<p>Looks that way.</p>
<p>[Organic</a> food is no healthier, study finds - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090729/hl_nm/us_food_organic]Organic”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090729/hl_nm/us_food_organic)</p>
<p>Buy fresh, in season, local produce. Better yet, grow your own. Much healthier than “organic” apple juice from China (heck, melamine is an organic compound ;))</p>
<p>I don’t think that people who buy organic food do so because they think it has more “nutritional value”. Usually it is because they think that it has less harmful substances (pesticides that can’t be washed off, etc.), and it does not sound like these studies addressed that issue at all.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for anyone else’s motivations, but when I buy organic food, it’s not because it’s more nutritious. It’s primarily about the other impacts of farming practices – especially creating superbugs through overuse of antibiotics.</p>
<p>For most of us, the big issue with “organic” is the absence or reduced amounts of pesticide/antibiotic residues. It would be valuable to learn if “organic” products do in fact have lower residues.</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone who thinks organic is about “nutrition” level. I buy it for similar reasons as above, avoiding of exposure to pesticides for myself, and more importantly, protection of the environment, most specifically for the people who work in the fields, or live near them, and for the lower use of fossil fuels, such as in commercial fertilizer. Which is a very good reason to think not just organic, but local. There’s something perverse about buying organic apples from Chile, which I’ve seen in the grocery store.</p>
<p>Whoever got the idea that “organic” is supposed to mean “more nutritious” doesn’t really understand the issue. The fact that someone thought this was news is disappointing. Organic foods are about kindness to the environment and animals, support of local and sustainable agriculture, and developing an overall sense of closeness with our planet.</p>
<p>People can and do live a hundred years or more on manufactured, mass-produced, and artificial-ingredient-laced foods, so obviously one can get adequate nutrition from them. But that’s not the point!</p>
<p>I shop at local grocery store that posts the place of origin of their produce. You’d be shocked to see where the bulk of the “organic” stuff comes from. Unless you are walking or biking to a farmer’s market to pick up your locally grown organic produce, you are not doing the Earth a favor by driving around chasing organic stuff that was flown in from Chile or trucked in from a few states away.</p>
<p>Organic food is not grown without pesticides! That is a huge misunderstanding that the American public has fallen for hook line and sinker! There are several organic products applied to organic food, some of these are fairly toxic in their technical form. Some are very benign. </p>
<p>USDA’s Pesticide Data Program puts out a report annually on pesticide residues in foods (conventionally grown) and the findings point to the fact that residue levels are way below tolerance levels…orders of magnitude below…Yes, indeed, carbon footprint of organic (non meaning pesticide free)produce from overseas must be considered. Local is best, aka “localvore” movement.</p>
<p>Our first source of vegetables is our gardens; second is local farmer’s markets. Our supermarkets are also starting to label for “locally grown.” </p>
<p>What constitutes “pesticide use” in organics is qualitatively different from what is conventionally used, and to the extent anything questionable might be allowed, that is unfortunately largely attributable to the watered down US organic “standards.” It’s good to know your source.</p>
<p>Studies of pesticide residue on conventional products do not take into account the effect on workers, nearby residents, and the environment overall, which are much bigger concerns to me.</p>
<p>I agree re effects on workers and surrounding neighbors/environment. Pesticide labels however were made with the intent that if used according to them, there should be no adverse human health or environmental impacts.</p>
<p>The biggest players in pesticide residues unfortunately are the long lived organochlorines, DDT in particular, which for sure are found on all produce, organic or not.</p>
<p>Interesting. Let me throw up a quote from “In Defense of Food”:</p>
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<p>Pollan goes on to discuss what might be causing these types of drops in nutritional quality over time. That’s a different issue than comparing a conventionally grown apple with a regular apple. It may be that the only way to get any nutritional benefits from organic foods is by looking at food production in a systemic manner. </p>
<p>I wonder if the British study also looked at pesticide content. There are some fruits and vegetables where buying organic cuts way down on trace pesticides, which can be a real issue for small children or pregnant women. [Organic.org</a> - The “Dirty Dozen”](<a href=“http://www.organic.org/articles/showarticle/article-214]Organic.org”>http://www.organic.org/articles/showarticle/article-214) </p>
<p>BunsenBurner, take a look at a book called “Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the origins of my stuff”. The author is British, and he finds that maybe he’s doing the Earth and society more of a favor buying green beans that are flown in from Africa than buying the local product. My buying preferences are to go local and organic and seasonal yada yada (easy for me, I’m in California), but this book was an eye-opener to just how hard it is to make the best consumer choices.</p>
<p>The Yahoo-linked Reuters article, which states, “Organic food has no nutritional *or health benefits<a href=“italics%20mine”>/i</a> over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday,” is misleading.</p>
<p>The study, which was merely a review of existing literature (neither an experimental nor survey research study comparing the health of people who eat organically-grown food with the health of people who eat commercially-produced food), specifically pertains to comparable food nutrient content. Period. </p>
<p>The 07-29-09 press release issued by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (which can be found at LSHTM’s website under “Press Releases”) states that the study “did not include a review of the content of contaminants or chemical residues in foods from different agricultural production regimens.”</p>
<p>The LSHTM literature review team did not conclude that organically-grown food is “no healthier” than commercially-produced food, but simply that organically-grown food and commercially-produced food are “comparable in their nutrient content.”</p>
<p>I grew up on home garden-grown (pre-trendy) organic produce. I can no longer afford to eat as well as I ate when I was a kid. Today, if I want an apple, I’ll eat a commercially-produced apple, because I can’t afford to pay $$$$ for an organically-grown apple. My genetically-engineered, pesticide and fertilizer-doused commercially-produced apple might be as tasty and nutritious as an organically-grown apple, but I know from personal experience that an organically-grown apple would have been the healthier choice.</p>
<p>Try looking through this:
<a href=“http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5074338[/url]”>http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5074338</a></p>
<p>Yes, I think Yahoo had a headline that was not supported by the story. Problem when you have different headline writers and copy writers. Anyway from the same journal they cited for that study, another tasty tidbit. Old people–feel free to fatten up.</p>
<p>"Conclusions: This study clearly indicates that the generally accepted rule that overweight is associated with morbidity and mortality does not apply to hospitalized elderly patients, for whom fat mass is associated with a decreased risk of adverse events. "</p>
<p>[Fat</a> mass protects hospitalized elderly persons against morbidity and mortality – Bouillanne et al., 10.3945/ajcn.2009.27819 – American Journal of Clinical Nutrition](<a href=“http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2009.27819v1]Fat”>http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2009.27819v1)</p>
<p>I do find it interesting when people buy ‘local’ foods. Do they buy televisions/furniture/cars that are locally made? Do they not travel long distances for vacations? I’m not sure why food products specifically has a distance restriction and others do not.</p>
<p>barrons, I’d had my fill of hospitals by the time I was twenty-six, but if I ever see the inside of another, I’ll have a better-than-average chance of getting out alive.</p>
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<p>Because some of us feel that even though we can’t fix everything, we should fix the things we can. Especially the things that are relatively easy and cheap to fix. I mean, I can’t afford a $2,500 locally-made sofa, but I can afford a $2 locally-grown cucumber. One day, if I can afford the sofa, I’ll buy that, too.</p>
<p>Mr Payne, I eat three meals a day every day, not counting snacks, but I bought only one table and a couple of sofas during my life and I do not plan on getting new ones any time soon :)</p>
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<p>This is not entirely true. EPA finally finished the task of establishing new and stricter health-based tolerance limits for pesticide residues on food in 2007. Until then, many tolerances were set not on the basis of a strict health-protection standard but under a “risk-benefit balancing” standard which allowed regulators to trade off health risks to consumers against benefits to the agricultural sector. Environmental harm is still regulated under an “unreasonable risk” standard, which means EPA can allow some, indeed even a LOT of harm to the environment so so long as it determines that the economic benefits of using the pesticide outweigh the environmental harm. A lot of environmental critics think EPA has been overly generous to pesticide users and pesticide manufacturers in applying that standard, with a lot of resultant environmental harm. The idea that use of a pesticide according to its label means there will be no environmental harm is not only wrong, it’s dangerously misleading; use according to the label only means that in EPA’s judgment the harm to the environment is at an acceptable or “reasonable” level given the pesticide’s benefits.</p>
<p>In my family, we go out of our way to buy organic AND locally grown whenever we can. That’s fairly easy to do here in the Twin Cities metro area where there’s a strong network of local consumer-owned and locally managed food co-ops that market as much fresh local organic food (primarily produce, meats, cheeses, and other dairy) as they can get their hands on. That creates a strong local market for the stuff and encourages local producers to go organic because they can usually get higher prices selling higher-value products through shorter distribution chains. We also buy a lot of locally produced food, much of it organic, at local farmers markets, For us, there are multiple benefits. The food tastes better, for one thing; we get fruits and vegetables that ripen in the fields and orchards and are on our table in a day or two, instead of being picked before ripe, transported long distances under refrigeration, and in some cases artificially “ripened” before being placed on supermarket shelves. Second, it’s better for the local environment. Contamination of surface water and especially groundwater by synthetic pesticides is a huge problem. A lot of this stuff is so toxic that it’s considered hazardous waste and therefore subject to strict regulatory controls if disposed of; but if it’s instead “used” by being liberally applied to farm fields, that’s OK-- yet it ends up in the streams and groundwater just the same, and poses the same environmental and public health hazards either way. Third, buying local helps sustain a stronger local economy. Most of the local organic producers are small mom & pop operations; they make a better living growing healthy organic produce for the local market than they’d make growing bulk commodity crops like corn and soybeans, which is what most of the non-organic farmers around here do. Fourth, there is a significant greenhouse gas impact. It takes a lot of fossil fuels to move produce from California or South America—and that’s true whether the produce is organic or not, by the way; it’s not as if buying non-organic relives you of that problem.</p>