Is organic food all it’s cracked up to be?
Organically grown food is defined as food which is grown without chemical pesticides or synthetic fertilisers. The organic food industry was estimated to be worth £29 billion globally in 2007, some £2 billion in the UK.
The point that I’m going to look into over organic food is whether it has any greater nutritional benefit.
Basically there is very limited scientific evidence that organic food has any more nutritional benefits than conventional food. Googling ‘Is organic food better for you’, brings up some interesting results. The first result is a BBC news article with the headline, ‘Organic produce ‘better for you’’. For the layman that’s surely the question solved isn’t it? Organic food is better for you so buy it if you can. Someone who was questioning the benefits of organic food need go no further. The very real danger however is cherry picking this story. By that I mean picking out the stories, or more importantly scientific trials, that back up your point of view without considering the evidence to the contrary.
The amusing thing on that google search was the combination of search results. After the first result brought up the BBC article the second result brought up a story claiming the complete opposite. From the NHS choices website, it was an article with the title, ‘Organic food is no nutritionally better for you than regular produce’. Who to believe? To get the real results you’ve got to do a bit of digging.
The BBC article covers the publishing of a study funded by the EU at Newcastle University which claims to show higher levels of antioxidants and lower levels of fatty acids in organic food compared to conventional food. There are some issues with this study. Sourcing the original paper I found that the study was run by an organization called QILF, Quality low input food. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that QILF are a pro- organic food lobby but they clearly state their objective to investigate further into organic food as a means of future extensive farming use. This could show a possible element of researcher bias, these guys are actively involved in researching organic food and are possibly searching for the results that they need. It would be nice for the study to be independent but that is incredibly rare these days. The BBC article also stated that the results showed ‘significant variations’. What is also quoted in the article is the hits of the study. For example the most impressive numbers, that levels of antioxidants in cows milk can be up to 80% higher than normal milk, are plonked right at the head of the article. The data seems to suggest that only fluctuations in fatty acids and antioxidants were noticed. Other nutrients may have seen no fluctuation, but that isn’t reported because it simply doesn’t make good news. I’m being speculative here but who cares.
It seems the reality on the issue however is different. The wealth of studies shows that organic food has little or no nutritional benefit over conventionally produced food. This position has been held by the Food Standards Agency for many years, having continually rebuked ‘evidence’ which claims to show nutritional benefits. The most impressive evidence to back this is up is a meta- analysis conducted by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. A meta- analysis involves basically summing up all the previous trials, studies, data etc, on the topic, in this case organic food, and seeing what the results tell you. The ‘systematic review’ aimed to ‘quantitatively assess the differences in reported nutrient content between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs’. So no research bias there then. The wealth of data that these guys went through was extraordinary. They gathered 52,471 articles on the topic and looked into a range of over 450 nutrients. Big numbers. They took just 55 studies forward, and organised the range of nutrients in 11 categories. 8 of the 11 categories saw no statistical difference in nutrient content between organically and conventionally grown crops. The 3 categories which saw significant statistical differences between the two groups were where; Organically produced food was higher in phosphorous levels and titratable acidity (a measure of a fruits ripeness at harvest) while conventionally produced food was higher in levels of nitrogen.
This is what the researchers concluded, ‘On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods.’
So although it may taste nicer, be better for the environment, or warm to your ethical values, consider that it doesn't have any nutritional benefits.
If that doesn’t answer your question on nutrition levels in organic/conventionally grown foods then I have no idea what will.
Sources-
BBC article - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7067100.stm
NHS choices article - http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/07July/Pages/OrganicFoodIsNoBetter.aspx
QLIF - http://www.qlif.org/
London school of trop. med. Press release - http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/news/2009/organicfood.html
The report itself - http://www.ajcn.org/content/early/2009/07/29/ajcn.2009.28041.abstract
Interesting article. I had never really considered whether the organic food I eat is better for me, rather if fewer, zero or 'more environmentally friendly' pesticides have been used in their harvest. Certainly the high price of organic food causes people to question the true benefits and implications, so that at least they feel responsible, and a part of a greener movement. We have a grocery box delivered to our door once a week. It's organic, but the main reason we get it is because the vegetables are the freshest you can buy commercially, and taste pretty fantastic!
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