Study Shows Organic Food No Better For You
July 30th, 2009
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Tell me something I didn’t already know!
If you’ve been reading this site for any period of time, you probably are aware that there is no scientific evidence that so-called “organic” food is any better for you than conventional food. The products are very difficult to distinguish at all, resulting in testing as extreme as stable isotope analysis in order to try to differentiate true “organic” products.
Now what we already knew has been re-confirmed by a recent study that has been making the rounds in the news media.
Organic food not healthier, study finds
LONDON (Reuters) – Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over conventionally produced food, according to a major study published on Wednesday.
Its conclusions were challenged by organic food campaigners.
Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers paid higher prices for organic food in part because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007.
A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference.
“A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance,” said Alan Dangour, one of the report’s authors.
“Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.”
This really should not be news to anyone. There has never been any hard science produced to show that “organic food” is any better than conventionally produced food. Despite a lot of discussion over the composition of the foods, when you get down to it, they’re made of the same stuff. Organic crops are composed of things like water, cellulose, salt, sugars, plant lipids and so on. This is exactly the same thing that conventional crops are composed of. There’s no reason to presume that organic foods would be higher in any vitamin or mineral content and, as confirmed by analysis, they’re not!
There have also been a lot of claims made about the superior environmental aspects of organic foods. In general, these claims are also totally unsupported by hard science. At best, this area may be a bit nebulous. Organic agriculture may indeed reduce the use of natural gas derived fertilizers, thus saving some energy in the process, and it may also reduce the potential for runoff of water soluble nitrate fertilizers. Yet, there is another side to it. Organic agriculture tends to require more land for a given yield of food and also requires more irrigation, thus placing greater loads on local water resources. The heavy tilling in organic agriculture can increase nitrous oxide emissions and contribute to soil erosion, and the need for more tilling, plowing and application of large quantities of material makes it far more energy intensive than conventional agriculture.
When you get down to it, the small environmental benefits that come with organic agriculture may end up being paid for by much larger ecological issues it causes. it is important to bare in mind that organic agriculture is ultimately a restriction on the farmer and what tools can be used to produce foods. A conventional farmer can decide to use synthetic fertilizers as well as things like compost or other “natural” materials. Yet organic farming restricts the use of certain methods, thus resulting in fewer choices for the farmer. In some cases, composting may be the best way to provide nutrients, especially when it’s desirable to build soil bulk. In others, synthetic fertilizers may be the best choice, but in organic agriculture, this is not an option.
Not surprisingly, the various organic industry interests are not happy about it and they’re on the offensive.
Here’s a good example from the Daily Mail:
(yeah, I know the quality of the Daily Mail)
A cancerous conspiracy to poison your faith in organic food
Despite its obvious benefits for our health and for the environment, organic food continues to be denigrated by the political and corporate establishment in Britain.
The food industry, in alliance with pharmaceutical and big biotechnology companies, has waged a long, often cynical campaign to convince the public that mass-produced, chemically-assisted and intensively-farmed products are just as good as organic foods, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
The latest assault in this propaganda exercise comes from the Food Standards Agency, the government’s so-called independent watchdog, which has just published a report claiming that there is no nutritional benefit to be gained from eating organic produce.
Those forces bent on promoting GM crops and industrialised production, would have been delighted by the widespread media coverage of the Agency’s report, portraying enthusiasm for organic foods as little more than a fad among neurotic consumers that would pass once the public is given the correct information.But what is truly misguided is not the increasing popularity of organic goods, but the Food Standards Agency’s determination to halt this trend and instead promote genetic modification.
Oh ho hum, as if we have not heard this idiocy before. The fact of the matter is that modern agriculture is the reason why we don’t see people starving in the streets due to a bad annual harvest. It’s not that there is any big conspiracy, but simply the fact that modern technologies work and they work well. This includes genetic engineering. All food crops and livestock are genetically modified, although it is often through random mutations and years of selective breeding. Modern genetic engineering takes this a step further and allows selection of specific traits through genetic manipulation. Despite the appeals to fear, genetic modification has proven entirely safe and effective in producing better crops that can do things like resist disease, resist insect attacks without insecticide and more efficiently absorb nutrients.
The industry is scrambling to scare people. These scary “frankenfoods” are going to be the end of the world, they may tell you. I’m still waiting. Has the sky fallen yet? No? How much longer?
Another claim made is the organic foods are safer. Sure, they may be no better nutritiously, but they don’t have all those nasty chemicals, right?
Here few things concerning the “chemicals” in conventional foods:
- Despite the image that has been spread by some, conventional farming does not involve the indiscriminate application of copious amounts of insecticide to crops. No, farmers don’t just load up crop dusters with tons of insecticide and dowse everything in it. The use and amounts of insecticide are strictly regulated, and the amount and type used is based on the insect problem being addressed. Conventional farming also involves non-chemical methods of pest control, such as baited traps or mechanical controls, like non-toxic powders or soaps that clog the breathing passages of insects. It is not necessarily to the advantage of a farmer to use large amounts of insecticide, as this can also kill beneficial insects that pollinate plants or improve the soil conditions. Insecticides are thus generally applied in measured amounts, and in some cases, may not be used at all.
- All insecticides used in the food supplies of major industrial countries have been rigorously tested for safety and have shown no evidence of any health problems in humans. There is no evidence that the amounts or types of insecticides in use are dangerous to the health of the end consumer.
- Crops which have been grown with insecticides or herbicides are normally washed as a part of their processing. As these materials do not permeate the food, this removes the vast majority of the products. Processed foods are always thoroughly cleaned, but for end consumers of fresh produce, it is advisable to wash the product before consumption. This is simply good food hygiene, but it also removes any remaining residue, which is generally minimal to begin with.
- The synthetic fertilizers used for growing of foods are non toxic and often identical to the chemical compounds found in biological material used in “organic” farming. These fertilizers provide the basic nutrients needed by crops, such as phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen. They are not in any way harmful or of concern to the end consumer.
- Organic farming does not necessarily mean that potentially toxic chemicals are not used. Organic agriculture permits the use of certain pesticides, such as pyrethrins and plant-based materials deemed “natural.” These materials are not necessarily safer than conventional insecticides and may even be worse. Toxic chemicals like copper sulfate are permitted for fungus control. Additionally, organic foods do not come with any guarantee against contamination with biologically dangerous or infectious material.
Previous Posts on this Issue:
How Malawi Solved Its Hunger Crisis
Organicly Grown Foods: Is it really any better?
How to tell organic from non-organic food?
Turns out ‘Organic’ fertilizer wasn’t or was it?
Once Again, Fertilizer is Not “Petroleum Based”
Take GM Crops Seriously? You must be sane!
“Agriculture” section of posts
Also check out the article “The Costly Fraud that Is Organic Food” at Agriculture Information
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 7:29 pm and is filed under Agriculture, Bad Science, Conspiracy Theories, Enviornment, Good Science, Not Even Wrong, Obfuscation, Politics, Quackery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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August 1st, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Horatio Hellfire said:
It is not about stopping modern practices in the First World. Agribusiness is too well entrenched here for that. Most of the efforts of these groups is to convince African and countries in other regions to stop the use of GM crops, pesticides, and chemical fertilizer. They have been relatively successful in this matter.
There is a surplus of food in most Western countries. Much of that surplus is exported to the Third World. If these countries were able to grow enough food domestically, they would not have to import. It was policy for many years in the west to keep other countries dependent on food imports for several reasons, not the least of which was to maintain them in a state of dependence.
As usual these ’social action’ groups are just a front to provide a fig leaf for other agendas.
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August 1st, 2009 at 7:41 pm
No, there’s nothing wrong with third world countries trading with and buying from first world countries, especially if they buy something that results in a higher return than it costs them to buy. It’s like this BS about farmers being forced to buy from big chemical companies. Nobody forces them, they do it willingly because they make more money in their higher returns than they spend on the fertilizer. If it didn’t result in a net gain they would not be buying it.
Mutually beneficial trade is the cornerstone of economic sustainability.
The senerio that Horatio Hellfire mentions, where a nation begins trading with other nations and then increases trade even as they increase their own domestic productivity is not only an effective way to become a developed society, it’s the ONLY way to. It’s the only way that works.
You can read in this post from a while ago about how the nation of Malawi has been successful in expanding agriculture as they have adopted modern farming methods including genetically enhanced crops.
The nation of Malawi is not becoming more dependent on first world nations. Actually the opposite is happening. And it’s not needing more aid, it’s needing less. In this case, they did begin by subsidizing fertilizers to small farmers and importing nitrogen fertilizer. This is sometimes required to jump start things and get the technology adopted. However, this has resulted in a huge improvement of production. It is a much better idea to provide aid in the form of fertilizer subsidies than to just hand out food. (the old teach a man to fish idea).
There investment has provided great returns. While fertilizer consumption is up, so is productivity even to the point of the country becoming a net exporter and exporting food to other African nations. The best news is that they’ve been so successful that they’re already working to establish their own domestic programs to develop biotechnology. The country is actually working on a national legal framework for biotechnology patent and intellectual property regulation and biotechnology encouragement. This is something we in the United States really need to do! In this way they’re actually forging ahead of us!
That’s how you do it.
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August 1st, 2009 at 8:05 pm
drbuzz0 said:
That is exactly what I am saying. Those groups that have been working to get Third World nations to not allow modern agriculture in are funded by forces that want the status quo where these countries are net importers of food.
The gain here is for two groups. The first is First World exporters and their governments, not only do they maintain the State in question dependent, often it is also used to maintain a good balance of trade when the Third World country is suppling raw materials or energy products.
The second group are the indigenous power class that use the marginal farm yields as political tools to keep the masses in control. You have to understand just how revolutionary and unsettling it would be in some of these places if there was a surplus of food. The fact is that keeping people on the edge of hunger has always been an instrument of oppression. Many of these Third World governments doi not want their people fully fed.
The bad thing is that the ‘natural/organic’ food wacos have been co-opted into this fight. That is why they get huge sums of money. That is why they are so active in poorer countries. Their actions in the developed world are just window dressing to make them look legitimate.
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August 2nd, 2009 at 8:03 am
Soylent said:
It was right-wing plutocrats who caused the economic bubbles in the first place, by allowing Western manufacturing to be outsourced to cheap-labour countries. This meant that the only way jobs could only be created by the government (which of course requires higher taxes or deficit spending to pay for them), or in non-tradable services which are impossible to outsource.
There may be a case for free international trade — as per Ricardo’s theory or comparative advantage — but there is NO case for free international movement of capital — which guarantees that capital will move to wherever has the greates absolute advantage (ie where the workers can be most brutally exploited).
The Left as a whole has been criminally irresponsible in failing to challenge these plutocratic scumbags. Perhaps the problem is that the workers themselves were too easily dazzled by cheap imports, while the middle-class Left was made up of poseurs more interested in showing that they cared (this may explain the almost universal defection from class politics in favour of Green or identity politics) than they were in actually improving the condition of the working class.
(Sorry to go OT, but I can’t let pro-plutocracy propaganda go unchallenged.)
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August 2nd, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Matthew said:
I only know of him and his writings indirectly. My family has many members involved in agriculture and I’ve taken some agricultural science courses, but I haven’t entirely made up my mind if I want to go into it or not. What I say is based on what I know directly and have learned in classes or in helping out friends and family in the sector and just living in an area with a lot of large scale agriculture.
By the way, another tidbit of information:
The worst soil management crisis ever was happened in North America in the 1930’s. You might have heard of it. It was called the “Dust Bowl” and it was bigger than you can imagine. It stretched from Oklahoma, Texas through the plains and all the way into Saskatchewan. It was so bad that one year a dust storm blew all the way into New York City.
At the time, most farmers were not heavy users of chemical fertilizers. The use proportion in regular use of synthetic fertilizer was less than 10% of what it is today. It happened anyway.
It was caused by drought, but that was only what triggered what had been a disaster brewing. The real cause was ignorance and inexperience with soil management. There was over tiling, and nobody really practiced tilling management. Soil barriers were not used like having grass in off seasons. There was inadequate irrigation and the water resources they did have were not properly managed and distributed.
The crisis didn’t subside completely until 1940, due to that year getting a lot of rain.
We have had droughts since then, but never has there been another soil crisis like the dust bowl in the US, although there have been some similar incidents elsewhere in the world.
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August 3rd, 2009 at 10:43 am
Organic food was the topic of the latest P&T episode. They covered the important ground, but seemed a little sloppy in places.
I do begin to wonder though. That hippy couple looked like such a cliche. Surely the word is out now and no-one would come on the show just to be called an **** and the like. I do wonder whether they were fake.
I wish they would stop using people from libertarian think tanks as well when it comes to scientific issues. For episodes like ‘Walmart Hatred’ and ‘World Peace’ it’s fair game since the topic is sort of their bag, but for a topic like organic food, getting some real scientists on would be much better.
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August 3rd, 2009 at 11:19 am
George Carty said:
The economic bubble was created by easy central bank monetary policy and an implicit understanding that losses for the big banks would be socialized and profits privatized as in the examples set by the S&L debacle and LTCM collapse.
From Reagan onwards, under every US republican president the size of government has balooned and they’ve generally enacted policies hostile to free markets.
The proper name for government colluding with business is not rightwing, it is fascist. I don’t particularly like the fascists any more than I like the socialists.
George Carty said:
The sorry state of western manufacturing isn’t the result of free-market policies but of the facists and socialists taking turns to dick around with the economy.
Most people have a romantic view of regulation as fighting pollution or protecting consumers. This is very rarely the case.
The fascistic elements like to add regulation to induce large, fixed costs that strangle start-up companies in the crib before they can grow large enough to compete with the favoured companies on whos behalf the regulation is enacted. Filing a couple of man-years of paper-work or hiring a couple of extra laywers is a mere flea-bite for a large company, a small price to pay.
The socialists tend to add regulation such as minimum wage restrictions, restrictions on hiring and firing people. The intent of this is to make it very unfavourable to hire young people without much prior job experience, temp workers, people with disabilities etc. so that the wages of high-skilled, unionised workers can be maintained. They also tend to favour nonsensical environmental regulation that leads to restrictions on imports from other countries.
After decades of playing these games it piles up. The burden is now so large that it makes little sense to manufacture anything in the western world.
If you want to increase wages on any kind of durable basis you have to make investments in capital equipment and R&D that allows more work to be performed with less effort as well as branching out into high-tech goods. When government comes in and curtails competition and bails failed institutions out that’s never going to happen.
If companies aren’t allowed to outsource, they will go under in this kind of climate. If you bail out the companies that aren’t allowed to outsource by forcing people to buy domestically produced goods all you’ve succeeded in doing is making everyone poorer. The effect of increasing the cost of industrial inputs by protectionism generally goes unobserved in favour of noting that the favoured industry does indeed benefit; it’s a situation of concentrated benefits and diffuse costs.
George Carty said:
Naturally. The more the government interfers, the more it has to interfer in the future to mend what it has broken. It’s an ever expanding spiral.
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August 3rd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Josh said:
Yeah, well their show does get a little “sloppy” in terms of cutting corners on some details and simplifying stuff or just breezine through some things. They’re aware of this. It’s something of a necessary evil. They do try to stay acurate, but it’s an entertainment show and it airs on Showtime and that dictates a lot of things. They just don’t have the time or the format to really introduce all the scientific evidence.
I still like their show. They do put a lot of effort into trying to be fair and accurate even given the venue’s limitations.
Josh said:
They only use real people for their interviews and such. No, the hippy couple is totally real. Penn is actually really big on the fact that those who are interviewed for this shows are not tricked or desceived. He denounces things like the Borat kind of routines where people come in for one kind of interview and end up realizing it’s different. Those who are on the show see previous episodes and know how the guests are portrayed and treated and they know that they will be subject to the same kind of treatment and portrayal.
Also, they do not edit interview footage in a way that makes people seem to be saying different things than they are, like by taking comments out of context or only showing partial statements.
Penn and Teller and fairly vocal on this.
No, it does not make it difficult for them to get guests, believe it or not.
Josh said:
I haven’t seen the show yet. I have it Tivoed and was waiting for a chance to see the whole thing and enjoy it by not multitasking while watching it. I understand Ron Baily was on it and I assume that is who you’re talking about?
I don’t know the kind of statements he made or anything, but I know Ron, having first met him at the Amazing Meeting 5. Stuff like enviornmental bad science and this kind of stuff, is really right up his ally. He has a lot of experience in this area and his written several excellent reviews on the studies in this area. His opinions and stuff are also very similar to those of Penn and Teller. Penn is an admitted libertarian, so he may be bringing some of his own beliefs in there (I’m not sure if Teller is as much of one).
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August 3rd, 2009 at 1:51 pm
George Carty said:
This is totally off topic, but I don’t see this as being caused at all by the right-wing free market types.
The fact that the “bubble burst” and that things suddenly and dramatically started going bad is because of the financial market collapse. Securities turned out to be worthless even though companies had every reason to think they were a legitimate place to keep their money. This caused a domino effect and things got worse as banks started writing off more and more loans.
Things got worse as banks got more desperate. In general, the banks prefer not to foreclose because this always leads to a net loss on their part. If you don’t pay your mortgage, the bank will generally not take your house right away. You’ll get a letter asking why you missed a payment. They might slap you with a penalty. If you miss another payment, you may get an angrier letter. They will try to work out a payment plan if you have trouble making it. This is all because they simply don’t want to foreclose and deal with the loss unless except as a last resort. But the banks were so straight up over defaults, they HAD to recoup any money they could ASAP. Thus they stopped being as tolerant and started taking homes faster.
Of course the over-speculation on property ended up bursting and then the property owners were left with huge net losses, sometimes having taken out loans that were then deeper in debt than the value of the home, essentially giving the property negative worth. In such circumstances some just allowed the foreclosure to happen, because they were at a loss either way.
What caused this?
Well, banks obviously don’t like to have their loans defaulted on. For this reason there’s the whole credit rating process and credit scores and checks on a person’s finances when they apply for a big loan. If you have bad credit, lack a credit history or the bank does not believe you have the income to pay them back then you are either denied a loan or you end up with crappy terms – high interest rates, fees etc. This is because they know you’re a big risk and the only way to keep big risks from destroying them is to charge them more as a kind of insurance policy.
In the 1990’s there was a movement that “Everyone should be able to own their home.” Credit rating was cast as discrimination. People who are just starting out, who have low incomes and so on end up with a hard time getting a loan and bad loan terms. Rich people get good loans, as the bank is pretty sure they can be paid back. You can throw in the race card on this one.
Because of this, the government instituted a series of policies designed to undermine the rating system and to encourage a lot of lending in the sub-prime sector. Probably the worst one was the Affordable Housing Tax Credit which basically encouraged extremly high risk lending practices. Also, since subprime financing is known to be high risk, there were some reforms instituted that allowed for the financing to be passed on in the form of bonds while not explicitly saying the level of the loans. Effectively, bonds that were so high risk nobody would want them suddenly looked like standard securities of relatively safety.
Anyway, this, as you might expect, lead to a lot of lending. Suddenly anyone could get just about any sized loan whether or not they could pay it back. As the government intended, home sales went up. This increased realestate prices and with loans so easy to get people started taking out huge loans to buy properties they could not afford in the hopes of reselling them at a higher price and walking away with a profit. Speculation went crazy.
The ridiculous thing is that it became very apparent that it was a bubble and people started talking about the burst long before it happened. This did not stop speculation. People bought and sold property knowing it was a bubble and thus selling it quickly. They knew it would burst and they were just wagering that they would not be the one holding the time bomb when it exploded. So they passed it back and forth, making a profit on each exchange.
This whole thing has been cast in a certain light that is not really acurate. It wasn’t really the companies making unwise investments. The whole process was undermined by regulatory changes. The auto makers also, despite what everyone says DID NOT end up in trouble because they don’t make a good or popular product. The US auto makers are at a HUGE disadvantage due to the UAW having them by the balls, but despite this by the early 2000’s, US auto markers were doing very well and had some very strong brands and good sales. Sales took a small slump, but they should have been able to make it through that without a crisis. What killed them was the credit collapse. Auto makers have a bit stake in the credit and finance markets because most cars are financed. In GM’s case, GMAC, their financial services and lending wing has been one of their fastest growing units. When the markets fell apart, the companies found that much of the equity they needed to make loans had been in bonds that were devalued. They ended up with some of their secondary financers falling apart.
Add to this the mounting debt of the government does not help the situation. It’s just another example of undermining the monetary system and confidence in the dollar. Without major change there is enormous inflation on the horizon and everyone in the finance markets knows it.
The sad thing is that the current policies are not addressing these issues and can end up making them worse. The government has been encouraging MORE lending and has put out “mortgage and debt relief” to try to keep up the subprime insanity. This is horrible. The market needs to get back on its feet by reducing lending that carries a lot of risk. There can’t continue to be so much debt floating around without equal equity in the system. If people end up in a bad credit situation, where they need to file for bankruptcy or if companies end up losing a lot of money because of this then that’s not necessarily a bad thing in the long run. Burning your fingers is how you learn your damn lesson!
What we need are the polar opposite of what is being done now. What is happening is, in my opinion, worse than doing nothing, it’s pouring gasoline on the fire. Left alone the fire would burn itself out. Pouring water on it would help. We’re doing neither. We’re assuring it won’t go out by giving it fuel.
So… I’m very concerned about this whole thing.
On the bright side, anyone who says the US does not matter or that the United States is not the player in the world that it used to be has in a way been proven wrong. We’re so important to the world’s finance markets that when we committed financial suicide we ended dragging the entire global economy down the tubes with us. (Although there were other international financial problems brewing, the US did manage to drag everyone down.)
Quote Comment
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm
drbuzz0:
That’s basically what I was trying to get at. I’ve seen idealists who failed, hobbyists who are able to keep going with a second source of income and think this means it’s “sustainable”, and people who essentially do it as a sideline to stay in touch with their farming past. Ironically, the most successful organic growers tend to be big corporations with savvy marketing departments and a large conventional line to cover their bottom line.
The thing that really gets me about this is when people make the argument that there’s anti-organic propaganda from the big agribusinesses afraid of losing their “monopoly”. Forgiving that the big agribusinesses do not have a monopoly, this is very much like the alt med arguments against Big Pharma — it rightly points out one side’s big financial stake while utterly ignoring that the other side has a financial stake too. “Organic” food is marketable, and has become big business in some areas. Grocers can jack up the price (if they’re willing to put up with the annoyance of pointlessly segregating the organic produce).
sustainme
I missed this the first time I read your post, sustainme. You contradict yourself. You acknowledge that you read the study, and apparently have no complaints about its content besides not addresing some areas. Yet “less nutrition” was definitely addressed. In fact, that was the *point* of the study. The study found that the nutritional content is identical.
Next time you make stuff up to criticize a study, try to make it less obvious, ‘kay?
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August 3rd, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Ironically I had a phone call today from someone that wants me to do a pre-audit on an organic snack food company before they are inspected for certification under the new Canadian Organic Product Regulations and the US-Canada Organic Equivalent Agreement for export.
I told them the sort of team I would have to put together and how much it was going to cost them. They will be getting back to me they say.
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August 3rd, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Soylent said:
Why was monetary policy so loose? Because the loss of manufacturing had resorted them to run a debt-based Ponzi scheme to create a false impression of prosperity…
Soylent said:
I guess I’m using the European definition of “right-wing” (= “Social Darwinist”), while you are using the American definition (= “small government”).
Soylent said:
Yes, there’s a lot of unnecessary regulation, but dumping such regulation won’t stop companies using 10-cents-per-hour workers from underselling you.
Also, isn’t China’s ability to undersell everyone else in large part due to dirty tricks by the Chinese government which make the renminbi artificially weak? How would libertarians counter that kind of chicanery?
Soylent said:
True, we need to keep our technology up-to-date to optimize our productivity. But this won’t help as far as Western jobs are concerned, because free movement of capital means that the Third World’s cheap labourers now get to use the same machinery as the Western workers.
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August 3rd, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Calli Arcale said:
I’m not making anything up. Currently you could read “In Defense of Food” – go see “Food, Inc.” I trust different sources as well as what seems like common sense to me. I guess I didn’t make myself clear before, but I think the study is meaningless because it doesn’t address many things that would affect the study’s validity. I think time will tell who is right.
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August 3rd, 2009 at 8:47 pm
susan said:
Yeah I saw some info on Food Inc. I don’t have a problem with my food coming from a number of profit-driven companies. The fact that there is so much ample high quality food is, in my opinion, an example of success. Our system is market based. There are farmers competing to grow the best, cheapest and most product. There are seed companies using hybridization, cross breeding and genetic modification, each wants to outdo the others and produce a better, more productive seed. There are tractor companies, sprinkler companies, fertilizer companies and so on all working to outdo each other and produce better products.
At the same time, there are market controls, government subsidies and government programs. These exist because while the market provides the best innovation and drives down costs, there is a recondition that agricultural products are of extreme stratigic importance and that it would be unacceptable to allow a market fluctuation to cause a disruption of food stocks, even temporarily.
There are some issues with government involvement. But all and all this system of regulation and the open market with private profit-driven entities has resulted in spectacular success.
Today in an industrial country, nobody needs to starve. You can go to a supermarket with no money at all, and if you spent some time looking around the parking lot for spare change and for redeamable bottles and cans in the trash cans, you will likely be able to scavange enough money to purchase a days worth of caloric intake. This would have astounded anyone one hundred years ago.
The cheap canned stuff like Spam and Pork and Beans or canned vegitables that many of the highbrows today consider to be bellow them and of low quality are safer and in general higher quality than the food that much of middle America was sustained on 150 years ago.
The fact that our biggest health problems are obesity and related is proof of this success. The fact is, this is the better kind of health problem to have. You’re better off when your worst concern is over-intake of nutrition than under intake. Some have complained that plentiful food has made us fat and it should be more scarce. This ignores the fact that there’s no way to price food to prevent obesity and starvation. If you make food expensive enough to make the middle class eat less, then it will make the poor starve.
What we have now works so well that people have become very distant from the realities of what it could be like and what it was like. Nobody these days seems to appreciate that it’s a fairly big deal that a general practitioner can have a long career and see thousands and thousands of patients and then retire, having never once in their medical practice encountered a single case of scurvy – even if they work in a port town!
despite what “Food Inc” claims, nobody is “Starved for Choice.” You don’t have to eat food you buy at the store. If you want to live off the land or grow your own food the “natural” way and avoid the “big corporations” then go ahead. Nobody is going to stop you from trying to feed yourself and do things the way that some seem to think is the better way to live.
Go ahead, you can buy hoes and shovels and such things at your local hardware store. They still sell them and they’re not expensive. You can go tear up your back yard if you want. Your front yard too. If you really think you need a “choice” that is not profit-driven, you can go raise chickens in your back yard or garage, or for that matter, your living room.
The subsistence life is there for the taking if you want it. You don’t even need to use any technology. If you want to go stand at a stream and wait for a fish to go buy so you can smash a rock into it and take it home to eat you can do that.
You can scavenge for food for free. Note that dandelions are eatable and they generally grow naturally without intentional cultivation. Even better, most people won’t be bothered if you help yourself to yanking dandelions out of their lawn to feed yourself.
susan said:
It already has. Learn some history.
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August 4th, 2009 at 3:39 am
I have tended to buy organic food because I had been under the impression that it was higher quality in general and that it was fresher and that it was a standard for food that meant it was just better with higher quality ingredients and did not use anything artificial that could be in any way harmful. I know that some foods have things like hydrognated oil that is bad for you and I thought organic food never had anything like that which was processed in a way that was bad for health. Also I have seen things that some food is treated with radiation that is linked to cancer as being a reason to eat organic.
Please don’t jump on me if I’m wrong about this. I don’t know a lot about this area. I am not a scientist or a farmer or anything like that. I just based this on what everyone seemed to be saying. If I’m wrong then I’m wrong, but I really just don’t know. I’m not an expert but this seemed to be what I’ve heard and what organic food is supposed to be all about.
Maybe I do need to take another look. I just don’t know much in this area and only what I see around. I just want to eat healthy in general, and I follow what seems to be the most common advice.
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August 4th, 2009 at 6:44 am
Are organic food enthusiasts snobs?
Rob Lyons – Organic food and unhealthy snobbery
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August 4th, 2009 at 9:47 am
George Carty said:
Interesting article and generally true. It states that organic enthusiasts want to distinguish themselves from junk food eaters. That’s bull though. Organic food can be junk food, as in being bad for your health. A salad made from conventionally grown vegetables is generally going to be something healthier to eat than the example buzz0 gave a few comments back about drinking organic bacon fat (yummy, huh?). Sugar and corn can both be grown to organic standards so you can have organic foods that are packed with simple carbohydrates, which is generally not a good place to get most of your calories from.
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August 4th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Via The Telegraph U.K.
The heir to the throne plans to question publicly the Food Standards Agency’s conclusion that expensive organic food is no better for you than produce from intensive farms.
“This study hasn’t changed His Royal Highness’s views one bit,” one of the Prince’s friends tells me. “Charles thinks it’s ludicrous to suggest that vegetables treated with chemicals or meat raised with antibiotics can be as good for you as proper food.”
Lord Melchett, who is the policy director of the Soil Association and a close ally of the Prince, tells me: “He believes in organic food.”
The hereditary peer questions the validity of the FSA’s comprehensive study. “It’s a very poor piece of work,” he claims. “It seems that there will be a rebuttal from scientists around the world. It’s very disappointing. I thought the FSA had got over this anti-organic stance by now. It seems not.”
Well there you have it, the future King of England thinks this study is a crock.
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August 5th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
58
I haven’t seen his book. It may be thoroughly well researched and credibly sourced. However, when he appears on P&T backdropped against the banner of such an organisation, he immediately will get labelled and dismissed by opponents. What I’m saying is that it would have been much better if they hadn’t attached him to his institution as it would remove obvious lines of attack. It’s not that I’m biased against his message, but some people will use it as a stick to fallaciously beat the programme.
I’ve just watched the episode again, I was much more impressed the second time round. I did chuckle at P&T’s Last Supper motif though humour is of course subjective. The thing they really missed was mentioning the organic fertilisers that you so often point out.
68
Quel surprise! Depending on how he acts on the throne, I may chuck in the towel of monarchism. The quote from HRH himself is particularly telling. It is logical to suggest vegetables treated with chemicals are better for you. Those chemicals keep them free from disease and help them grow. It is logical to suggest meat raised with antibiotics are better for you. Those antibiotics keep the animal healthy in life, allowing it to grow strong and yummy. His objection is nothing more than superstition.
Please do keep us updated if you see any of these rebuttals from scientists.
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August 6th, 2009 at 1:47 am
Josh said:
Maybe I should bite my lip, not being British, but as far as the Prince goes, I consider his support of things like organic food to be a lesser problem than his support of homeopathic, which is really just… I don’t even know.
He has injected his opinions, on more than one occasion, into the debate of whether medical coverage in the UK should include homeopathic products and procedures. I don’t know what to make of that. I mean, providing health care in general is expensive as hell, before you add in the expense of paying for medicine that isn’t even real and doesn’t work.
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August 6th, 2009 at 2:07 am
drbuzz0 said:
The Royal Family has a history of supporting alternative medicine to the point where the company responsible for distributing a homeopathic Swine Flu Formula, (Ainsworths) has been given a “Royal Warrant” by both the Queen and Prince Charles, whose emblems it carries on its website. Prince Charles is perhaps the worst offender – his Duchy Originals company was recently censured by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for advertising that its herbal medicines range could effectively treat common colds and other ailments.
This dissipated and decadent group of people are an embarrassment, I do hope my government refuses to declare Charles King in Canada, and we can wash our hands of the last vestiges of our official involvement with the Windsors
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August 6th, 2009 at 2:33 am
drbuzz0 said:
It also gives false legitimacy to homeopaths, and gives the people who support it an argument to authority.
http://www.youngausskeptics.com/2009/08/homeopathic-logic/#more-3323
As witnessed here. If Prince Charles believes it, it MUST be true!
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August 6th, 2009 at 2:45 am
Not British myself, but still technically a subject of the Queen and Royals. (Sovereign state but member of the Commonwealth).
I think Chuck should come to realize something. These days the Royals are not much practical use for the country (or the others of the Commonwealth) other than for tabloids. As this is becoming more and more obvious one wonders how much longer they will continue to have official state support. In light of this, I advise him to stop making trouble. If the Prince doesn’t stop this foolishness it is not going to help things.
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August 6th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Joseph said:
You don’t need to be ashamed. The belief that organic labeled foods are somehow just better or higher quality is based on a coordinated and well funded PR campaign that has been going on for years. You are already ahead of many by virtue of your willingness to reexamine this belief based on the info.
It is not that people are all stupid. Not everyone has a scientific background or an in depth knowledge of this subject and most people are too busy to go around fact checking all the things they hear. The industry knows this and exploits it to their own advantage. This is why it is important to work to counter their claims with rational arguments.
I don’t have a problem with people eating the organic labeled stuff. It’s not bad for you or anything, but it’s just the same stuff as everything else except overpriced.
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August 11th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Looks like you’re very wrong
http://www.naturalnews.com/025643_food_health_foods.html
http://socyberty.com/activism/10-reasons-to-eat-organic-vegetables/
http://www.myyogaonline.com/healthy_living_209_Top_Ten_Reasons_to_Eat_Organic.html
http://www.thefutureisorganic.net/tenreasons.htm
http://www.articlesbase.com/wellness-articles/seven-reasons-to-eat-organic-foods-797275.html
That is a lot of reasons to eat organic. Organic food is better in every way and plus you can be proud of where your money is going because small land owners can keep their farms and there is more enviornmental justice and good for the earth and the people on it.
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August 13th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Why do people constantly make the argument that something is probably bad for you or unsafe because it’s made by a for-profit company? I hear this all the time about how big companies only care about profit and therefore their harming everyone. In the real world it is always the opposit. If you make something harmful it is impossible to stop people from finding out. In a free society word gets out. People do not want to buy a product that has a reputation for being of poor quality and unsafe. It is bad for buisiness, never even mind being sued.
If something is government backed or gets money from subsides more than from sales then why even bother making a safe product? Look at the Soviet Union. compare the safety record of a Soviet airliner to one made by Boeing or McDonald Douglas or compare a soviet car to a Japanese or German or American one and you will see what I mean.
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August 14th, 2009 at 4:50 am
I think that could be put down to shoddy maintenance, and general primitive conditions in the Soviet Union. Many Soviet airports had mere dirt strips rather than hard-surface runways — that’s why Soviet jetliners typically had huge low-pressure tires — and some parts of the country had few electronic navigation aids, which is why some older Soviet transports had glass noses similar to those on WWII bombers (for visual navigation).
The real disadvantage of Soviet airliners compared to Western ones was not safety, but poor fuel economy due to inferior engines. For example, the Ilyushin Il-86 was the only wide-body jet in the world to use low-bypass turbofan engines, as the Soviets didn’t have any high-bypass designs at the time.
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August 14th, 2009 at 11:24 am
George Carty said:
Indeed, the safety record of the Soviet Union’s airlines was not all that bad. It wasn’t nearly as good as the US or Western Europe, but by the 1970’s to the fall of the USSR, it was fairly safe to travel by air.
Still, Zepman’s point stands in so far as the general quality of production and design. They were gas guzzlers, loud, uncomfortable, prone to mechanical problems etc. Even today, the Russian aerospace industry is having a lot of trouble breaking into the world commercial airline sector, even though they make several airliners comparable in size and capacity to Boeing or Airbus products.
They did make some pretty awesoms spacecraft and military aircraft, but that was because they had to.
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August 14th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
drbuzz0 said:
That’s because historically, very few Russian airliners were sold outside the Soviet empire (even China bought mostly Western machines). This means that Russian aircraft manufacturers don’t have the worldwide after-sales support networks that Boeing and Airbus have.
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September 20th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
What about pesticides and herbicides and how they accumulate in the environment and the human body? As to my knowledge most of them are not bio degradable. This is what concerns me the most about industrial agriculture and the prominent reason why I try to eat organic vegetables and fruits. Only because a study turns up which tells me that organic food contains the same amount of minerals and vitamins as conventionally grown food I won’t stop worrying about such issues.
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September 20th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Grimbel said:
As far as human health impacts, they’re all very tightly tested for that and most do not bioacumulate in any way – that is assuming there is even anything left in the food after it has been rained on, washed and cooked.
In the enviornment, it varies quite a lot. DDT, which is no longer in general use has an enviornmental half-life of as little as a couple of weeks in fast flowing water to about a month in biologically active soil all the way to years in dry, inactive soil – but that would be rare in most farming applications. That would be fairly typical for organochloride insectacides. Organophosphates may be about the same or may last longer but that would depend a lot on moisture and factors like that.
Pyrethroids tend to be faster to decompose, with some exceptions.
Copper sulfate, a common product used in organic agriculture lasts… damn near forever. It really does not decompose.
Most Persistent organic* pesticides (those that do not break down quickly) were banned or severely restricted by the stockhome convention
*organic by the real definition – the chemical one.
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