Organic Food Isn't More Nutritious

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/organic_food_isnt_more_nutritious/

by colins_pride • 17 years ago

12 28 17 years ago

kwamenum862• 17 years ago

I never thought the argument was that organic food is more beneficial nutritionally. I thought it is supposed to be less harmful overall. This is an important distinction.

jacoblyles2• 17 years ago

I'm not aware of any quantitative research which shows that, though it is a popular opinion in California, regardless.

Edit: Thanks, down-modders. Real mature. You know what you call beliefs without evidence? Religion.

How about pointing out some evidence if you disagree with me?

andreyf7• 17 years ago

If I had a free thinker award to give, I'd give you one. It's amazing how otherwise "open minded" people seem to fall prey to the dogmas of organic/all-natural/no-additives/USDA-approved/recycled-packaging marketing.

But seriously people, how many lives does genetically engineered rice have to save before you admit that "all natural" sometimes means "inferior", and "artificial" is sometimes "good". You know what's 100% organic? Malaria. And there's little more artificial than the chemical-soaked neon bednets saving millions of lives across Africa.

tvon2• 17 years ago

I suspect you were down modded for making a snide comment.

I for one down-modded you for obnoxiously whining about being down-modded, something which I'm quite sick of.

kwamenum862• 17 years ago

I have lived on the east coast my entire life so I would say it is a popular belief elsewhere. My understanding is that when you consume organic food you consume less chemicals, etc.

KhuramMalik• 17 years ago

Yes, absolutely. Conventional produce has residue of pesticide, for example on the skin of an Apple.

There was a study done that highlighted that some of the pesticides used in conventional produce can have a carcinogenic effect even in 1 part per trillion.

enthalpyx• 17 years ago

But it is more tasty.

jrockway• 17 years ago

Indeed. We still don't understand enough about food to say that organic food is not better. If you stopped eating real food and only ate lard, soy protein, cardboard, and a vitamin pill, you would probably not do too well. But that is all we use to understand the nutritional value of food. (Vitamins, minerals, fat, carbohydrates, and protein.)

(Admittedly the American food system is getting close to this. Corn is soooo good for you(r wallet), after all.)

stcredzero3• 17 years ago

We still don't understand enough about food to say...

Here here! The notion that we pretty much understand what's going on with food, digestion, and metabolism is as widespread as it is harmful. We have only scratched the surface.

I remember seeing a diagram of human metabolism during a talk. It was huge and messy! Spaghetti-coded-Rube-Goldberg-intertwined-messy! And it's only a diagram of what we do understand -- there's even more in there! Biology at the cellular and molecular level was not "designed" to be understood by a human intelligence.

ajscherer• 17 years ago

I prefer the taste of conventionally grown produce. It is difficult to measure taste, but I haven't seen any blind taste tests resulting in a clear winner either way.

The only convincing argument I have seen in favor of organic food is the environmental argument. I have to balance that against my belief that for every acre of organic crop grown, somebody somewhere is going to sleep hungry.

I realize, however, that any scientific or quantitative argument for or against organic food is irrelevant. Organic food tells a story that many people want to be a part of, and it will continue to grow in popularity.

andreyf7• 17 years ago

any scientific or quantitative argument [...] is irrelevant

A sign of the dark ages, and the death of the enlightenment. No, I don't imagine we'll burn witches at the stake, but my wife and daughter can't eat half their favorite foods when we visit some relatives' homes (for fear of really upsetting people), precisely because of nutritional dogma.

andreyf7• 17 years ago

Branding has shown to make things more tasty regardless of the actual food. How do you know you aren't just paying for the luxury of eating a familiar "all natural" brand?

blasdel• 17 years ago

All 'Organic' means for produce is no pesticides. Pesticides have little or no effect on flavor, especially if you wash your damn food.

Fresh, ripe, varietal, easily-spoiled produce grown in non-industrial settings at a small scale on non-exhausted land by small groups of opinionated people does taste better.

It used to be that produce sold as 'Organic' was largely correlated with the above, but now 'Organic' is a huge profit center for big agribusiness. Being grown without pesticides doesn't make the standard shitty produce any better tasting, nor is it really much better for the environment. It just has bigger profit margins.

diN0bot• 17 years ago

> "The Soil Association’s response, published in papers across the land, entirely disregarded the intent of the study and instead argued that organic food is better for the environment and contains less pesticides than non-organic food. But in the very first paragraph of the report, the team states that they aren’t looking at the impact on the environment of organic agriculture or the effect of pesticide use, both of which the FSA has extensively examined in other research."

> "The FSA study is good science and by attacking, rather than endorsing it, the organic lobby in the UK has been plainly unscientific."

true, but the SA's response is an excellent marketing response. ple think what they're told, and if no one outright makes the claim about the environmental impact, then people will conclude, oh, it's already to eat non-organic.

dejb3• 17 years ago

We don't even fully understand the elements and combinations of substances that make up 'nutritious'. So the claims of the author that 'Organic Food Isn't More Nutritious' are demonstrably an overstatement.

It's funny how the author can exaggerate the studies findings like this while showing such disdain for others who respond to his exaggerated conclusion rather than address the studies findings directly. The study has some good information but I'd prefer to hear it from an author that wasn't so partisan to a particular view.

321abc• 17 years ago

There's a metafilter thread about this here:

http://www.metafilter.com/83702/Cuz-Im-freefree-rangin

Organic Food Isn't More Nutritious

Related Stories