Organic Food is Healthier: Once More
by Bonnie Alter, London 
on 10.30.07
We told you once, we told you twice, and here is it is again: organic food is healthier. After £12M and four years of study, it has been announced that organic fruit, vegetables and milk are more nutritious than non-organically produced. They may also contain higher concentrations of antioxidants which ward off cancer and heart disease.Apparently, "the health benefits were so striking that moving to organic food was the equivalent of eating an extra portion of fruit and vegetables every day."
Researchers on the European Union study grew both organic and regular fruit and vegetables side by side on a site in Northumberland and compared factors such as nutritional quality. Produce compared included cabbages, lettuces, carrots, potatoes and wheat. The early results of the study carried out by Newcastle University show that organic fruit and vegetables have up to 40 per cent more antioxidants than non-organically grown produce. Also found in greater quantities in organic produce were vitamin C, and trace elements such as iron, copper and zinc. Even greater contrasts were found for milk, with organic milk containing between 50% and 80% more antioxidants and healthy fatty acids. The Food Standards Agency has so far refused to acknowledge any benefits of eating organic, but have now said that they will review the evidence. Thanks guys. :: Guardian
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It should be obvious that organic food is considerably healthier. What is not obvious is by how much. If public govt. orgs. refuse to acknowledge the obvious, it is not because it isn't clear that organic is better. It is because some economic interests, which have considerable clout in the halls of power, force these org.s to say that there is no qualitative difference based on 'counter-studies' financed and/or supported by those economic interests. And nobody should be surprised if suddenly some study comes out of nowhere from some unknown group 'refuting' the claims of this study.
It's not so much that organic foods are healthier, as their level of health benefits is the standard. It's that the non-organic farming methods produce foods with altered nutritional values that fall below par. This is not putting organics where they belong so much as putting the NON_ORGANICS where THEY belong which, if I may say so, is in an inferior ranking to organics.
I feel so special and tingly. I've been eating organics for many years, but I honestly didn't think the nutritional value was greater than that of modern agriculture. My instinct felt they were, but my rationality wasn't behind it. I was more concerned about the 'cides and environmental impact of modern farming more than a loss of nutritional value. This is a double bonus.
It's a promising study but I think there are more things to consider than the ever more nebulous "organic" branding. Just as the professor asks at the end of the Guardian article:
"What we're really interested in is finding out why there is so much variability ... What in the agricultural system gives a higher nutritional content and less of the baddies in the food?" Prof Leifert said.
To simply brand all organic foods as better is similarly ignorant to not caring about how food is grown at all. What is better? How can we do that effectively to keep more people fed and healthy rather than catering to selfish bourgeois concerns?
It's not that organic foods are more nutritional , it's that non-organic foods have less nutrition (according to this study). Organic foods aren't more expensive, non-organics are cheaper. There's a difference. TH always sees it the other way around, like organics are new or modern, and that they need to live up to the standard we have been living by for, oh, less than a century. Somehow new, industrialized farming has been termed conventional, and grass fed cows as modern. Did you guys just wake up?
what about "sustainable" and organic? Comparing the nutrient levels in sustainable/organic foods (instead of just organic foods) will probably knock non-organic food off the food charts all together! As my cousin loves to say "VOTE with your dollars."
"Researchers grew both organic and normal fruit" !
When are we going to get our terms right? Organic IS normal; it is the myriad of other ways we grow our food (genetically modified and chemically polluted) that is not normal, and should be labeled as such.
When is that distinctive 'Organic" aisle at the supermarket going to cease becoming the exception to the obscured and unhealthy norm?
I'd like to see a study that looks at the cost per nutrient delivered for organic and non-organic foods. If you figure that you're paying per unit of anti-oxidant or unit of a certain vitamin rather than simply per "piece of fruit," then the costs will likely seem more justified. It might even cost less to get your daily nutrients from organic foods.
I'd like to see a study that looks at the cost per nutrient delivered for organic and non-organic foods. If you figure that you're paying per unit of anti-oxidant or unit of a certain vitamin rather than simply per "piece of fruit," then the costs will likely seem more justified. It might even cost less to get your daily nutrients from organic foods.
I would love it if you would supply us with a reference when writting an artical like this so we can read it for ourselves.