Organic food: Pricey, not particularly healthy, won't save you from cancer One of the primary drivers of the growth in organic food sales over the last couple of decades is the perception that organic food is healthier than conventionally farmed food. It stands to reason, doesn’t it? After all conventional crops depend on chemicals and organic food doesn't. And we all know that chemicals, in this …
Erm, the premiss of organics that it is better for the wildlife and environment in general. Not that is is somehow 'better' for you (there is a reason why we have food standards, lots of testing for humans, not so much for anything else).
Looks like hijack by media and magic berry purveyors, people just need re-educating.
Part of the organic thing is that it tastes better and, because there aren't any pesticides, it's supposed to be better for the eater and the environment. As far as the first is concerned, I couldn't say that organic was any better than anything else.
As for the other two, there appears to be no cancer risk from non-organic, as for what other benefits organic might offer in other health terms, perhaps these will be tested too.
Finally, organic farmers *are* allowed to use chemicals, it's just that the range of them is restricted, and they can't use modern pesticides. There's an argument to be made that, because the chemicals they use are less effective than modern pesticides, they have to be used more often.
Possibly the best argument for organics might be the wildlife angle, everything else looks doubtful to me.
That's why the results of the study shouldn't be surprising. eg. Fair trade coffee is "a good thing" because it helps poor farmers, not because it keeps you awake better. Organic shouldn't be better as food.
What is surprising is that people who eat organic/home grown veg would be expected to be more health conscious, eat better diets, not smoke/drink, etc.
So either they did a really good job of correcting for this - ie found yoga+healthy eating+exercise nuts who nevertheless only ate supermarket veg.
Or the whole study was too small/short to show any effect.
Or those who claimed that they always ate organic were lying.
"Or those who claimed that they always ate organic were lying." Well, there are other options: a) they don't actually know what "organic" means, and/or b) the food they are buying as "organic" is mislabelled (deliberately or accidentally).
(I have no dog in this fight - I don't have patience to shop routinely at small grocers, so I get most of my food from supermarkets. Organic and non-organic supermarket fruit and veg taste exactly the same to me, and so there is no reason to buy the more expensive stuff. If I happen to be somewhere where there is a farmers' market, I'll buy varieties that I don't know, just in the same way as I'll always try a beer I don't know. Some of those are nicer than supermarket produce, some aren't. I do have a problem with people worried about "chemicals" just because they are new.)
That's a very biased article (so unlike the reg), it even tells us what we care about and what we don't. I eat a lot of organic food and it's not because I think it tasts better, it's not because I think it will reduce cancer and it's not because I think it's more nutritious.
This planet is going to hell in a hand cart. If you think that the best way to solve humanities problems are to hand the whole lot over to big corporate petro-chemical industries with profit motivated mono-cultures then go for it. Some of us care where we're heading and don't want to go there.
Just like if you announce you are a vegetarian, meat eaters immediately launch into attacking you, "well you eat fish don't you?", "and eggs, and milk, they are from animals". They feel threatened and have to justify their meat eating. Why? I don;t mind them eating meat, it's their choice, so why attack me for mine, very odd. And it's the same with orgainic, I choose it where available, so why do people who don't choose it feel they have to attack it all the time?
> Just like if you announce you are a vegetarian, meat eaters immediately launch into attacking you, "well you eat fish don't you?", "and eggs, and milk, they are from animals". They feel threatened and have to justify their meat eating.
I suspect in most cases they're not attacking you, or trying to justify their meat eating; they're likely just trying to work out what *kind* of vegetarian you are. The term "vegetarian" is used by a huge variety of people to mean a huge variety of things, from "I don't like the taste of some meat products" to "practically vegan".
Often we meat eaters are just trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance.
We've been told by someone that they are vegetarians. But they must have a reason for that and it needs to be coherent. If , say, they use milk products that means that someone needs to eat the veal on their behalf. And if it's just that they don't like the taste of meat (fair enough) why is that to be given more respect than a guest who doesn't like the taste of carrots?
"We've been told by someone that they are vegetarians. But they must have a reason for that and it needs to be coherent. "
Why? And why is it your business to question. Why does vegetarianism make people feel they need to ask those questions.
If I were to say "I always drive my car into work", nobody would ask me to justify it, or to provide a coherent reason for doing so: It's my personal choice and respected. So why can't people's put whatever food they want into their body without being quizzed on it?
Psyx
Because, my assumption sorry, is that this comes alongside the need to provde a different meal for them at a dinner party. Which we have no problem with as we happily allow for all our guests' preferences as long as we know exactly what they do or don't eat. Providing as it doesn't come with a package of self-righteous demands. By all means say you don't eat meat because you don't like it. or that you are a Vegan. But be aware that if you do drink milk a little baby calf has been born to die, so don't think you are on the moral high ground if you don't eat it yourself.
I'm not rabid about it but I always buy the organic version, if there is one. A bag of carrots last me for ages anyway so why not spend the extra 50p on the off-chance there is some benefit? If I had to buy three bags of carrots per day I would see it differently of course.
Let's say there is no proven organic benefit whatsoever - I still think it's worth it just to eat something on which somebody has spent specific time and care to get right, instead of some old crap that fell off a container ship in a plastic bag.
It certainly is strange about the militant meat-eaters though. Occasionally the money-savers on hotdealsuk.com will post a cheap deal on Quorn burgers or similar and the anti- brigade are guaranteed to come storming in accusing people of hypocrisy, going against nature, etc.
Invite a vegetarian to dinner and they expect you to cater to their dietary choice....
Get invited to dinner by a vegetarian and what are the chances they will take your meat eating into account and cook accordingly? Yup square root of fuck all.
(disclaimer I am an omnivore with carnivourous tendencies and a Coeliac - went to a vegetarian wedding and the food was all pretty much high wheat/gluten - their response? Well theres salad you can eat. - Things you put up with for family.)
"Get invited to dinner by a vegetarian and what are the chances they will take your meat eating into account and cook accordingly? Yup square root of fuck all."
Well, you always have the option of not going.
Many veggies don't want to handle meat because they find it disgusting. I don't believe they should have to feel physically nauseous just to cater to my *preference* of eating meat. Which is the difference: There is nothing to stop me going a meal without meat except for a simple preference, whereas the opposite corner is a moral choice.
Of course they also have the option of not turning up at my BBQs... :)
Terry;
"But be aware that if you do drink milk a little baby calf has been born to die, so don't think you are on the moral high ground if you don't eat it yourself."
That's not a legitimate thing to do though. We all have moral lines and we all go as far as we are willing: We make only the sacrifices we want to and then draw a line, and it's not for others to say "You're a dick because your line isn't quite in the right place" - regardless of if they're vegan or carnivore. I think the whole "You suck as someone who cares about animals because you drink milk" thing - and similar accusations - are wholly inappropriate. It's like saying "You only make a small difference, so you're a hypocrite and shouldn't bother at all".
On the other side of the fence, I get similar comments from veggies sometimes: "You eat meat, scum" [or slightly more polite words to that effect]. When the reality is that I eat meat once every day or two and generally avoid beef because I recognise that it is a wasteful luxury that I don't need to fill my face with at every meal. But people are unwilling to give credit for a partial victory and try to make it a black and white distinction*. Another example is condemning someone as a smoker when they're down to a pack a week.
I personally believe we should give more credit for partial 'victories', instead of saying "You haven't done enough". After all: A lot of us do give a toss about the planet, but not enough to go and live in a box without modern consumer comforts, so ultimately we're all kinda doing half a job as regards whatever moral causes we support.*
* Don't even get me started on vegans who own nine meat-eating cats who eat more meat on a daily basis than I do and have a go at me eating a bit of chicken.
**Unless you happen to be one of the genuinely altruistic people who lives in a box in Cambodia and digs up landmines for a living. Next to those people we are all a bit hypocritical, I feel.
"If I were to say "I always drive my car into work", nobody would ask me to justify it, " If you were easily able to walk or cycle instead, I would. Why? Because if you're driving when you don't need to you're being a selfish arse and needlessly polluting a planet that we *both* have to share.
_If I were to say "I always drive my car into work", nobody would ask me to justify it, _
If you lived 2 minutes walk from work, it would be quite common for people to ask. If you live 30 minutes drive away and had a prosthetic leg, less common.
People ask about things that they want to find out about. Someone saying they are a vegetarian while eating fish & chips that need to be clarified.
I have a friend who feels she is a vegetarian but when we talked about it, most of the time she doesn't like eating creatures that make a noise.
Not liking the taste of meat no more makes you a vegetarian than not liking the taste of spinach stops me being an omnivore.
People like to know why other people do stuff. Not to beat them down but to know how to react. If you have some deeply held philosophical reason for identifying as one, that will cause me to react differently to if it is just becauseyou had a bad experience in the KFC that changed your preferences.
Omnivores "attacking" vegans? Really? We couldn't care less actually.
It only comes up when vegans and the somewhat less extreme types are obnoxious in their declarations. Why would someone who is not a food zealot care one way or the other really? It makes zero sense.
On the other hand, it makes a lot of sense that a Zealot would tend to be obnoxious.
"Just like if you announce you are a vegetarian, meat eaters immediately launch into attacking you."
Don't blame 'meat eaters' as a group for that. Blame arseholes. You don't have to be a meat eater to condemn other's for frugal and healthy eating habits, but you do have to be an arsehole.
"This planet is going to hell in a hand cart. If you think that the best way to solve humanities problems are to hand the whole lot over to big corporate petro-chemical industries with profit motivated mono-cultures then go for it."
No, I don't think the answer is to hand everything over to big business, but neither do I think the answer is to adopt a less efficient means of food production that results in more forests being destroyed and turned into farmland.
There are pros and cons to both approaches.
"Just like if you announce you are a vegetarian, meat eaters immediately launch into attacking you, "well you eat fish don't you?", "and eggs, and milk, they are from animals". They feel threatened and have to justify their meat eating."
As a confirmed carnivore (I get cranky if I don't get my daily dose of flesh), I don't feel at all threatened by people being vegetarians - everyone is entitled to eat how they choose, as long as they don't try to shove it down my throat (pardon the pun!).
If people decide to preach at me about their vegetarianism, however, I'd be fully justified in winding them up in return. It's amusing, usually after a couple of drinks, to look at them in mock horror and say something along the lines of 'But eating vegetables is so cruel! How would you like to be yanked from your nice warm bed in the ground, have your skin peeled off and be chucked into a pan of boiling water? Have you never heard the anguished shrieks of a carrot being boiled alive?'
The only vegetarians that truly irritate me are those who seem to think that if everyone was vegetarian then life would be so much better for the animals... ignoring the fact that if people stopped eating meat it would result in widespread culling of herds of animals that have been bred purely as a source of food.
It's amusing, usually after a couple of drinks, to look at them in mock horror and say something along the lines of 'But eating vegetables is so cruel! How would you like to be yanked from your nice warm bed in the ground, have your skin peeled off and be chucked into a pan of boiling water? Have you never heard the anguished shrieks of a carrot being boiled alive?'
I do the same joke, but from the opposite side: I'm a vegetarian and when people ask if it's because I'm an animal lover I reply "No, it's because I want to kill all those fucking irritating vegetables". They usually look shocked for half a second then burst out laughing :-)
"ignoring the fact that if people stopped eating meat it would result in widespread culling of herds of animals that have been bred purely as a source of food."
To be fair, it wouldn't happen over night, so animals would be culled for food until there was no more demand, so that's a bit of a spurious argument.
I would also argue that mass-farmed indoor pigs, cattle and poultry would be better off not being born than having their current lifestyle. Hi: welcome to life. Welcome to crowding, food in pellets, no sunshine and certain death in the next few months! Yeah: I'll pass. And I'm not even a veggie animal lover!
I am really tired of being talked down by organic-luvvies for not buying into their views. Not particularly healthy? "Oh, that's OK, I don't buy it for that. I buy it for taste." What, taste comes from picking practice and minimizing time to market? "Then I buy it to save the planet or to fight capitalism".
Hey, buy what you want, but stop claiming moral superiority.
Ask yourself this question: if organic yields are less per acre (and there seems to 25% less yield overall, esp on cereals) then we need more space to grow the organic stuff. That at a time where, quite possibly, global warming will start to impact yields and, horror, might need mitigation by genetic tweaking. How would increased land use help the planet again? How would poor people benefit from premium food costs?
In North America, the market cap of Whole Foods* (organic supermarket chain) is 6-10x that of standard chains per store. Anybody think their $6 4oz can of cat food tuna is especially planet-saving? Certainly not doing much for tuna, a fish I avoid because many of its species are over-fished. Whole Foods avocado "deal": 2 for $5! Standard avocados are about $1 elsewhere. My local food co-op has them organic ones at 25% premium, typically around $1.25. Guess where Whole Foods' 10x market cap bonus is coming from?
Someone quipped at some point that organic had finally managed to separate rich and poor folks' food again thus allowing self-chosen premiums (and industry profits) back. My local food coop? No longer very cheap, having moved to 70% organics.
I do buy more organic meat, in the naive expectation that, just maybe, the animals will get treated better (they sometimes taste better too). And it seems more planet-saving to just eat less meat, organic or not. I buy some organics, cause I figure it might dump less phosphates into the ground water. But I'd buy a Monsanto-sourced GMO tomato just as quickly if it was proven to minimize runoffs.
I do care about the planet but good intentions do not solve problems by themselves. Appropriate solutions do. If organic wants to claim to solve problems, not merely address consumer's wants, then it needs to demonstrate its effectiveness, just like everything else. Good article.
* https://www.google.ca/finance?cid=656159
That it's going to be pretty bad for everyone if the bees die out etc etc.
but it looks like a lot of others got here first. And it's not just about not using chemicals, there's also good land management, soil enrichment, recycling of organic waste materials... a whole lot of stuff that got thrown out with the agri-chemical boom in the post-war years. Yes, there's hogwash and misinformation, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water here.
A friend of mine notices that her guinea pigs refuse standard supermarket vegetables but eat locally produced and organic vegetables (locally is not necessarily organic) heartily.
Her supposition is that the long storage of supermarket fruit and veg is reducing the actual nutritional content.
That might be useful line of enquiry to see if the evidence supports the hypothesis. It would also explain one of the perceived benefits of organic. It actually has a taste
A friend of mine notices that her guinea pigs refuse standard supermarket vegetables but eat locally produced and organic vegetables (locally is not necessarily organic) heartily.
Her supposition is that the long storage of supermarket fruit and veg is reducing the actual nutritional content.
It seems to me more likely that the guinea pigs simply prefer their food to be fresh, than that they have any innate understanding of nutritional values. Supermarket food tends to have been sitting around (sometimes sealed in a bag of nitrogen to discourage it from going bad) for some time, regardless of its original organic credentials.
"It seems to me more likely that the guinea pigs simply prefer their food to be fresh, than that they have any innate understanding of nutritional values..."
And why do you think those highly-evolved little mammals prefer their food to be fresh? Because, on the whole, that means it has better nutritional content (and is less likely to make them sick).
Most vegetables are trying to kill pests in one way or another, so they all contain various poisons. OK, we've bred some down to lower levels, but they are still there.
So when you eat your super-organic broccoli, you are consuming a cocktail of nasties, organic or not.
Anyway, sometimes those pesticides are good.
**Reaches for cup of tea**
The environmental benefits aren't entirely clear either. It may well be better for the local environment to produce organically, but if the productivity is lower, it means we have to have more land in agriculture. Which is better - less land farmed, or more land farmed at a lower intensity? Not that simple.
The high intensity farming practices can be devastating for wildlife. If organic farming can be combined with good land management and wildlife friendly practices, it might be more acceptable to use land which would be put aside for wildlife for some level of farming.
There is a new form of high tech farming starting to emerge that looks better on
*water use
*output
*pesticides
These are hydroponic vertical farms.
They use low power coloured LED lighting,
High water efficiency - also recycled
Are in a closed environment so pests are far less of a problem & if any pesticide use is required it is targeted and much easier to prevent contamination of the environment.
They have a much, much higher output per sq m
Worth looking up.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hydroponic+vertical+farms&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb&gfe_rd=cr&ei=lcA-U6-cK7Oy0AWPuYDYAw
Well since they are built in warehouses, daylight is a bit of a problem. You could make the entire thing of glass but then temperature control becomes an expensive requirement.
Many plants don't make use of the full light spectrum but particular wavelengths. LED's can be computer controlled to provide the most efficient complete light cycle for the plants in question.
In the early days of these vertical farms, light was a real problem. In a vast warehouse it was found that even with glass walls or ceilings not enough light was provided to the whole crop & artificial light was still required. Before implementing this with LEDs, that lighting was very expensive greatly reducing the economic & environmental advantages provided by the method.
Clear enough for you?
"The environmental benefits aren't entirely clear either."
Oh how right you are. People who use "organic" pesticides may still be harming the environment.
There is great uncertainty on this whole issue, and no 100% correct answer.
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~lhom/organictext.html
ORGANIC PESTICIDES VERSUS SYNTHETIC PESTICIDES
"Clearly, the less we impact our environment, the better off we all are. Organic farming practices have greatly advanced the use of non-chemical means to control pests, as mentioned earlier.
Unfortunately, these non-chemical methods do not always provide enough protection, and it's necessary to use chemical pesticides. How do organic pesticides compare with conventional pesticides?
A recent study compared the effectiveness of a rotenone-pyrethrin mixture versus a synthetic pesticide, imidan. Rotenone and pyrethrin are two common organic pesticides; imidan is considered a "soft" synthetic pesticide (i.e., designed to have a brief lifetime after application, and other traits that minimize unwanted effects). It was found that up to 7 applications of the rotenone- pyrethrin mixture were required to obtain the level of protection provided by 2 applications of imidan.
It seems unlikely that 7 applications of rotenone and pyrethrin are really better for the environment than 2 applications of imidan, especially when rotenone is extremely toxic to fish and other aquatic life.
It should be noted, however, that we don't know for certain which system is more harmful. This is because we do not look at organic pesticides the same way that we look at conventional pesticides. We don't know how long these organic pesticides persist in the environment, or the full extent of their effects.
When you look at lists of pesticides allowed in organic agriculture, you find warnings such as, "Use with caution. The toxicological effects of [organic pesticide X] are largely unknown," or "Its persistence in the soil is unknown." Again, researchers haven't bothered to study the effects of organic pesticides because it is assumed that "natural" chemicals are automatically safe."
What's all this c**p about a particular type of food protecting you against cancer?
The perception talked of in this article is largely the fault of poor science articles. Very few people involved in the organic food sector would make the claims asserted in this article - with the notable exception of the loons.
And in any group there are a small percentage of loons.
... for the avoidance of doubt ...
Just remember these are not representative of the entire group.
The main drivers behind production of organic crops falls into two categories:
1. Luxury food = luxury prices.
2. Some people think that a different farming method is better for the environment (for the most part this means their local environment).
But it's mostly about point 1 - being able to charge a premium.
The *increase* in certain cancer risks - I haven't read the paper, just the Reg's summary - implies that those increased rates are actually the baseline figures[1], and that something in the agri-chemical cocktail applied to normal food is reducing the cancer risk. That would suggest that research into which is doing what; there seems to a benefit which should be explored.
[1] Unless of course, the chemicals/drugs the Food Association *do* allow are in some way unbeneficial? A few minutes' searching failed to provide a list.
> Have you tried tofu fried in bacon fat, though?
It doesn't matter what it tastes like. I'm not Japanese. So I don't have a Japanese tolerance to glutamates. So if I go whole hog with the Asian cookery, I will end up with an itchy reaction.
My aversion to the stuff (tofu) is probably instinctive. Just like they wouldn't eat dairy cheese.
Everything I eat, with two exceptions, is organic.
The only things I eat that are not molecules containing carbon are water (h2O), and salt (NaCl).
Although, some of my salt is smoked, so it may even count as organic (and the flavour it adds is truly excellent).
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