I don't buy "organic," because there's no nutritional difference

[Ca3799]

I’d probably qualify as a ‘liberal’ and I frequently buy organic fruits and vegetables, but then so does my self-identified right-wing, Obama-is-a-secret-Kenyan-Muslim-usurper, Tea Party neighbor. We actually often shop together at the farmers market for our items.

I particularly like the idea of ‘clean’ or ‘cleaner’ leafy things and delicate or thin-skinned things like peaches or tomatoes.

I buy them thinking I may get fewer pesticide residues and fresher, seasonal produce, but I primarily buy them to support my local economy and my neighbors. I can afford to do so (I’m a wealthier liberal!), so I see no harm and only benefits by doing so. I just like fresh, local, seasonal, and if it also happens to be organic, well, that’s a plus and not a negative.

I could buy a bag of apples from Chile from my local mega mart, or get my apples from Bob and Judy who operate a little organic farm one town over. I’d rather give my money to Bob and Judy. I just prefer my apples fresh and not dry, pale, or with wrinkly skins which is sometimes the situation at the mega mart.

I must say the organic Honeycrisp apples around here are the bomb this year- they are about a pound each and so very tasty. I take them to work and have to find a lunch buddy to share them with. In the past, organics were small and sometimes bug nibbled. I have a garden and don’t get sqeeked out by the occasional bug or bug mark, but lots of folks don’t like that. I don’t see that so much anymore, so I presume organic farming has made great strides.

The farmers market is populated with people of every stripe- liberals, conservatives, the politically apathetic, foodies, conspiracy theorists, un-schoolers, home schoolers, the ultra religious, not not religious at all, etc. You name it, they have it.

I never thought that one could identify other peoples politics by where they shop. That’s either an amazing gift of foresight on someone’s part, or just a weird bias.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Bricker

It may turn out to be a strawman argument here – in other words, it may develop that no SDMB posters will defend the idea that organic food offers nutritional benefits over ordinary commercial farm-grown food.

But it’s certainly not a fantasy with respect to the outside world. I can supply a bunch a links that show such claims from organic food enthusiasts.

Please do. We’re here to fight ignorance, which sometimes means studying ignorance. I don’t recall that claim ever being made, but I may have tuned it out.

@Bricker

Because the vast majority of organic food consumers are politically liberal.

And because I believe that’s not a random correlation.

Whole Foods is owned by a libertarian guy. Mostly I’d say their clientele is upscale.
Claims I hear about organic foods.

1. They use less pesticides and herbicides. This has a very small effect upon the consumer because regulatory bodies limit their use. It has a larger effect upon farm workers, who can be exposed to much higher doses. And the core principle of toxicology is “The dose makes the poison.”

2. Organic food is tastier. In other words natural pesticides are tastier.

3a. Bruce Ames: pesticides reduce cancer. Pesticides have only a small effect on the general public. But they do reduce the price of produce. Which means consumers eat more fruits and vegetables, which reduces their chances of cancer.

1994 cite from the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/05/science/scientist-at-work-bruce-n-ames-strong-views-on-origins-of-cancer.html

2002 response: Ames, pesticides, and cancer revisited - PubMed

3b. But this doesn’t apply so much to most of Whole Food’s (upscale) clientele perhaps. I assume they possess more inelastic demand curves, in economic terms.

4. Plastic tomatoes taste different than organic tomatoes. But then again, I concede that not all decent tomatoes (or strawberries, or apples) are organic.

[John_Mace]

Yeah, “organic food buyers” are often the more affluent, regardless of politics.

[Frank]

@Bricker

Whole Foods may disagree, along with the flock of progressively liberal Whole Foods customers that are willing to pay premium prices for “organic” food, but I contend this is the functional equivalent of homeopathy.

I don’t shop at Whole Foods for organic fruits and vegetables; I pay a premium price at Whole Foods for fruits and vegetables that don’t have the shit kicked out of them before I even pick them up, let alone what the cashiers and baggers do to the stuff I’ve carefully picked out of the scrum.

At least I did when I had a Whole Foods close to me.

Whole Foods does not carry only organic food. Just like any grocery store these days, they have food labeled organic, and food that is not labeled organic. What they do carry is quality food. (Premium, if you will.) If you think that Whole Foods shoppers are solely driven by organic, you are wrong.

[AncientHumanoid]

I’m fiscally conservative, organically liberal.

What?

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

@Bricker

It may turn out to be a strawman argument here – in other words, it may develop that no SDMB posters will defend the idea that organic food offers nutritional benefits over ordinary commercial farm-grown food.

But it’s certainly not a fantasy with respect to the outside world. I can supply a bunch a links that show such claims from organic food enthusiasts.

Does the weight of evidence show that standard commercial farm food has more toxins than organic food?

I’m not holding a strong stance here, and it’s not one that I care much about, but I searched on a 10 minute search and found a few things.

Here’s one of 2014 study [warning: pdf] and meta analysis of the past studies saying that organic food has more nutritional value in terms of antioxidants, lower cadmium and lower pesticides.

CNN has the counterpoint, but he has to get fairly technical to make his point, meaning that on a brief skim of the article, he’s questioning the value of antioxidants, which is a bigger point than whether the study is accurate.

Interestingly, another news reporting agency had the opposite to say about the study.

WASHINGTON, July 11, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – A major new study from the United Kingdom finds conclusive evidence that organic crops, and the food made from them, are nutritionally superior to their conventional counterparts, corrects many of the shortcomings of earlier studies and should put to rest any doubts about the benefits of organic, said the lead scientist of The Organic Center in responding to the landmark study.

“This is a ground-breaking study,” said Dr. Jessica Shade, Director of Science Programs for The Organic Center (TOC). “This important research should help greatly to dispel consumer confusion about the benefits of organic.”

Here’s a 2012 Harvard article (before the 2014 bigger study was released) saying that organics have no more nutritional value, but it’s largely an opinion piece. It’s not citing very many actual studies.

I’m just citing these articles and looking at the evidence out of curiosity about your point. I don’t really have a dog in the fight.

Will you be disputing the meta analysis study or just interpreting it differently or do you have different evidence for your claims?

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

[sorry for the double post; missed the edit window]

@Bricker

Because the vast majority of organic food consumers are politically liberal.

And because I believe that’s not a random correlation.

Can I get a cite for this? Again, I don’t have a dog in the fight, but on another quick search, the second cite for this statement is yours and the first article disagrees with you.

Although some of the conservative think tanks and their agribusiness patrons might want to paint organic food as “elitist” — and even a “socialist” plot — the facts tell a different story. The organic movement is truly non-partisan.

Also, since stores such as Walmart and almost every major supermarket chain I’ve heard of carries organic food, is there a reason why Whole Foods is being named in your OP?

[even_sven]

I’m just going to address the OP here.

You are absolutely right. But produce has qualities other than nutritional value.

[KarlGauss]

Not a “nutritional” difference, but ‘organic’ farming practices typically avoid the use of antibiotics in maintaining livestock. There are reasons to believe that farmers’ use of antibiotics leads to antibiotic resistance in bacteria, an increasingly common and disquieting problem.

[kaylasdad99]

I buy organic. Sometimes. Like at Costco, the only packages of spaghetti or canned tomatoes they have available are organic.

I don’t go out of my way to buy organic, though. If they had non-organic canned tomatoes and they cost less, I’d buy those.

[Broomstick]

It’s only recently WalMart started carrying organic, Whole Foods definitely was at the start of the curve.

I admit I consume many organic vegetables but I don’t buy them, I grow them in my garden. Of course vegetables taste better when 15 minutes ago they were in the ground, you can’t get fresher than that. I also grow several varieties of each vegetable, some of the heirloom, so, for example, the carrots on my table actually encompass a wide range of color, texture, and flavor.

I admit I recently switched to organic eggs, or at least free-range eggs - I haven’t asked my neighbor down the road who has the chickens the specifics of what she feeds them. I would hope that if one got sick it would receive appropriate medical care, even if that would invalid some definition of “organic”. Of course they taste better, you can’t get eggs fresher than 15 minutes out from under the laying hen.

When I am buying food I probably pay more attention to whether or not the produce is from local farms than whether or not it’s organic. Fact is, I can’t afford to pay a premium for that particular label, I’m feeding two people on a food budget of $347/month and that just doesn’t stretch as far as it did a year ago. When the honeycrisp apples are 2-3 times the cost of fuji or jonagolds there will be no honeycrisps on our table.

[Bricker]

@Measure_for_Measure

Please do. We’re here to fight ignorance, which sometimes means studying ignorance. I don’t recall that claim ever being made, but I may have tuned it out.

Organic foods are more nutritious, according to review of 343 studies

http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/organicstudy.cfm

Are Organic Vegetables More Nutritious After All?

How many more?

tomndebb, do you agree that this claim is not a strawman?

[Bricker]

Everyone has different tastes, to be sure.

But I wonder if the “organic tastes better” meme has ever been validated by a double-blind test?

[Fair_Rarity]

I’m very liberal, but I generally think organic is bs. Obviously if an individual has a reaction to some specific non-organic feature, that’s different.

I think a lot of people think that organic is somehow inherently better for you, but it’s not. I think it gets confused with natural or unprocessed or free-range, things that can radically change a flavor, texture, or nutritional value. Locally-grown is another thing that gets mixed up in it too.

I’m more worried about salmonella and e coli and high fructose corn syrup than pesticides.

[zoid]

I think local has more to do with taste than organic. Picking something that hasn’t been bread for traveling, at just the right moment is amazing.
The best tomatoes I ever ate were from a neighbors garden and the best apples I ever had I picked off the trees of a semi-local orchard.

[John_Mace]

The biggest problem Americans have in their diets is added sugar in processed foods. You can have the most organic crackers or chips in the world, and if they’ve got sugar listed in the top 3 ingredients, their going to be terrible for you. I try to eat mostly real food (not processed), and whether it’s organic or not is secondary at best. I love rice and pastas, but I find I can cut the portion size of those grains in half, add more vegetables (like asparagus or broccolini) and it tastes just as good if not better.

[GrumpyBunny]

I don’t buy “organic”, either.

I do try to buy local produce, because I’d rather support local farmers than waste money trekking apples into New England from New Zealand. That’s just silly.

@Broomstick

I admit I recently switched to organic eggs, or at least free-range eggs - I haven’t asked my neighbor down the road who has the chickens the specifics of what she feeds them. I would hope that if one got sick it would receive appropriate medical care…

Depending on the owner of the chickens, appropriate medical care for a chicken could involve becoming dinner…

But, yes, free-range eggs do taste better. It’s hilarious when the companies say that the chickens eat a “vegetarian diet”, though. (I get Pete & Gerrys.)

[Gorsnak]

@Bricker

Everyone has different tastes, to be sure.

But I wonder if the “organic tastes better” meme has ever been validated by a double-blind test?

I seriously doubt that organic foods taste better per se, but it is possible that organic foods on average are picked riper, are fresher, etc, and those factors certainly do impact taste.

[dataguy]

Bricker, what is your position on GMOs in your food?

[Broomstick]

@GrumpyBunny

Depending on the owner of the chickens, appropriate medical care for a chicken could involve becoming dinner…

Better a swift death than lingering suffering.

Really, those chickens are as much pets as farm animals, I suspect if they ever get something easily treatable they’ll get treated and continue to scratch in the backyard.

But, yes, free-range eggs do taste better. It’s hilarious when the companies say that the chickens eat a “vegetarian diet”, though. (I get Pete & Gerrys.)

I think that’s hilarious. Chickens aren’t vegetarians, they’re omnivores. I mean, bugs are NOT plants!