 'No systematic differences between cultivation systems representing organic and conventional production methods were found across the five crops so the study does not support the belief that organically grown foodstuffs generally contain more major and trace elements than conventionally grown foodstuffs.'
Dr Alan Baylis, honorary secretary of SCI's Bioresources Group, adds: 'Modern crop protection chemicals to control weeds, pests and diseases are extensively tested and stringently regulated, and once in the soil, mineral nutrients from natural or artificial fertilisers are chemically identical. Organic crops are often lower yielding and eating them is a lifestyle choice for those who can afford it.'
Source: Society of Chemical Industry
Aug 12, 2009 |
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This research is utterly worthless since it doesn't tackle the core issues why people buy organic. It's not about the nutrients in the food why people buy organic. It's the risk of pesticide contamination.
Please double check your data source.
Organic farmers do use pesticides.
Data source:
http://www.ocf.be...ext.html
If you are genuinely worried about food production efficiency then you should be pushing for vegetarian diets. It takes > 10 x the agricultural land and energy to produce meat compared with grain/veg.
Considering the health problems that continually crop up with various food colorings, is it a surprise that there is a market for people who don't want to ingest poison? Cost aside, I'm surprised that doesn't represent the majority.
No, I am not at all worried about food production efficiency and all vegetarian diets. The world is already too populated IMHO. I like to think of the world as I do my home. Sure, I might be able to fit 300 people inside my house, but why would I want to? Sure I could house 9 people, it would be cramped, but we could manage. Right now it's just me and my wife, and it feels a bit empty so one more would be alright. But what is the "right" number of people? I think everyone has to decide for themselves when it come to their home, but as for the planet why populate it to its capacity for food production? Should we have a world population of 300 billion? or only 9 billion? How about 1 Billion? What's the right number? Since we cannot seam to agree on this, I suspect we will continue down our current path.
We always assume someone else, some future generation will fix everything, solve all the problems, etc. I'm more of a pessimist. We are too short sighted. We need a true long term goal and not the BS answer that god said "go forth and reproduce!" and "Rapture will come and we will all live forever in heaven!" Let's envision an ideal existence and work towards it instead of marching blindly forward towards more stuff, more people, more tech, more, more, more...
sorry, rant over...
I'm sure they aren't going to publish an article saying they are destroying our intestines and killing the bees.
I used some 'pet safe' weed killer yesterday. Granted I used a LOT of it, but it feels like I have the flu today, and I can still smell it, even after two showers. There's no ingredients on the bottle, and NO HEALTH WARNINGS. WTF?
Chemistry has done for agriculture, but we need to be painfully careful on what we allow in our foods. They rushed the GM soy to the market and it's killing all the bees and giving us colon cancer, yummy!
There are specific reasons why poor populations have lots of children. These can be fixed, or at least worked on. They include:
1) You need to have 10 children so that you can end up with 5, because of mortality rates.
2) you need to have 5 viable children minimum because you need extra hands to work the farm.
3) you need to have lots of children because they are your retirement plan.
As the economy and standard of living improve, lots of children become less of an asset and more of a liability, so people have fewer.
This is a simplification, but it probably describes 80% of the problem.
Almost no one argues that conventional crops have less nutrients as a result of herbicides and pesticides.
The chemical companies are trying to distract the public from knowing that sustainable farming methods can product more nutrient-rich foods than conventional methods.
Of course they're also intentionally ignoring the dead zones in the ocean their chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides are creating, and the untold millions of cancer patients they've created for the medical industry. But then who's perfect?
The solution is to vote with our wallets. They can eat the herbicide and pesticide residues if they like. I prefer not to.
What if the reason I'm worried about food production efficiency is that the third world won't be able to enjoy a varied and healthy diet that includes some moderate amounts of animal products?
You did know organic crops use pesticides right? Copper sulfate, sulfur, nicotine sulfate, neem oil and other toxic shit; no thank you, I'll take my chance with trace amounts of organophosphates.
Organic farming is not and was never about sustainability. It is an arbitrary set of edicts disallowing the use of safe and effective practices on the grounds that they are "unnatural".
It uses limited resources like sulfur, lime, bat guano, potash and fossil fuels. It uses more land. It's debatable whether it even uses less energy. It relies on manure from low-yield cattle and limited guano supplies; it can only do this because it's such a vanishingly small fraction of the food supply.
This is not an inherent fault of conventional farming; if you're willing to take a hit to yields it's just a matter of applying less fertilizer and using better land managing policies.
Evidence that it has anything to do with the dead zones? Evidence that "organic" pesticides are any better?
Which cancer cases would those be?
The plant processes the soil chemicals the same with the same outcome no matter the brand name on the chemical (Mother Nature(r) vs Monsanto(r)). That makes sense to me.
So does it come down to this? If you're too lazy to wash your food before you stuff your face with it -- then you'd be better to buy organics. But if you do wash your vegetables then it really matters very little?
Sounds like this is the case.
radioactive fertilizer, hormone injected beef and pork - ALL of which accelerate mitosis! Some organisms die before die before cancer develops.
some die after!
:-D
Regardless of whether their concern is legit, this 'study' and the resultant cnn-friendly headlines of 'Organic Not Better!' TOTALLY side-steps this issue.
Have you ever actually tasted a ripe tomoatoe?
Or a ripe peapod?
Or a ripe zuchinni?
OR anything that wasn't picked months before it was ripe and shipped to you while it starts to rot? The flavor difference is incredible. I can only guess the nutrients are changing too.
The problem comes from the fact that "Organic" has become big business so you first had people who simpley labeled their crops orgainic. This causes standards to be set that discribed what you had to do to be labled organic. This lead to people finding alternatives that were just as bad simply not prohibited in the description for the organic lable. Now you are starting to see large scale organic farms using the same practices for harvesting and shipping :(
Two weeks ago at my local farmers market there was a new face so I stopped to talk with him. The mellons he was selling were from Alabama some 1700 miles away. Know where your food comes from and how it was raised make your choices from there. Should for some reason you have never actually had fruits and veggies freshly picked consider yourself lucky as it makes it easier to eat the sludge from the can.
Synthetic food production is the answer. Natural does not mean cancer free. I foresee that the organic movement is a stepping stone to people becoming aware that when they ingest carcinogens it can cause cancer.
With 50% cancer rate, 1 person dying of it every minute in the US clearly we have a problem. Some people will throw their hands in the air and say everything gives you cancer, therefore I can't do anything. Denial is a beautiful thing.
However at some point the cancer is caused by something. Probably a carcinogen or virus that somebody ate, drank, breathed, smeared on themselves etc.
This is hard to grasp. Firstly the killer is invisible and not any single obvious thing like a mad gunman or drunk driver. It is like death by a thousand paper cuts. One piece of paper can't hurt you. But keep repeating it and at some point it has an effect.
The other factor is that today medical science treats people as being the same. The future of medicine is customized to the individual.
I know, although sustainable methods are more likely to be used by small organic farmers these days.
My point is that this is a two-pronged strawman "study" to weaken the argument that organic foods are more healthy (by the lack of chemical herb/pesticides), and to weaken the argument that sustainable farming methods (not factory farms) produce foods richer in nutrient value.
This study is simply attempting to muddy the waters because nobody makes the argument they are trying to shoot down.
The dead zone (in the Gulf) is the direct result of nutrient-rich fresh water floating above the salt water causing algae blooms to shut down oxygen integration into deeper water. This nutrient rich water is from fertilizer used by factory farms.
Gee, chemicals intended to kill plants and animals actually killing plants and animals? No, I can't think of any link. But no, I will not provide any citations.
Well, glyophosphate has been linked to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Phenoxy herbicides and chlorophenols have shown increased soft-tissue sarcomas and imply predisposition to Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Should I talk about DDT? Pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, ...? DDT is no longer used in North America, but we use 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T to grow food for livestock. 2,4,5-T contains dioxin--perhaps the most toxic chemical on the planet. Dioxin causes birth defects, miscarriages and death at one part per trillion.
My mother grew up on a farm where it was common practice to run behind the DDT truck and play in the mist because it was cool. They (and their parents who drove the truck) were told by the chemical makers it was a perfectly safe practice. She survived cancer at 29, another bout of cancer in her 50s and is now battling breast cancer. But then she also grew up near Hanford, WA, so maybe it wasn't the DDT or other herbicides and pesticides and it was the "wind tests" Hanford did releasing radiation to track it. But then that only causes thyroid problems (which she's been taking meds for for over 30 years.)
Keep spraying. We're all safe.
THAT is the argument for/against pesticide use: whether or not significant amounts get absorbed into the plant when they are topically applied. It has nothing to do with idiots who drink the stuff, or breath it in. That's a death sentence. That's like playing with matches, burning your house down, and then blaming the match making company.
The manufacturers claim they are safe.
which is exactly what my mother was told as a child: safe to dance in the mist.
Adults incapable or unwilling to do their own research are really no better off than children in this sense. If they are told by the maker of the product it's safe are they not supposed to believe it? Isn't that the whole foundation of tort lawsuits?
Which makes little sense to apply them to food we eat and the environment in which we live.
You cannot wash it off. In 1996 the FDA funded a study that showed of 530 sample (conventional) apples, 98% had herbicide residue (29 different types) after washing.
That's not my argument. My argument is that of the 9 billion tons of pesticides and herbicides used in the US annually, we can assume that it will negatively affect everyone, and we cannot (even if we are educated) avoid them.
It's not. It's like playing with matches after being told by the match manufacturer that the ignited match will not burn your house down under any circumstances, or that if it does ignite, it will only burn a little bit--and then burning your house down. You win that lawsuit.
As for PESTICIDE (which are different than herbicides; we're not plants, and we're not affected by the same poisons) residue, the UK government had this to say in 2003:
Note that the "detectable residues" in the remaining 30% of food (mostly raw, unprocessed stuff like carrot sticks) unusually indicates levels well below the safety limits. Washing will remove some pesticides, but not all, depending on the type of pesticide used.
Lastly, let us pretend for a moment that you are right, and that pesticides exist at dangerous levels in our environment. I've heard people who like Stevia (a sweetener) say "it has been used for hundreds of years with no noticeable ill effects". The same can be said of pesticides over the past 75 years or so. We've used HUGE amounts of pesticides, including uber dangerous stuff like DDT. If we were all going to die from it, it would have happened 50 years ago. It hasn't, so we won't. Perhaps some people will die slightly earlier than they otherwise would have (assuming that the levels of pesticides in our food and water are dangerously high), but you know what? A lot of people won't starve to death because pesticides are used. I'm willing to have a few years knocked off of my total lifespan so that I can live knowing that I'll always have enough to eat.
At the same time, of course, I switched from buying at regular supermarkets to "Whole Foods" (for those not in the US, they're also known as "Whole Paycheck"). The difference in food quality is quite noticeable, particularly with veggies and meat. In some cases "organic" just means "don't allow it to have any random garbage, nor sit around in a warehouse indefinitely".
On the other hand, there was a local ethnic chain I thought I was being economical buying certain items like fresh chilis. Then I happened to stick my face in a pot where some was cooking, by itself: formaldehyde smell! Then I examined their other open produce more carefully. It was in all of it. I never shop there, now.
There are people who live to 100 smoking cigars. Pesticides increase *risk* of cancer, that means many people will get lucky. As for those who are "lucky"...ha, ha. Try reading Wikipedia's article on BVO (brominated vegetable oil)...and see how lucky you feel. *#($*(* pissed off was how I felt. Yes, I know BVO isn't a pesticide...think of it this way...it has been labeled, by the same self-serving industries as FOOD. Now, of course, the long arm of research is catching up, and it's being made illegal.
The FDA doesn't have the money to study half the things they would like (I used to work in an office with an ex-FDA guy, he said they're just swamped. Years behind.) So, why wait until the FDA figures out the obvious? Take a random sampling of artificial compounds, and you're going to get a random sample of results in your body.
Vitamin content, anti-oxidant phyto-chemical content, etc. all were ignored.
I am positive there are quite a few toxic substances used in food growing and processing right now which are not yet identified as harmful due to their effects appearing only after prolonged exposure or only when combined with certain other compounds or only in people with particular genetic makeup.
Thats why the less artificial chemicals (those which are not naturally present in our diets or surroundings) you ingest or use the safer you are.
" Gross findings at 1.0%
were marked increase of mortality, enlargement of spleens,
leukocytosis and anaemia, diarrhoea and growth depression. At 0.5%
kidneys of test rats showed more chronic congestion than those of
controls and there was some splenic enlargement. Microscopically,
spleens showed uniformly chronic congestion and less often slight
hyperplasia and increased pigmentation. Kidneys showed nephritis of
the type common in older rats with no difference among the groups
except in incidence (Bourke et al., 1956; US FDA, 1963)."
And that is widely used in a lot of products as well as other compounds that do much worse.
But to side with this article a bit- most organic food contains very high levels of MSG due to the many commonly used mass production compounds which innately contain MSG- but do not think eating non organic food is any better in that respect
Do you have a source for this? I've never heard any such thing.
And what is a "mass production compound?"
Does anyone else see the irony in that people can't stand bugs and creepy crawlers and pay for pesticide laced foods. Only to ingest a nano scale creepy crawlers (carcinogens) that they cannot see. The irony is that the carcinogens are far worse for them than the visually un-appealing bugs/creepy crawlers.
Germo phobia is also intriguing. Disinfecting the exteria body paves the way for the really nasty bacteria to thrive (MRSA etc). Ironically they a killing countless helpful bacteria. Most bacteria are good for us.
I often think there are helpful viruses out there that no one has discovered. No one gets virus screened because they feel particularly well today! But it is highly likely there are more good viruses than bad ones due to symbiosis.
While I'm not botanist, I can't see how pesticides sprayed on leaves of plants isn't going to be assimilated by the plant. Furthermore, it gets into the soil where micro-organisms (nitrogen fixing bacteria) are responsible for part of the uptake of nutrients. You can't remove one portion of the system and expect things to function optimally.
Pesticides are geared to kill insects, common knowledge. Well, when you kill things like beetles, slugs and other creatures which have a roll in the decomposition of materials, this further adds to the problem.
While there are studies that refute organic has no more nutrients than non organic, I would say based on the disruption in the pathways in which a plant gets it's nutrients, I can't see how one that is less than optimal will yield a higher nutrient value.
Aside from the nutrient value, I would agree with other posters who made mention that it's about avoiding toxic chemicals. If it's in the soil, it will be uptaken by the plant/fruit and hence the consumer of such plant or fruit.
Lastly, this thread is a year old, so no one at the time saw the indie movie called Food Inc. It illustrates how corrupt even the food industry is. People need to start realizing that it's all big business, and they could care less about the safety of the consumers on a longevity scale. I won't get into population control and the benefits of cancer which parallels that and the accompanying revenue it generates.