The study, published today in Annals of Internal Medicine, is covered everywhere. But a dozen major news outlets' headlines have missed the point.
"Study Questions Advantages of Organic Meat & Produce" says the New York Times. "Organic Food No Healthier than Non-Organic: Study," says Reuters. This one wins the prize for wrong-headedness: "Organic Food Adds No Vitamins for Extra Cost," stumbles Business Week.
Informed buyers of organic aren't expecting to get more vitamin C from their strawberries. It's what's not in the strawberries that makes organic better: toxic pesticides. And it's what's not running off the fields and into the water supply. And it's what's not poisoning the people who work in those fields, and the honeybees who pollinate them.
Most of the poorly headlined articles springing up around this "news" eventually mention -- several paragraphs below -- that organic produce is less likely to contain pesticides, and organic meats are less likely to be contaminated with antibiotic resistant bacteria. That's no small benefit.
People love to point out that organic costs more, and sometimes the cost differential is significant. But if more buyers demanded pesticide free food, the cost differential would narrow significantly. Only when good practices are the mainstream instead of the exception, efficiency can thrive. Alarmist headlines only get in the way.
Sarah Pinneo is a food writer, and the author of Julia's Child (Plume 2012) and The Ski House Cookbook (Clarkson Potter 2007.)
Follow Sarah Pinneo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Julias__Child
Amy M. FitzPatrick, MS, L.Ac.: Response to the Organic Debate in the Media
It's also interesting that one of the co-authors of this "study" is Ingram Olkin, who was funded in the past to use less scientific methods to deny the ties between cigarettes and lung cancer. That seems to be Olkin's schtick... reworking statistics to support lies for big corporations.
Both human health and the biosphere are jeopardized by the bugs and diseases which adapt to GM'ed crops. And this is already happening. Even testing GM'ed crops is a danger to the environment, and government oversight is woeful thanks to the powerful big food lobby.
This renders your comment -- much like the Stanford study in question here -- unfortunately beside the point.
It is beside the point for you sadly because you are not looking the data and thinking about it. Listen to your argument in the second paragraph. It starts with your conclusion, it doesn't build up to it from facts. A classic error in the study of Logic. It is like the accusation, 'so when did you stop beating your wife?'. When you start with the answer you already hold dear, you aren't looking at data.
Ah wait who am I kidding? To get the ORIGINAL "nature-only, non-human-genetically-altered" seed, you'd have to go back 1000 years... Good luck with that.
It gets better.
http://www.biotech-info.net/conception.html
In fact, it seems only the uneducated would fall victim to it, as the statement "We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies" is so ridiculous to anyone with even just mediocre knowledge in biology and modern technology.
No, it's entirely made up. Thanks for proving once and for all that the anti-science crowd will resort to fantasy straw men, because they simply have nothing else to fall back on.
1) I wish you bothered to read the article, but nutrition between organic food and non-organic is EQUAL.
2) In blind taste tests, even the most pro-organic nuts failed to identify between organic and non-organic. It seems your experience can be explained by cognitive bias.
How about disease control? Many organic growers (and conventional growers) use copper sulfate to control some fungal diseases. This chemical will be in the soil at high levels for decades after repeated use, but that's fine since we call it "organic". Actually, copper sulfate is an inorganic salt while the modern fungicides produced by the evil agrichemical companies are organic molecules that break down over time. (Yes some of the early pesticides had some bad properties, but so did some of the early medicines.)
The bottom-line, in most ways, organic production is worse for the environment than conventional cropping practices. The supporters of organic foods need to obtain a better understanding of agriculture before they espouse on topics about which they are completely ignorant.
One parting thought, as the desire for biofuels (ethanol) increases, the need for higher yields will also increase. That will require the cultivation of even more sensitive acres to produce low yielding organic crops. Or, maybe we should just increase our use of fossil fuels.
Your comments would read more forcefully if they were accompanied by credentials.
Really? What's wrong with that. It's perfectly factual. Regardless of whether people care is completely irrelevant.
The headlines are not saying "Organic has no benefits!".
THIS headline, however, is completely ridiculous.
Well folks where's the information about the nutritional difference between a modern hybridized square tomato grown for color and ship ability and an heirloom from the 1960's? Or the difference between a hybrid peach that crunches when it's ripe, because it's been bred with apple genetics to ship better; versus an actual fresh peach like the ones we used to grow when the distance from farm to market was 50 miles not 5,000 miles.
The facts about comparing pre-industrial food with food today are explained here:
The End of Food: How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Food Supply--And What We Can Do About It by Thomas F. Pawlick
But hey, why bother checking for yourself right? When you can just assume that anything that disagrees with you MUST be part of a vast conspiracy.
False.
Glyphosates are 100% completely non-carcinogenic.
Oh, what's that? A Fact that disagrees with you? Let me guess, Monsanto must have had a hand in "lying about that fact", right?
Readers who want to learn more about how organic and conventional farmers control pests and diseases should visit safefruitsandveggies.com "Ask the Experts" section. You can also see a recent analysis of pesticide use trends that shows that 2 of the 3 most used pesticides in California are approved for organic use and used by farmers of both production methods.
There is much more information about the safety of organic and conventional produce at safefruitsandveggies.com. Read, learn, choose, but eat more and enjoy!
(By the way, the Stanford scientists received no outside funding for this study because they didn't want to bias their findings. This is clearly stated in the published paper. It is also referenced in the NY Times story.)
Some tips: Try finding out facts first before just assuming the ones that you think agree with you best.
People love to say that integrated pest management and organic food is more expensive, but often the true costs of it are being pushed (sometimes literally) downstream. If hospitals are spending lots of money fighting antibiotic resistant bacteria, we can thank the prophylactic use of antibiotics in conventional meat. Just because the cost isn't on the supermarket sticker doesn't mean it isn't real.
so yes you are right, we must look at all external costs
We use very very little petroleum on our organic farm, so little that we don't even factor it in as a cost.
Keep spreading lies for big ag though.
BTW ALL FOOD AND EVERYTHING USED TO BE ORGANIC FOR EONS UNTIL HUMANS STARTED MIXING IN CHEMICALS, IRRADIATING, AND CHANGING DNA OF FOOD. Everytime you eat non-organic food you poison the planet, life forms, and yourselves for generations to come since it affects the DNA.
check out my page that puts organic food in a conscious persepctive ~ aloha ~
www.organichawaii.org
19 Studies Link GMO Foods to Organ Disruption
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/04/27/19-studies-link-gmo-foods-to-organ-disruption.aspx
Genetically Modified Soy Linked to Sterility, Infant Mortality in Hamsters
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/genetically-modified-soy_b_544575.html
Russian scientists discover GMO’s cause animals to lose their ability to reproduce
http://www.naturalnews.com/036710_GMO_animal_experiments_infertility.html
Growing fatter on a GM diet
http://sciencenordic.com/growing-fatter-gm-diet
Monsanto's GMO Corn Linked To Organ Failure, Study Reveals
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/12/monsantos-gmo-corn-linked_n_420365.html
That's part of what makes it a mockery.