“Organic food no better”
There’s a controversy in Britain at the moment about a new report that claims to prove that organic food is no better for you than chemically agro-grown food.
The report was written by the government’s Food Standards Agency, which compared 55 scientific studies comparing organic and non-organic produce. Of course, the Soil Association (Britain’s organic food organisation) fought back, saying, “What about the presticide residue?”
“We didn’t look at that,” replied the FSA. “We looked at nutritional elements only. Pesticides are fine, because they are monitored and we don’t believe they are dangerous to food.”
I’d bet anyone reading this thinks that’s doubtful. Even if organic food presented no advantages over agro-biz food, I’d still buy it to avoid the pesticides. But if that’s the best argument the soil association can come up with, then now I am wondering whether the report is right about the relative nutritional content.
Our soil has been so leached of certain minerals (Selenium for example), by centuries of bad agriculture that even if you double-dig, and compost, and mulch, and treat your soil well, it will still be deficient unless you actually add the things it is lacking. John Jeavons, the food guru who runs an experimental farm in Northern California, and wrote ‘How To Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible’ advises that we have our soil extensively tested, and add particular ammendments, to balance it before growing anything.
It stands to reason that the balance of my compost will reflect the balance of my diet. It’s probably deficient in several things, and nourishing my garden with it will create a viscious cycle. Another argument for community sharing–we should be pooling and sharing our compost!
It’s also a good argument for using dung, eggshells, bones (or bone-meal) and other animal products in our soil ammendments, as well as just the residues of the vegetables that came out of it.
Long ago, that seminal (ovarian?) work on vegetarian cooking, ‘Laurel’s Kitchen’, included tables listing the nutritional elements in all kinds of foods, to prove that the nutrients were available to vegetarians who balance their diet. But who’s to say that the apple I eat is the same as the apple they tested?
I walked past a field a few days ago that had a line of four apple trees in it. Three were small and squinty, but the fourth stood proud and fat, and full of apples. What made the different? Is there a layer of different soil there? Did something die under the tree and nourish it? Does a spring come up under the big one to water it? And which apples are fuller of vitamins and minerals–the squinty ones, or the big ones?
Is our faith in organic just another expensive urban myth?
Aug 10, 2009
Organic Certified crops in the United States are only guaranteed free of synthesized pesticides (e.g. things we have invented or refined); they still make heavy use of natural pesticides, which in many cases can be more harmful.
Aug 10, 2009
Food cannot be quantified by nutrition alone. It has a complex weave of inputs and outputs as do all natural processes. Organic veg is still harvested with tractors, is still transported unnecessary distances etc etc. I believe that organic crops are simply *less* damaging to the biosphere than conventionally farmed crops, and thus I’ll buy them when I can. Also, organic pesticides have strict controls regarding and biodegradability, but it’s infinitely preferable to the petrochemical alternatives even if nutrition is about the same. After all, organic plants have been eaten by most lifeforms since long before oil-based farming and laboratory gods started raping land and DNA respectively, and that’ll do me.
By the way, if grown right, organic food yields can be higher than conventional (even GM) – but it has to be ALLOWED to grow as it dictates by its nature, not by us. Check out Masanobu Fukuoka – he managed more rice yield WITHOUT PADDYING in a naturally inspired cycle. As should all food. Watch a film called ‘A Farm for the Future’ online and you’ll see where we should be heading.
Aug 11, 2009
I’m glad someone followed up on this study and asked the question about pesticides. Their conclusions made no sense to me.
Aug 12, 2009
Good article. One thing left out:
A large percentage of “organic” food originates from China. This is particularly the case in Europe, but increasingly so in the US and Japan. With all the recent concerns over children’s toys and dog food, I have little confidence in China’s organic standards. Unfortunately in the US there are no FDA mandates requiring the country of origin to be made known to the consumer. In this respect organic food can be dangerous when a non-organic counterpart is clearly a domestic product.
Aug 14, 2009
My conclusion from this and other facts/speculation on organic food is to buy as much as possible from small local growers at CSA’s, Farmer’s Markets and reputable farmstands. Being able to speak directly to the growers or at least their distributors helps maintain accountability. It seems we’ve reached the moment where even “organic” has hit a wall. We need to be seeking out the farmers who are working biodynamically and have no desire to exploit the “organics” market.
Aug 23, 2009
Sorry, run that past me again?
“What about the pesticide residue?”
“We didn’t look at that,” replied the FSA. “We looked at nutritional elements only. Pesticides are fine, because they are monitored and we don’t believe they are dangerous to food.”
For those of you whose English might be a bit patchy, ‘monitored’, in this context, means that a pesticide is fine to eat until the FSA bans it for not being fine to eat.
Reasons for banning a pesticide include a sudden realisation on the part of the FSA that perhaps the initial tests that they conducted to determine the level of risk to human health may have been, I don’t know, somehow incomplete.
Aug 24, 2009
[...] definition, that the reviewers didn’t consider pesticide residue as worthy of examining. “We didn’t look at that. We looked at nutritional elements only. Pesticides are fine, because they are monitored and we [...]
Aug 25, 2009
Isn’t there anybody doing the ‘watchdog’ role to
randomly test and insure the quality of our
organic foods? Didn’t California food
retailers have to face the bad news so often that
they became proactively involved in the food
testing too? What happened or who still is
doing the job on this?
I’m still suspicious of say, Chilean org apples
which show up in Phila. very cheap with their
org label stuck on. Don’t they have a lower
pesticide standard to meet too? Who tests?
The expenses should be born by the retailers
and quality control here sounds like the
proper role of gov’t too.
Oct 31, 2009
Bush cut funding to FDA (Food and Drug Admin).
All of the recent CA e.coli food outbreaks were tested by Primus Labs. Clean.
Right.
There has never been adequate testing. Before Bush, a farm might be visited once in ten years.
Jan 05, 2010
Complete rubbish. Lobbyists. Check out recent German research. Or just check it out yourself. Organic food definitely is better. There are thousands of reasons. It grows slower so that it contains less water and the minerals and vitamins are therefore more concentrated. Anyway, the main reason you buy it should be because it is a donation to the environment, not because you ONLY egoistically want to live as free from pesticides as possible.
Jan 05, 2010
I admit though that German organic food is in most cases probably much safer and of higher quality than American or British products. There are lots of shops in Germany that sell only organic food and in other countries organic and conventional food are usually sold in one and the same shop and made by one company, as far as I understand it, so the danger of contamination is much higher.
Mar 08, 2010
I am not against organic food – about half of my food purchases are. But your arguments aren’t as rational as the Food Standards Agency.
i.e.
- “agro-biz food” – most organic farms are BIG agro-biz – smaller operators have a very hard time infiltrating the major purveyors.
- the plant strains used in organic farming are often those with the highest levels of naturally incurring pesticides – which can be as harmful to animal health as the synthetic
- “It stands to reason that the balance of my compost will reflect the balance of my diet.” – does not stand to reason at all. The “government’s Food Standards Agency, which compared 55 scientific studies comparing organic and non-organic produce” came to the opposite conclusion – yours is wishful thinking.