Organic Food

Factual Questions
1

My wife and I have been having a debate about organic food.

I saw a clip on CNN stating that there is no nutritional benefits gained from eating organic food.

This is consistent with what I’ve always heard about organic food. I’ve always thought it was a marketing gimmick, a reason to raise the prices of products, but not offering any significant benefits.

My wife, on the other hand, is convinced that if it says “organic” on the label, it’s automatically better.

From my perspective, CNN doesn’t have an ax to grind one way or another (unless they are invested in an organic produce company), so I tend to agree with the idea that you are paying for the idea of something being better, without getting much (if any benefit). The prices are 30-40% higher for organic products, but that’s about it.

Anyone know the straight dope?

2

There’s a wealth of information out there if you exercise your google-fu, but I tend to agree with your sentiment that it isn’t worth the extra cost.
I think that the lack of use of pesticides, hormones, etc are the main attraction of organic farming, but at the end of the day, its just too expensive for me although I tend to like the idea as a concept. I don’t know how it fits in Western society’s large-scale farming practices as a matter of practicality, though.

I didn’t use my google-fu either.
:slight_smile:

3

“Organic” doesn’t have anything directly to do with nutrition, it’s (supposed to be) about how the item is produced. Organic vegetables are grown without artificial fertilizer or chemical pesticides or herbicides, for example. Organic animal products, from eggs and milk to assorted meats, come from animal farms that don’t use heavy mechanization or hormones, and are generally less crowded and humane.

The exact nature of what constitutes “organic” is still being argued over.

The health benefits are usually overstated; most proponents will say there is more nutritious stuff (vitamins and minerals) than their mass-produced counterparts.

IMHO, “local” is a better way to buy produce than “organic.”

4

Organic food does taste better, imo, than most off the shelf. However, you can get food that tastes just as good, and isn’t organic, by getting the slightly better than average foods. If that makes any sense.

Organic, in and of itself, is not a benefit nutritionally, and it’s not a long term sustainable way to grow food for a large population… at least, according to Penn & Teller.

5

Chemically, if it has carbon, it’s organic.

6

“Organic” only indicates a certain standard of production. Non-organic fertilizers and pesticides are, despite popular belief, not prohibited in the production of said organic foods, however the pesticides used may not be synthetic. Mostly regulations stipulate no genetic manipulation or hormones, but that’s about it as far as the major complaints against “normal” produce. They do however tend to have less pesticide residue.

The extra cost is due to higher production costs and lower yields, as a good portion of it tends to come from smaller farms.

7

Lots of words have more than one meaning, depending on context - this is one of them, but that isn’t the context.

8

Organic foods do not taste better than the same varieties grown non-organically (in blind taste tests.)

Organic foods are not more likely to be locally grown than non-organics (China is a huge producer of organic food for American markets).

Organic foods are not grown with safer pesticides (Ggenerally the newer synthetics are safer. Also, claims of “pesticide resudues” as a danger to consumers are wildly overstated: Try to find a cite for any human being killed by pesticide residue in food in the half century, for example. Note that many pesticides ARE dangerous to farm workers, and are a surprisingly common form of suicide, as well.).

Organic foods are not better for the environment (there’s much more waste, and much more arable land used per unit food produced).

“Organic” is not a synonym for “fresher”, “free-range”, “natural,” or “humane.” (And “natural” doesn’t mean anything safety/taste/nutrition-wise, either.)

Organically grown foods have no nutritional benefits over the same varieties grown non-organically.

Organically grown foods have a worse safety rating (in terms of recalls and food-borne illness outbreaks) than non-organic varieties, per pound produced.

There is, however, another important difference: Organic food, on average, costs considerably more than non-organic varieties. “Organic” is the ultimate triumph of pseudo-scientific environmentalism and fear of “frankenfoods” over science and reason. Furthermore, as soon as I post this, I predict a jillion anecdotes (but no peer-reviewed studies), claiming that one of the above (usually taste) is wrong.

9

True, but not withstanding, this technical fact didn’t deter a couple of dedicated (well rabid, actually) environmentalist parents who recently tried to force our local primary school to only have “organic water” available in canteen.

Apparently well worth twice the price of Perrier.

10

TimeWinder is my new personal hero.

11

Organics are often grown with no pesticides or limited amounts of them, so the first part isn’t that important/valid of a point. I’ve never thought that “safer pesticides” were used on organic vegetables. (As for death, I think most people thinking about residues are more concerned about the possibility of long-term liver damage/cancer/whatever.) Coming from generations of farmers, I’m all for safety for farm workers.

I buy a share of a community-supported agriculture farm’s crops, because I like having a huge variety of super-fresh vegetables, grown in the area on family-owned farms. The veggies are a mix of organic, IPM, and conventional, though I think the majority are organic. And yes, I pay more. I’m perfectly OK with that. People regularly decide to buy more expensive products for no apparent benefit over cheaper ones.

12

These are not facts. These are arguments about which we’ve had long threads and about which a jillion articles can be found. To present them as facts without sourcing is fundamentally irresponsible.

Personally, I’m mostly in agreement with this side of most of the arguments. But I wouldn’t ever present the case this way, especially in GQ, because it’s neither science nor sense.

13

Although I also agree with most of the arguments presented by **TimeWinder **too, I came to GQ hoping that someone could point me to an independent study that states what I’ve been saying to my wife, which is - to pay a premium of 30-40% for a product for no nutritional benefit seems ludicrous. Cheerios is about as basic as a cereal you can get, but she buys Organic O’s that taste about the same, cost about 40% more, and it drives me insane. She’s convinced that the nutritional benefits are there, and she has sent me articles via the web to prove it. I’ve tried to explain to her that unless she knows who wrote the article, or sponsored the research, the information may be biased. CNN, for example, is just reporting on a story. An article claiming the benefits for organic food could easily have been paid for by a company producing organic products. (That’s just cynical me)

Google-fu has not helped our debate. For every article I’ve presented to her, she can find one that supports her side. I turned to you, the teeming millions, to perhaps show me the way to some info that would convince her. Actual research, not just opinions. Of course, if I’m wrong, I’ll suck it up and admit it. But I don’t think I’ll have to.
:wink:

14

If one is dealing with a proponent of organic food who argues on a less rational level, one can quite honestly point out that a lot of bullshit goes into production of organic food. Quite literally, in fact. So if one is worried that traces of the fertilizer used end up in the final product (which is one of the arguments in favor of organic food in the first place), then one ought to also consider the fertilizers used on organic crops.

15

I have to do certifications to oversight bodies for my Free Trade certification and for my Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) cert. In researching these, I came across the “organic” issue. There are no standards and there is no agreement to what organic actually means.

Since there is no standard definition for “organic” it can mean anything you want.

And since there is no governing body(ies) that certifies that something is “organic”; anyone can label anything organic if they want.

Until there is an oversight body and a standard, “organic” just means more expensive.

16

I don’t disagree with the spirit of this, although I would have said “less useful” rather than “fundamentally irresponsible.”

But I’m getting to the Randi point with the Organic movement: it’s more than our time is worth to keep defending this nonsense. It’s the ultimate No True Scotsman argument: if you cite that there’s no health benefit, there are scads of “we never claimed that…we claimed it was better for the environment!” Cite that that’s not true, and it changes to “we never said that, we said it’s made with safer pesticides” (or my personal favorite: “without chemicals.”).

There are numerous cites in other threads. And if you’d like to pick one or two of the claims I made that you feel are particularly egregious, I’ll be happy to go dig one up. If you feel they all are, then I withdraw them as insufficient until someone with more time and better access to journals can come by and support or refute them.

But here’s my bottom line: What valid reason should there be for any of the statements I argue against to be true? What scientifically-backed reasoning would lead one to believe that any of them are? Why should a set of frankly random rules about the type of pesticides used in farming have any effect on the output product beyond a variance in the amount of pest damage?

I claim, and freely admit that this is an arguable position, that it’s the people claiming that Organic foods have these great properties that are making the extraordinary claim. It’s like being asked to defend dousing, psychic auras, and ghosts; There’s nothing to defend against except a bunch of anecdotes, and yet somehow it’s always the scientific side that has to stop the useful things it’s doing, because we apparently haven’t proven the case often enough.

I agree with you that cites and studies are important. I also agree that without the cites, my claims above are unsupported, and I won’t claim that I’ve met the requirements of science. But notice that none of the other posters in this thread have, either. Knowing exactly how petty I’m sounding, my response is: I want the pro-organic cites first: I’m defending the null hypothesis.

17

nm

18

In that case, I declare this thread to be “100% organic”; it contains fewer entoxifiers, has naturally occurring goodiness, and is 90% more truthy than those other threads.

19

Not sure where you live, but there are such standards and regulating agencies in the EU.

20

My parents got into organic food growing in the early 1960’s

  • people thought they were cranks
  • I think part of the reason they went that way was that my father had worked for a major chemical producer.

Nobody seems to have said anything about another important aspect of organic food production - no artificial fertilizer. Personally I would expect food grown in a hydroponics plant to taste different from something grown on manure and compost - just as a free range chicken tastes different from something grown in a shed.

Another aspect of organic production is no prophylactic antibiotics, and no growth hormones. Oddly both of those survive in the food chain.

While I can’t cite this, I remember reading an article on an interview with Malcolm Walker, the founder and current boss of a major British food supermarket chain.

Basically he said that organic vegetables did not cost much more to grow than ‘conventional’ vegetables, also he expressed revulsion at the pesticides you get in carrots.

He is quite an interesting guy, Iceland is a pretty downmarket retailer, about 12 years ago Walker decided to offer organic frozen vegetables. This was shortly after Iceland had merged with Bookers (a large food wholesaler) for mutual protection from predators - a recipe for an unhappy marriage.

Anyway the Bookers mob went for him, he was kicked out, also accused of insider share trading, for which he was subsequently cleared, now he is back as CEO.

He makes an unlikely proponent of ‘organic farming’.

While a lot of the current organic stuff is hype and exploitation, and a 40% premium is ludicrous, on balance I would prefer my food supplied with separate capsules attached, containing the pesticides, hormones and antibiotics.

The business about taste tests is a bit of a red herring, people aren’t very good at distinguishing tastes, especially under test conditions. Even more if those conducting the tests have an axe to grind.

Nutritionally there is not much difference between a human and a pig, but it is generally reckoned that less measurable elements such as CJD and other disease transmission render cannibalism an unwise option for most animal species.
As ever, ‘nutritional value’ depends on what you are measuring, carbs, protein and vitamins might be the same, but … what is the nutritional value of the stuff missing from the organic stuff.

Personally I’m not much of a food nut, but I am deeply suspicious of farmers and food processors - and reckon that a book on food adulteration throughout the centuries would be a seller. Can you imagine sweetening cider with lead ?

Forty years ago someone campaigning to take the lead out of petrol (gas to some of you) would be considered a nut, nowadays someone wanting to add lead as an anti-pinking agent would be regarded as a psychopath.