Organic food 'no healthier than conventional'
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Independent Minds
Organic food is no healthier than conventional food, according to the world's biggest research project into the issue.
A review of scientific studies for the past 50 years found there were no significant nutritional differences between conventional produce and organic fruit, vegetables, meat and milk.
The findings, intended to answer once and for all a long-running controversy, attack one of the pillars underpinning organic food produced without artificial fertilisers and with higher animal welfare standards: that is is healthier for individuals as well as better for the environment.
However organic farming experts criticised the study carried out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and questioned why it dismissed evidence it gathered that organic food is higher in some nutrients.
The Food Standards Agency commissioned the research to discover whether Britain's £2bn organic industry could claim higher health benefits for its products.
Of 162 scientific papers, researchers found 55 that were high quality and checked them for different minerals and vitamins such as Vitamin C and iron. In "satisfactory quality studies" there was no difference between the organic and non-organic farming in 20 of 23 nutritional categories. Organic was better satisfactory studies, organic food had "statistically higher levels" of phospohorous and acidity, but conventional was higher in nitrates.
Dr Alan Dangour, who led the study, said: "A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally-produced crops and livestock, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance.
"We found broadly that there was no important difference between organic and conventional produce."
The Food Standards Agency stressed that while people bought organic produce for several reasons, it considered that the long-running debate about whether they were more healthy was now over.
Gill Fine, FSA director of dietary health, said: "This study does not mean we should not eat organic food. What it shows is that there is little, if any, nutritional difference between organic and conventionally-produced food and that there is no evidence of additional health benefits from eating organic food."
The result accords with the FSA's previous advice that there was "no significant" health benefit from eating organic produce and also echoes the views expressed by previous Government Defra ministers that the case for organic food being healthier is unproven.
Supporters of organic farming, however, claimed that the results were flawed because of the criteria used to select the most important research.
When all 162 studies rather than the 55 highest quality ones were taken into account, organic farming was frequently higher in nutrients than conventional produce. For instance, beta carotenes were 53 per cent higher and flavanoids 38 per cent higher in organic food than non-organic food.
Peter Melchett, Policy Director at the Soil Association, complained: "The review rejected almost all of the existing studies of comparisons between organic and non-organic nutritional differences. This was because these studies did not meet particular criteria fixed by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
"Although the researchers say that the differences between organic and non-organic food are not 'important', due to the relatively few studies, they report in their analysis that there are higher levels of beneficial nutrients in organic compared to non-organic foods."
A leading academic, Carlo Leifert, professor of ecology at Newcastle University, also attacked the study. Professor Leifert has been conducting a £12m four-year EU-funded study. Some initial research, published last year in the Journal of Science, Agricultural and Food last year, found that organic milk contained around 60 per cent more antioxidants and beneficial fatty acids than normal milk.
Provisional results from another part of the same study, which has not yet been published, suggests that organic wheat, tomatoes, cabbage, onions and lettuce also had between 10 and 20 per cent more vitamins. Neither have been included in the FSA review.
"With these literarure reviews you can influence the outcome by the way that you select the papers that you use for your meta-analysis," Professor Leifert said.
"My feeling - and quite a lot of people think this - is that this is probably the study that delivers what the FSA wanted as an outcome. If you look at the differences they found – a 50 per cent increase in beta carotenes and a 30 per cent increase in flavanoids – they are quite significant differences, and they come to the conclusion that there's no systematic nutritional differences. That's just not very convincing."
During the past decade, sales of organic produce have soared, rising 22 per cent between 2005 and 2007, hitting £2.1bn last year.
Nine out of 10 households buy organic food. Britain has the third biggest market for organic food, after Germany and Italy, though it still only accounts for only 1 per cent of retail sales and 3.5 per cent of British farmland.
Although organic supporters have mostly trumpeted the environment as the biggest reason for buying organic, "quality and taste" is the biggest factor by buyers, shows research.
Britain's biggest organic farmer, Guy Watson, whose Riverford organic food network serves 40,000 customers, said the research was likely to hit his sales nationally. "In terms of the organic market industry as a whole, this is clearly not going to be helpful," said, adding that he did not believe his veg box scheme would be affected. "People buy from us really for flavour and freshness and secondly because they trust us in a general way."
The National Farmers Union said it had always said that both conventional and organic food to be "equally healthy and nutritious." The NFU said: "It is down to the consumer to choose what kind of food they wish to buy just as it is down to the individual farmer to decide which system he wants to employ – previous research has found there is no evidence to prove organic food is healthier than conventional and we believe there is space in the market for all models of farming to thrive and prosper."
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Comments
The amount of pesticides used in the agriculture industry is scary. This has an effect of two things:
1) Makes the farmers rich by increasing yields
2) Makes humans and the environment ill by the use of powerful complex chemical compounds.
Its not just simply about nutritional value, its also about the long term side effects.
The pesticides include herbicides, insectacides, fungicides etc etc. When mammals and insects injest two or more medicines they tend to have bad side effects. The use of these multitudes of powerful chemical compounds is having a devastating impact on our natural world.
This is one of the reasons why bees are dying out, compounding the effect on the growth of many fruits and plants.
Complex unintentional chemicals are killing us - Organic food is more than just nutritional goodness.
Read the 2006 Report by Defra which makes it absolutely clear that organic farming:
1. Uses twice the land of conventional farms -- so uses twice the fossil fuels for planting & harvesting
2. Uses pesticides like BT Spray which kills butterflies, bees, ladybirds and other beneficial insects. GM crops PRODUCE BT so only those insects that attach the plants are killed. Other passers by -- bees, butterflies etc are unaffected.
3. Organically bred animals produce 200% more methane (20x more dangerous than CO2). They suffer more disease and more animal welfare problems so organic is much worse for animals.
UK celebrities take up organic farming as a hobby and massive tax break. Lord Melchett (800 acres, heir to the Imperial Chemical Industries fortune and the British Steel fortune) gets £35-50,000 subsidies from YOUR taxes every year. Prince Charles gets £2 million for his overpriced luxury items; even Zac Goldsmith (inherited £300 million from Dad) gets about £10,000 a year in subsidies.
All organic produce suffers from more virus and bacterial diseases -- which is why they are shrivelled and limp at the shop. These diseases produce toxins as byproducts of disease, so organic veg contains many, many more carcinogens than conventional produce.
Every independent taste test demonstrates that conventional food tastes BETTER than organic.
So: It's worse for the environment, worse for health, worse for animals, more expensive and worse for climate change -- that's why this dying industry hires expensive spin merchants to push their tainted produce.
What chemical company do you work for?
Clearly there is no major health benefit otherwise it would be measurable without doubt. Does mean we should buy organic food for other reasons, but for health forget it.
What a bunch of BS.Yes yields are higher in conventional farming and yields are LOWER in organic so you know what that means???Organic farming uses alot more fossil fuels to produce the equivalent size crop as conventional.So if you want to be green dont support organics.Same goes for organic milk.It takes alot more cows,feed,and fossil fuels to produce equivalent amount of conventional milk. There has been no report saying why the bees have been dying off.Only pure speculation.
Yields in organic are as nature intended. Where as yields with chemical assistance are artificially larger.
You're promoting the chemical yields as normal, therefore, in your world, natural yields are deficient.
It a bit like saying that an athelete on steriods is the normal and the natural atheletes are smaller and less capable. The statement is true but natural athelete will typically live a longer, have more endurance and have reduced long term illness.
Artificially boosting anything natural, for short term gain, is not the answer - everyone knows.
The whole point of organic food is not that it's more nutritious by being organic, but rather, that it's better for you because it doesn't contain high levels of pesticides and other assorted farming chemicals.
Also real food tastes better, i know its all we eat at home!
Because chemical growth gives larger yields for profit. As someone stated the yields are also more concentrated. The long term effects are not of any interest to those looking for a quick profit - farmers, supermarkets and chemical companies. The rest of mankind suffers long term side effects.
Like I have stated above, organic yields are normal, chemical yeilds are abnormally large but at a invisible cost to the world due to long term side effects.
it is not extra nutritional benefits nor extra vitamins, fatty acids or nitrates that make organic food better.
the reason of organic farming are mainly avoiding to consume dangerous chemicals such as pesticides and fertilisers.
also avoiding the use of such chemicals that has concequences on ecosystems around the agricultural areas and not only.
conventional farming is bound to have more nutritional benefits than organic more often because of the use of such chemicals.
however, how much vitamins do we really need? other studdies published in the bbc on 2007 have proved that excessive ammounts of vitamins from supplements can have opposite effects such as oxidising effects.
organic farming is based on using a more natural way to produce.
as much as many authorities would like to convince of the opposite, they can never, ever, prove, that chemical used in conventional farming do not have to do with male infertility and many other disorders.
so please save your breath. we do not consume this for extra vitamins, we consume it to avoid being poisoned in daily basis.
if agricultural authorities are having problems increasing produce because of over population, then maybe it is time they moved on to the right path and take the hard way for a change, rather than waging a war on organic farming to solve the problem.
please, there is educated people reading this also.
We have National Parks to preserve our forests, mountains and areas of outstanding beauty. But we need to have extensive organic agricultural areas. This is required because the interaction between organic and non-organic cannot be segregated by a hedgerow. The chemicals have a way of interfering over large areas of land a long way beyond the intended areas.
DEFRA should set aside a large area of a country (yes country and not county, obviously compensate the farmers in that area for the lower but natural yields) so that we can preserve the natural un-altered plant life. So that when the chemical agricultural areas need to be reset we can go back to the original plants for this.
"The review focussed on nutritional content and did not include a review of the content of contaminants or chemical residues in foods from different agricultural production regimens?"
1) I buy organic because of carcinogen and other health issues related to how they are grown, not necessarily nutrition.
2) I can definitely taste a difference.
3) Some organic foods do not make a difference - such as bananas.
Fortunately industrial agriculture is about to go into terminal decline, now that the oil supply (upon which it is totally dependent) has peaked.
So soon we won't have to worry about the difference because there won't be any industrial agriculture.
Unfortunately, once oil depletion reaches the serious stage, for a lot of people there won't be any food.
On the nutrition side, apart from the many biases that have been pointed earlier in those comments, how can the study pretend that beneficial nutrients are found in greater quantities in organic products and at the same time that those foods be of no better benefit? Are beneficial nutrient not beneficial??? Let's be serious : the genetic diversity, the richer content, the lesser pollution of the organic products are obviously an advantage - apart from the no-pesticide aspect of course.
Instead of this kind of pro domo study, big money should go to dig into techniques improvement in no-oil-products, no-untested-or-dangerous chemicals farming. And to a revamp of distribution patterns that would allow organic food to be no more expansive than industrial food...
Would it have been so hard just to say: in terms of nutrition organic and non-organic may well be more or less the same but it is better in the following terms.....? Why persist in over-egging the case?
He closed by suggesting organic was just "common sense" - so much for all the noise about "what the science tells us" when the subject is climate change.
And we see in other comments above many of the the other Pavlovian green reactions to any questioning of their beliefs: ah but who paid for the research? (ie unless we paid or did the research it is not to be believed); it is not "natural" (novocaine is not natural but I for one am not going to go without it at the dentist); chemicals are bad (is water not a chemical?)
http://putyourendtowar.livejournal.com
pyetw
Organic farming is not just about fruit and vegetables. It's also about raising the meat, eggs, and milk we consume in a more compassionate way that respects the behavioral needs of the animal and minimizes the stress, dis-comfort and disease that is an integral part of modern factory farming systems.
It's about avoiding the daily use of anti-biotics, steroids, hormone growth compounds used to fast track animal growth and combat the high sickness rates and premature deaths the factory farming inflicts on animals. It's about raising animals in a more compassionate way that respects core behavioral needs, allows bedding, rooting, scratching around behavior, that free's animals from overcrowded warehouse size prisons to experience fresh air, daylight, real world smells and environment that offers space and interest, that rejects the stressful overcrowding, caged captivity and enforced immobility, and rejects the standard animal mutilation of animals (tail docking, teeth clipping, beak clipping, claw clipping, castration).
It believes in fresh food fodder that provides the necessary bulk and stomach fill that processed animal feed powders and pellets lack, about providing non-chemical laced feed foods that nurtures natural growth rates and natural defences to disease. It's about having a farming system that doesn't have anticipate anything between 10%-35% death rate of stock before they even reach slaughter age.
Ultimately, it's about respecting the laws of nature, animals life and our own inherent sense of what is right to create animal raising systems that we can be proud off. The rewards from this is not just better tasting meat and eggs, it's a clearer conscience on the food we raise, a cleaner soul, and a more enlightened outlook on life and the direction modern farming needs to go. It may not be nutritionally better than conventional food as measured by the scientist, but by god, it's a healthier system all round.
I can't believe you even printed an article this deceptive and ignorant! But go ahead if you believe this article and enjoy your non-organic peanut butter saturated in 20 years of pesticides. Peanut Butter allergies are on the rise: DUH!
She is an organic supporter