

Study finds organic food no more nutritive than non-organic - carbocation
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/03/us-organic-food-idUSBRE8820M920120903

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arn
Bad title. Misleading.

I can't say I ever thought that organic food would have higher levels of
vitamins than their non organic counterpart. And, of course, article says they
have similar levels of specific vitamins.

Organic does apparently have less pesticides (also per article) -- which is
what I thought was one of the major motivations to go organic, not "more
vitamins"

~~~
Variance
Perhaps for you, but I anecdotally find that many people who buy organic tend
to think that it's also more healthy in terms of vitamins. There's a tendency
to think that organic has a "higher nutrition density" because of the
naturalistic fallacy, in that natural == better; people think that any
modification to plant products only spreads out or even decreases that
nutrition.

In terms of pesticides, though, years of scientific study have been used to
clear the pesticides used on our foods. People who think that pesticides are
somehow unhealthy are also not scientifically justified. Organics are also "no
healthier" than non-organics in terms of pesticides as well, since pesticides
are found to have no health impact.

~~~
smokeyj
Organic foods for increased vitamins seems like an expensive alternative to
vitamin supplements. But I feel like people who eat organic foods would rather
not eat manufactured vitamin supplements, leaving the main benefit of organic
food to be the fact that it's less processed and more "natural". I prefer to
eat cows that don't eat cows, and chickens that don't eat chickens.

~~~
boon
Chickens eat other chickens in the wild - what's wrong with that?

~~~
ceejayoz
I'd imagine it's a _slightly_ smaller proportion of their diet than in an
industrial feed lot.

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toomuchcoffee
The title of the Reuters article is of course utterly misleading, in that it
simple-mindedly equates "no difference in vitamin content" with "no healthier
than." The key disambiguating sentence appears on the second paragraph of the
article:

"Organic produce and meat typically isn't any better for you than conventional
varieties when it comes to vitamin and nutrient content, according to a new
review of the evidence.

" _But organic options may live up to their billing of lowering exposure to
pesticide residue and antibiotic-resistant bacteria,_ researchers from
Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System
found."

Unfortunately they didn't bother to get the short URL to the original article
right, so we can't go and find out what the authors of the original article
were actually saying about the matter.

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forgottenpaswrd
What I call organic is way more healthy and nutritive:

I call organic not only to those that are natural but also to food that I
could trace, e.g eggs that start with 0 or 1 in Europe had expiration rate
witch is a fixed date from the egg laying. The fruit from my friends house is
picked the same day I visit them.

As a general rule the levels of antioxidants and vitamins in food decay
exponentially with time and temperature. Some fruit is stored in cold and
anaerobic rooms for months. It looks like fruit but had degraded. Fortunately
it is easy to taste the difference(It taste like nothing).

Antibiotics and hormones in meat certainly affect humans for the bad. In
USA(money is everything there) and some parts of Europe is totally out of
control. I have friends that are doctors and had problems as microbes develop
resistance to antibiotics, and they have to use much more aggressive ways to
fight them. People die because the treatment is not as effective as it was in
the past.

"Organic milk and chicken may also contain more omega-3 fatty acids" That is
exactly what we want. Food has a tremendous unbalance between omega3 and
omega6 because omega6 is so cheap to industrial manufacture so we have to
consume natural fish(not farmed) or wild animals(like wild boar, deer or grass
eating cow) to compensate.

I had seem tremendous abuses of synthetic pesticides in Spain, where I worked
installing greenhouses. It too easy for some people to add too much to be sure
they don't lose money. Some people continue using DDTs and other forbidden
chemicals because it is effective.

Nothing to see here, just another PR article from the food industry to fool
consumers.

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donaldc
This is a meta-study, which looks at a couple hundred studies done on this.
From the article:

 _Many of the studies didn't specify their standards for what constituted
"organic" food.._

I'd say this is a pretty serious limitation to both the studies in question,
and, as a result, to this meta-study.

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erikpukinskis
Unfortunately, the "organic" label means less and less.

What I think is still true (although I have no data to back it up) is that
farmers who actually conscientiously maintain their soil, in a way that
maintains both the fungal colonies and the nutrient density, through natural
means... that is, using proper crop rotation, nitrogen fixing cover crops, and
manure addatives, but no chemical additives (which are allowed under organic
farming, so long as they are "organic" chemicals).... those foods _are_ more
nutritive.

Organic/non-organic, like all certifications, doesn't measure _exactly_ what
you'd like it to. In the end, sustainable, healthy farming is a very complex
thing, and the details matter. If you want to get really high quality produce,
you really do have to educate yourself and talk to the people producing your
food. There's no silver bullet.

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pella
Organic and conventionally grown broccoli ( 2012 Aug 30 )

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22936597>

 _"... In addition, organic broccoli maintained higher concentrations of
bioactive compounds (ascorbic acid and phenolics) and antioxidant potential
during storage than conventional broccoli, with higher potential health
beneficial effects."_

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davidedicillo
I think the point of organic food it isn't to get more (good) stuff, it's to
get less (bad) stuff.

The fact that they have lower amounts of pesticides, chemicals and antibiotic-
resistant bacteria makes organic food healthier (as in doesn't make your
health worst).

~~~
VMG
I'd estimate that the amount of bacteria on organic food is _higher_ , not
lower due to the lack of said pesticides and using dung as fertilizer.

See the 2011 E. Coli outbreak in Germany that killed 50 people, caused by
organic sprout:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_ou...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_outbreak)

~~~
ars
Pesticides have no effect whatsoever on bacteria. And dung from plant fed
animals is harmless.

And all bacteria is not equal, so it's doesn't matter how much there is - it
matters what kind. Cheese is just full of bacteria, so are pickles, and
yogurt. Food grown using antibiotics will have more of the dangerous resistant
kind, rather than the beneficial kind.

With the sprouts it was not the organic that was the issue - it's simply that
it's sprouts. Sprouts are wet, not cooked, and not washed. It's a perfect
environment for bacteria if you are not careful.

I don't think non-organic sprouts even exists - they grow in less than a week,
why would you put pesticides on it?

~~~
Turing_Machine
"And dung from plant fed animals is harmless."

Nonsense.

Animal dung can carry everything from tapeworms to salmonella to E. coli.

Update: added link.

<http://umaine.edu/publications/2510e/>

~~~
encoderer
What I think the guy is getting at is a holistic view here. That the manure
from animals raised in healthy conditions-- meaning low density, no
antibiotics, natural diet--is a safe and ecologically sound fertilizer. It is,
after-all, how farming developed over thousands of years.

Sorry if that sounds too Michael Pollan for you but I think it passes as both
common sense and historically accurate.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Which is also nonsense.

Animals raised without antibiotics and vaccinations carry a horde of diseases.

~~~
sprocket
This is a ridiculous assertion.

First of all, "organic farming" doesn't preclude you from treating sick
animals with antibiotics, if necessary, nor does it prevent you from
vaccinating. (Sick animals _are_ required to be held back for a specified
period before entering the food chain.) What it does attempt to prevent is
animals being fed prophylactic antibiotics, which is a major cause of
antibiotic resistant bacterial strains.

Second, organically raised animals are not festering with disease. My wife and
I have _hundreds_ of healthy, organically raised animals on our farm. For
example, in the last summer we have grown, processed and sold over 500
chickens which we have lost _ZERO_ to illness.

Animals raised in humane, low stress (and the low stress is key) situations
GET SICK VERY INFREQUENTLY. It's in situations where they are concentrated in
industrial settings (ie. chicken broiler barns or cattle feed lots) that the
stress kicks in, suppresses immune system function and you end up with sick
animals that get fed antibiotics to cover up the symptoms.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Your anecdote does not trump data.

Sorry.

~~~
sprocket
I welcome any data that you care to provide.

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Aloisius
Who cares about healthier? Organic food, especially local organic food, simply
tastes better. Probably not because it is grown without pesticides but rather
because the farmer gives a damn.

~~~
jordanthoms
And yet, when double-blind tests are done the non-organic food usually does
better.

~~~
sitkack
Compare organic to non-organic carrots. Double blind yourself all you want,
hands down organic carrots (things labeled as) are x10 better than the woody
sticks they are compared to.

~~~
Turing_Machine
That has more to do with the cultivar than the method of growth.

Standard supermarket vegetables are bred to withstand shipping and handling,
not for taste.

~~~
sitkack
Ok, so organic is correlated but not the cause. I will stick with my weak,
can't be transported long distances tasty food.

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eskilianno
By not using poisonous pesticides, organic farms are healthier for farm
workers, for people drinking water near the farm, and for wild animals.

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mast
It all comes down to people's perceptions. When they hear that something is
organic or natural, many people assume it must be better for us, and if it is
better, it must contain more nutrients.

Food company's like to use this to their advantage, and the terms have lost a
lot of their meaning unless you know how the food is produced. I think this is
a key point. An organic farm using improperly composted manure for fertilizer
or contaminated water for irrigation may end up poisoning people with e-coli.
On the other hand, grass fed, free range chickens produce the best eggs I've
ever tasted. If the farmer happened to also give the chickens antibiotics, I
don't know if that's really a bad thing.

The other big issue of course is cost. Food labeled organic is much more
expensive. Many people just cannot justify the extra cost. When our son was
small, we looked at giving him organic milk versus regular milk
(<http://foodconstrued.com/2010/09/got-milk/>). We started with organic but
eventually switched to regular.

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droithomme
Title is not supported by facts discussed in article.

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hadron
And I always thought the motivation behind eating organic food was it's less
of a burden on nature. Is personal health really the only thing people are
concerned about?

~~~
bryanlarsen
Organic cereal crops generally yield at about 0-50% of the rate of
conventional cereal crops. This means they need twice as many acres of land
per bushel, twice as much fuel per acre, et cetera. In other words, it's much
more of a burden on nature than conventional cereal crops.

And I really did mean to say 0 above -- organic cereal crops fail at a much
higher rate than conventional crops. That's a lot of diesel fuel burned for no
return.

~~~
encoderer
Woah waoh, high yields aren't free. Fortifying that soil to produce those
yields has a cost -- both economic and ecological. Synthetic-N is just the
beginning.

And the "0-50%" sounds ballparkish to me. If you have any cites I'd love to
take a look.

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AndrewKemendo
> But organic options may live up to their billing of lowering exposure to
> pesticide residue and antibiotic-resistant bacteria

That is the entire point of buying organic. I dont know anyone (sampling bias)
that thinks organic has anything to do with nutrient content. That's what non-
gmo is for*

* in some cases

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eyko
It doesn't even mention taste… give me free range ibérico ham over its caged
cousins anyday.

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anuraj
Who claimed organic food has more nutrients. It has to be free of pesticides,
hormones and other harmful chemicals and must taste natural.

