Saturday Quack – Organic Foods

Most advertising for organic foods is deceptive - it usually implies that non-organic foods are nutritionally deficient. And they claim that organic foods are safer –they contain no pesticides.

The nutrient content of plants depends mostly on their genetics, not how they are fed. And while mineral content may be affected by the mineral content of the soil, this has no significance in one’s overall diet. Experiments done some years ago found no difference in the nutrient content of organically grown crops and those grown under standard agricultural conditions. There have been no reports of controlled prospective studies of nutritional benefits of organic foods in humans.

And are organic foods safer? They can be expected to contain fewer agrochemical residues than conventional produce; but the relevance of this difference is questionable, given the actual levels of contamination in both types of food. Thus the Texas Department of Agriculture reported that conventional produce was eight times more likely to have pesticide residue than organic, but of the few samples in which a residue was found, the amount was negligible (between 1% and 5% of government standards). And no differences can be found for environmental contaminants like cadmium and other heavy metals.

Because organic farmers rely on cow and pig manure for fertilizer, organic foods are vulnerable to bacterial contamination with, for instance, E coli.

As testing methods have improved in recent years, additional differences between organic and conventional foods have been reported, but these are so minute that it’s not possible to draw any firm health inferences. What is relevant is the price differential. Organic foods are, on average, 50% more expensive than conventional foods.

I prefer to place my trust in the USA ’s FDA and Department of Agriculture to protect our food supply, and concentrate on more serious problems that face us today. As Manfred Kroger , Professor of Food Science at the Pennsylvania State University , has put it: “ Scientific agriculture has provided Americans with the safest and most abundant food supply in the world. Agricultural chemicals are needed to maintain this supply. The risk from pesticide residue, if any, is minuscule, is not worth worrying about, and does not warrant paying higher prices.”

I hear that a food chain in Texas was selling "organic mineral water." I guess urine would fit that bill. Joking apart, better taste (?) and environmental considerations are, for many people, worth paying more for.