I've no idea if the tomatoes I grow down my allotment are nutritionally better than the ones bought from supermarkets but I know they taste an awful lot better

Organic Better?

I have 24 head of cattle who are a mixture of beef breeds and pedigree Herefords. They are only given medication when they require it.

The land we graze hasn't been sprayed in years and is fertilized using the manure from the cows.

So are my cattle worse than organic cattle?

My point is there are good and bad sides to all farming. There are some organic farms that are run just as intensively as non-organic variants.

Studied contents of food, not effect on humans

If you look at the source meta study, it says they have not found any reliable long term studies of effects of organic vs. industrial food on humans. (And I guess Mr Page knew that. Last article I've read by this name.)

They have just looked at studies that analysed the contents of these foods. I've not heard any serious scientists state that we understand body chemistry so far that we can distinguish well between "non-quite-immediately-poisonous food" and "long-term-healthy food" with a mass spectrometer or something like that.

Peak phosphorous

On the very day that a mining company announces plans to dig out a 10 year global supply (and thus very much more than that for the UK) from one small corner of Yorkshire.

Hmmm....

What IS organic?

It seems to me that the only thing that is constant about "organic" foods is that they are more expensive. Now I wonder if money itself is "organic" with all sorts of nice inks, pigments, and paper.

I can see it now (being from the USA): Organic Dollars, on sale for $1.25

Seems logical to me!

Live & Learn!

Organic Movement = Stalin / Mao on Steriods

It's simple math: we don't have enough food to feed the world's 6 billion now. If we go organic we cut food production by around 40% so 2 billion plus people WILL DIE.

There are some things we could do to mitigate this - improve food distribution in less developed countries, lower consumption in better developed countries, have most of the world's population go vegetarian - but they're NEVER going to happen.

Can you really imagine a red neck giving up red meat when he refused to give up the gas guzzling monstrosity he drives? Cut our consumption? Have you compared the size of the weight loss industry with obesity statistics? Notice how the obesity stats NEVER go down?

Basically, cutting back going to happen: two billion have to die and all else being equal, they'll be the two billion poorest.

Which is just not fair: billions die in the 3rd world because of some fetish of rich westerners?

I figure the only fair solution is that, for every 5 people who eat Organic, two have to kill themselves. Their bodies could be used for fertilizer. Nice and organic.

'we don't have enough food to feed the world's 6 billion now.'

Yes we do, we just have a distribution\politician problem.

Has there been any recent famine where politics have not been a prime cause or a block in resolving it?

The food I grow

Is just as organic as the stuff I buy from the marche, but is fresher & has nothing sprayed on it or the soil it grows in. Personally I think the term Organic is just yet another marketing hype.

In an ideal world...

...families would think about how many children they were having so as not to burden it with a population explosion.

...all our food would be grown in a way which causes least damage to the natural environment and least animal suffering

I'm aware that there's an environmental argument that goes: 'we must produce food as intensively as possible to minimise the amount of land we require to feed a certain number of people'

But I've seen the effect of intensive agriculture on the countryside. Wild animal populations have been decimated over the last few decades, especially birds, insects, fish... And it could get a lot worse.

In the end, the ultimate responsibility for the wellbeing of the planet rests with people who have children. Until they stop having too many of them, we are stuffed (and the environment too), no matter how we grow food.

For that reason, I'll continue to opt for Organic to support sustainable farmgate prices, better animal husbandry and crop production that doesn't obliterate all other forms of life in the vicinity.

Over to you, breeders... Do your bit too!

Research proudly sponsored by...

...Monsanto and friends!

You're welcome!

Tastes better

For me, the main advantage of organic besides all of the environment thing is taste. Take up rocket, for instance, and you'll find the organic varieties to be much more spicy. Strawberries also taste much better.

"organic" vs "traditional" growing methods

The nutritional values of food whether grown organically or otherwise, will be pretty much the same. The difference is that organically grown foods don't have pesticide and other residues in/on them (or much lower amounts) which have known deleterious affects on the consumer.

Typical mis-information

Until you look at actual nutritional value, you aren't likely to understand that organiclly grown foods are much better than commerically grown foods and that organic foods lack the posion that is in commercially grown foods.

This survey is transparent nonsense. Are they seriously trying to tell us that people who consume significant amounts of pesticides with their food/tea/coffee suffer no ill effects? And let's face it, most organic food (not all) tastes better, so it probably is better. Note that the fact that I said "not all". This means I am not deluding myself.

Sugar and salt in bun

The industry's illusion that its plastic food preservation techniques, packaging and sweetly salty water pumed food is what people want should be challenged. Both organic and non-organic food processes suffer the same problems. In these cases both foods are bad for you.

I do not want a bite of plastic wrapped food with glucose syrup and salt.

When was the last time you bought a glass bottle of milk? From Unigate?

Nutrition never a benefit for Organic.

The whole point of organic food is to reduce exposure to pesticides, fertilizers and hormones which can have harmful effects. Organic producers and promoters would like a nutritional difference but that won't happen. In fact some intensive grown hydroponic veg may have more nutrients thanks to the conditions they are grown in. Organic promotes biodiversity but it will cost because of reduced yield.

My personal feelings are that organic food is a good idea for pregnant women, babies, toddlers whose development may be at risk with hormone and toxin ridden foods.

Research based on... research

So they studied some studies that suggest this.

I wouldn't go throwing out the organic veggies just yet.

I like the flavour better, and surely fewer pesticides couldn't hurt you.

Just to be clear...

"This tends to greatly reduce yields from a given amount of land, making organic food very expensive compared to the regular stuff."

Is pure page. It is not found anywhere in the actual research he is supposed to be reporting on. He also somehow missed that the study showed that organic foods did drastically reduce overall pesticide levels. However, since the non organic foods were still below the accepted safety threshholds, the study writers said that the health benefits would be negligible.

So basically, it comes down to the question of whether you trust the current safety threshholds. The study also highlighted a couple of very specific areas (including resistant bacterial infections) where there were solid provable benefit.