# Did this (meta)study on organic foods miss the point? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 4, 2009, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315 "2009-08-04T18:46:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/21 "2009-08-07T16:46:12Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > As to your first comment, I sifted through page after page, and pdf after pdf, without any mention of nutrition or nutritive value. Which is why I **don’t** think this study missed the point. There are a significant number of people that made the assumption that organic food had higher nutritive value, and Big Organic was more than happy to play along. My first point was not about nutritive value. Hint: read the words highlighted in red. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/22 "2009-08-07T17:00:47Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > My first point was not about nutritive value. Hint: read the words highlighted in red. Ah, now I see what you’re trying to get at. What did you think about the rest of the words, in black? My comment was “use of some chemicals” which includes the hormones and antibiotics. Obviously you’re not putting herbicides (a chemical) on cows or giving rBST (a chemical) to corn. ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/23 "2009-08-07T19:54:37Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > Kobe beef used to mean something, I don’t have any proof one way or another, but I don’t bother with it because I think it’s just another marketing term. Kobe Beef still means something. It is a registered trademark and the beef that carries it comes from Wagyu cattle raised in a strictly controlled manner and must adhear to a set of rigid qualifications. However, it is very rare and in high demand, so you will pay through the nose for it. “Kobe-style” beef is another matter altogether, though. It comes from a Waygu/Angus cross breed that may or maynot be raised in the Kobe traditions. It is a cheaper quality of beef that was developed in Europe and North America to fill the overwhelming demand. This is the stuff you want to watch out for. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/24 "2009-08-07T20:29:00Z")
> [@RJKUgly](#): > > Environmentally Friendly – Again their experts said that organic farms were not more environmentally friendly for a few reasons. They require more land for the same output, they don’t have the benefit of high-tech chemistry to keep the soil good, and I forget what. It really didn’t seem to me they presented much evidence here other than the experts word. Haven’t watched the episode yet, but one common environmental criticism I’ve heard is that there really aren’t that many “organic” farms out there, which means that the produce generally has to travel farther to get to your market. More travel means more fuel burned, which means more pollution. If you buy local organics, I reckon you can side-step this little slice of environmental damage. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/25 "2009-08-07T23:12:27Z")
For those of you who choose organic because of a concern about pesticides, I point you to Bruce Ames’ paper [“Dietary pesticides (99.99% all natural)”](http://www.pnas.org/content/87/19/7777.abstract) > [@](#): > > The toxicological significance of exposures to synthetic chemicals is examined in the context of exposures to naturally occurring chemicals. We calculate that 99.99% (by weight) of the pesticides in the American diet are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves. Only 52 natural pesticides have been tested in high-dose animal cancer tests, and about half (27) are rodent carcinogens; these 27 are shown to be present in many common foods. We conclude that natural and synthetic chemicals are equally likely to be positive in animal cancer tests. We also conclude that at the low doses of most human exposures the comparative hazards of synthetic pesticide residues are insignificant. Given the baseline load of natural pesticides that we ingest, any additional pesticides from farming are highly unlikely to have a measurable health impact. If you really wanted to avoid harmful chemicals, it would make a much larger difference to stop drinking coffee than to switch to organic. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/26 "2009-08-08T02:32:57Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > Given the baseline load of natural pesticides that we ingest, any additional pesticides from farming are highly unlikely to have a measurable health impact. If you really wanted to avoid harmful chemicals, it would make a much larger difference to stop drinking coffee than to switch to organic. I’ve only read the abstract, and the article may well go into more detail–but what you’ve said doesn’t make sense. The pesticides humans make tend to target the nervous system, unlike most (but not all) plant-created pesticides. What’s more, over millennia we’ve figured out which plants have pesticides that will kill us (hemlock, for example) and which ones don’t (chili peppers, for example). That 0.01% of pesticides we eat that are human created may be, like capsaicin, totally harmless–or they may be, like atropine, deadly poisons. The whole “plants create pesticides, too, and who worries about them?” argument is even more bogus than the “I eat organic because I don’t want to eat chemicals” argument. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/27 "2009-08-08T03:22:00Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I’ve only read the abstract, and the article may well go into more detail–but what you’ve said doesn’t make sense. The pesticides humans make tend to target the nervous system, unlike most (but not all) plant-created pesticides. What’s more, over millennia we’ve figured out which plants have pesticides that will kill us (hemlock, for example) and which ones don’t (chili peppers, for example). > > That 0.01% of pesticides we eat that are human created may be, like capsaicin, totally harmless–or they may be, like atropine, deadly poisons. > > The whole “plants create pesticides, too, and who worries about them?” argument is even more bogus than the “I eat organic because I don’t want to eat chemicals” argument. None of our synthetic pesticides kill us like hemlock either or we would have noticed them doing so. Synthetic pesticides are accused of having exactly the same effects on us that we know natural pesticides do, namely causing an increased likelihood of long term illness after many years of exposure. Unless you can demonstrate convincing proof that synthetic pesticides are, on average, a few thousand times more potent than natural pesticides, then it becomes pointless to worry about them as their effect is so minor. Given how much we know about how potent natural pesticides are based on rodent carcinogen studies, it makes it a very high burden of proof that synthetic pesticides could be that much worse, and one which the organic proponents have consistently failed to engage in. It’s easy to say “may” and “could”. Unless you demonstrate convincing evidence, the burden of proof lies on your end. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/28 "2009-08-08T10:40:11Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > For those of you who choose organic because of a concern about pesticides, I point you to Bruce Ames’ paper [“Dietary pesticides (99.99% all natural)”](http://www.pnas.org/content/87/19/7777.abstract) > > Given the baseline load of natural pesticides that we ingest, any additional pesticides from farming are highly unlikely to have a measurable health impact. If you really wanted to avoid harmful chemicals, it would make a much larger difference to stop drinking coffee than to switch to organic. That’s what I said up in [Post 10](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11416781&postcount=10). And if you add in the effect that organic farmers deliberately choose crops with higher than normal pest resistance you’re probably getting even higher doses with organic vegetables. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/29 "2009-08-08T11:41:40Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > That 0.01% of pesticides we eat that are human created may be, like capsaicin, totally harmless–or they may be, like atropine, deadly poisons. Which is why we study them to see what their effects are, and license them (or not) according to our knowledge about their dose-response relationship. This is the point: safety is not related to a substance’s origins, but to empirical knowledge about its dangers. > [@](#): > > The whole “plants create pesticides, too, and who worries about them?” argument is even more bogus than the “I eat organic because I don’t want to eat chemicals” argument. It most certainly is not. Everything is made of chemicals, and it is a prime example of the naturalistic fallacy to assume that plants’ natural defences are any better for humans than those we design for less-protected plants. In both cases, the reason we know they’re not poisonous is not because they’re naturally occurring, but because we _test_ them. The point of the argument you deride is to explode the naturalistic fallacy, and it does it perfectly well. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/30 "2009-08-08T20:11:10Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > the term organic is not defined rigidly by the government and that it is widely abused by food producers and sellers, and that these people are angry about that, and many have written to their political representatives and asked that the definition be given specific, legally enforceable meaning Word. Imagine how Cascadian Farms’ organic empire would deflate once that is enacted? They’d either have to quit the organic industry or invest in measuring up to objective, legally enforceable standards. > [@](#): > > It’s not that we are unknowing victims of clever merchants so much as the fact that (to date) our politicians have decided big agribusiness are their real constituents, not us, and change has been glacial in party platforms. Put an end to greenwashing. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/31 "2009-08-10T03:40:25Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > What’s more, plant-created pesticides have an historical record, and over the years we’ve figured out that some of them cause illness (jimson weed, tobacco) while others rarely do (chilli peppers). So how does this differ from synthetic pesticides? Haven’t we also figured out that some, like Sarin, cause illness while others like Permethrin rarely do? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/32 "2009-08-10T16:42:51Z")
How was DDT approved, I wonder? ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/33 "2009-08-10T17:49:54Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Put an end to greenwashing. At the end of the day, this is the message we need to get across, and this is why I think that study is so important to the discussion. It is entirely possible for a car company to make a hybrid car that gets 5 mpg, and it’s possible to make a diesal engine get over 30 mpg. But the current market environment has us associate “hybrid” with high mpg and diesal with low–hence green washing. Which is why we need to be much more vigilant than we are, and encourage studies to make sure the theory aligns with the facts. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/34 "2009-08-10T18:08:16Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > So how does this differ from synthetic pesticides? Haven’t we also figured out that some, like Sarin, cause illness while others like Permethrin rarely do? Time frame. Our species spent millennia figuring out which plant poisons were too poisonous to eat and which ones weren’t (or were actually beneficial). If we’re still eating a plant regularly, the chances are very high that the poisons in it are either addictive or harmless. Occasionally we discover an exception (e.g., safrole), but we’ve done literally millennia of hands-on experiments to discern which plant poisons are okay. We’ve had the synthetics around for less than a century, and if I understand correctly, they don’t go through much in the way of safety testing before use. If oats caused long-term liver damage, chances are good we’d have noticed by now. If sufuryl fluoride caused it, how would we know until a few decades from now? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/35 "2009-08-11T03:18:33Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Time frame. Our species spent millennia figuring out which plant poisons were too poisonous to eat and which ones weren’t (or were actually beneficial). And yet we are still, this very day, eating plants like cycads and comfrey that have been proven to be highly toxic with prolonged exposure. And we have been eating these same plants for millenia. So I repeat:how does this differ from synthetic pesticides? Haven’t we also figured out that some, like Sarin, cause illness while others like Permethrin rarely do? > [@](#): > > If we’re still eating a plant regularly, the chances are very high that the poisons in it are either addictive or harmless. Cite! Given how seldom these natural products are analysed how frequently they turn to to be anything but safe, I am going to have to ask you to provide a reference for this claim. It seems like obvious nonsense. On its face the claim seems ridiculous. How could humans figure out a connection between chronic toxicity exhibited after decades of exposure and plant consumption? And why would it require millennia to do so when societies were largely illiterate with knowledge stores of no more than 90 years? It makes no sense. > [@](#): > > Occasionally we discover an exception (e.g., safrole), but we’ve done literally millennia of hands-on experiments to discern which plant poisons are okay. Cite! > [@](#): > > We’ve had the synthetics around for less than a century, and if I understand correctly, they don’t go through much in the way of safety testing before use. First off, you have to address the problem raised above: with a pre-literate society with a knowledge store of less than a century, why does time frame matter? When nobody remembers events of a century ago how could it possibly be relevant? Science can conduct multi-cenury studies because it relies on writing. The idea of pre-literate societies conducting multi-century risk analyses seems ludicrous and I await a reference to support such a claim. Secondly, you are joking when you say that synthetic pesticides “don’t go through much in the way of safety testing before use”. Right? because if you aren’t you lack the basic knowledge to discuss this subject. > [@](#): > > If oats caused long-term liver damage, chances are good we’d have noticed by now. Cite! Comfrey causes long term liver damage. Cycad flour causes long term brain damage. Lead causes long term damage to a plethora of organs. People have been eating those products for millennia. The fact is that a pre-literate people can only notice widespread, acute poisoning symptoms. It is almost impossible for them to notice chronic or sporadicsymptoms. In fact it’s almost impossible to notice such symptoms without use of the scientific method even if you have good written records. > [@](#): > > If sufuryl fluoride caused it, how would we know until a few decades from now? The same way we would know if \*Stevia \*caused exactly the same symptoms, no? Why is it that an illiterate Bolivian farmer can notice symptoms of long term, sporadic liver damage faster than modern, controlled double blind scientific studies can not. That claim makes no sense. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/36 "2009-08-11T03:19:37Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > How was DDT approved, I wonder? Why wouldn’t it have been approved? ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315/37 "2009-08-11T09:32:16Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > We’ve had the synthetics around for less than a century, and if I understand correctly, they don’t go through much in the way of safety testing before use. You have been misinformed. From [the EPA](http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/regulating/index.htm): > [@The EPA](#): > > Before registering a new pesticide or new use for a registered pesticide, EPA must first ensure that the pesticide, when used according to label directions, can be used with a reasonable certainty of no harm to human health and without posing unreasonable risks to the environment. To make such determinations, EPA requires more than 100 different scientific studies and tests from applicants. Where pesticides may be used on food or feed crops, EPA also sets tolerances (maximum pesticide residue levels) for the amount of the pesticide that can legally remain in or on foods. Moreover, and as pointed out above, organic farmers do indeed use pesticides and fungicides; copper sulphate is no more natural a thing to be found on crops than DDT. Pyrethrins and azadirachtin don’t extract themselves from plants and spray themselves on fields; we no more know they are safe than the synthetic alternatives. We in fact _do_ have a reasonable idea that they’re safe (to humans), but this is not thanks to hundreds of years of use; pyrethrins only came to widespread use in the 30s. It’s thanks to precisely the same system of testing and data collection regarding adverse effects that we apply to all pesticides. The organic movement no more represents natural farming than modern agribusiness does; they merely want to freeze industrial farming methods in the 1930s. There’s no reason whatsoever to believe that our methods then were either better for us, or better for the environment. If we were to apply the same thought process to medicine, we’d all be chewing willow bark instead of aspirin, despite its weaker analgesic effects and much worse side-effects on the stomach. We seem to happily accept that scientists were able to synthesise an improved version of nature’s bounty in that instance; so why, when it comes to pesticides, do some insist that the modern method is intrinsically harmful? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-this-meta-study-on-organic-foods-miss-the-point/505315.md?page=1)