Strange how the study doesn't address the main reasons why I would tend to favor organic foods: less pesticides, its the only way (at least in Canada) to control GMOs in what you eat. Of course there would be other environmental reasons as well, but it still remain based on monocultures.
Exactly. The article avoids the "truth" as to why most people even eat Organic. The health benefits in eating organic are in what you aren't eating (e.g. pesticides, etc).
"Among the 55 of 162 studies that were included in the final analysis, there were a small number of differences in nutrition between organic and conventionally produced food but not large enough to be of any public health relevance, said study leader Dr Alan Dangour.
Although the researchers say that the differences between organic and non-organic food are not 'important', due to the relatively few studies, they report in their analysis that there are higher levels of beneficial nutrients in organic compared to non-organic foods. "
PS: There is a difference between saying there is no significant effect vs. no effect.
I disagree - it's called margin of error and confidence intervals. If the difference is not large enough it can easily fall into the realm of statistical error.
I would check myself I were you. Disagreeing with research is fine, but calling a bunch of trained scientists liars is a pretty serious accusation, especially when you yourself are not trained in the field.
Edit: The report is fine it's the reporting that's off.
Note: not large enough to be of any public health relevance
It's like overclocking a 4Ghz CPU by 0.01 Ghz. It's measurably faster, but not noticeably faster in normal use. So you can say it's an insignificant change, but you can't say they are the same speed. So "Organic has no health benefits" would not be a true statement without significant qualifiers.
Also, this study looked at the people eating the food, and ignored the people growing the good. Obviously, farmers are exposed to pesticides (and other petrochemicals) in much greater concentrations than consumers....
According to the abstact of the study, which the BBC do not link, http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2009.28041v1
the objective was "We sought to quantitatively assess the differences in reported nutrient content between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs." and it was "restricted to the most commonly reported nutrients". The word 'nutrient' according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrient does not cover pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, growth hormones and all the other medicines and chemicals excluded by organic farmers.
The study, according to the link above, did not conclude that 'Organic has no health benefits'.
Avoiding pesticides is half of why I go organic the other is just plain taste.
I don't know if that's because the plant varieties are different, or the method or whatever, but I've blind tested myself (no, it's not scientific, more like Mythbusters's level science) and I can easily tell the produce apart.
That it tastes better may just be in my head, but I can definitely tell them apart just by taste.
There are a motif reasons for the better taste. Often organic produce doesn't get shipped as far, which means growers can pick varieties bread for something other than shelf-life and durability.
Also, organic farmers manage the soil differently. Intensive industrial farming depletes soils and relies on extensive use of refined fertilizers to make up forthe deficit. The soil at organic farms is often richer and plants can pick up more minerals, which can have a real impact on flavor.
Actually, some organic products get shipped further - when there is no local production. Milk is a good example of this. Organic milk is literally inferior to plain milk - it is pasteurized at higher temperatures, has lower levels of Vitamin D as a result, because it has to last longer during shipping in a larger distribution network.
Organic milk has other ancillary benefits you won't find in "plain" milk: The land and animals are treated much better. If you have ever seen a "normal" dairy farm, and watch the amount of antibiotics used to prevent the cow's udders from become infected, it becomes clear that life (for a cow at least) on a organic dairy farm is much a much nicer existence (and thus one I personally want to encourage). Also - the grains that are fed to organic dairy cows must be organic, which means more acres of organic grain production. Many organic dairy farms also do not milk cows that are in the later stages of pregnancy, which reduces the amount of estrogen in the milk fat (high levels of estrogen in the diet are linked to cancer).
So why not use other foods to compensate for the Vitamin D loss? A single serving of tuna naturally contains double(5 microgram) the amount of vitamin D present in a glass of fortified milk(2.5 microgram for fortified, 1microgram for non-fortified).
I'm not sure about that when you factor in that in the US (and Canada?) antibiotics and recombinant bovine growth hormone are commonly given to cattle. The side effects of rGBH include puss in the milk.
Agreed. I bought a bundle of organic cilantro a little while back and it was stinking up the place (in a good way) that normal cilantro simply doesn't. Much or the organic stuff just tastes better.
This goes doubly for eggs - organic & free-range eggs are just a world apart from regular farm eggs.
Thanks for this very interesting link, by an author whose writings I like a lot. (He is a chemist who writes about food, a good background to have for this thread.)
It is a puzzler that he mentions one small sample of rats
that doesn't show the same result (indifference to whether or not food is "organic") shown in many human studies he mentions in his article. This kind of study needs a bigger sample size and a great deal more replication.
Here's another problem: how do we know that either human beings or rats prefer what is best for them? Preferences for smells and tastes may have evolutionary origins that are then exploited by adaptations of food organisms in ways that are not beneficial to the eater.
Actually, we have tried this with my mother in law (not that I want to pick on her) who was convinced that organic bananas tasted better. We made her taste the bananas blindfolded and she couldn't tell the organic and non-organic bananas apart.
We were however capable of telling the difference between organic and non-organic chicken tough.
Some food is grown for visual appeal as well as more realistic goals as increased shelf life or disease resistance. The huge beautiful, yet almost flavorless Golden Delicious being a classic example.
I was under the impression that "Organic" in Canada is mostly a meaningless title. It isn't enforced and can be applied to a wide swath of products that most people would not consider Organic.
For example, "products labeled 'Made With Organic Ingredients', which contain at least 70 percent organic ingredients, but can contain up to 30 percent non-organic ingredients"
There are lots of reasons to eat organic foods- besides health benefit. I quote
"Organic farmers build soil.
Soil is the foundation of the food chain and the primary focus of organic farming. We’re facing the worst topsoil erosion in history due to our current agricultural practice of chemical intensive, mono-crop farming."
That site gives a lot of -interesting?- reasons to eat organic. But that reason in particular stands out to me. Anyone seen pictures of the dust bowl? Here you go~
To be fair, I've met more than one pro-organic person who thinks organic foods are more nutritious. These are often the same people who worry about vague things like "toxins" from eating meat.
Pop science doesn't vindicate textbook science which still discourages high amounts of saturated fat.
And the Massai (and Inuit) referred to in your link are hardly good examples. They have short lifespans (as low as in the 40s), suffer from atherosclerosis and thickening of the arteries. The Inuit are also not long lived and have a high rate of osteoporosis. These groups' "adaptation" to a high protein meat diet is hardly desirable. They are forced to eat a high meat diet out of circumstances, not as a chosen optimal way of life.
Thanks for providing a more interesting response than GP.
In the absence of 'textbook' science citations, I'm going to have to rely on 'pop' science that does provide citations to respected scientists at accredited institutions who have performed actual studies.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/saturated-fat-healthy/ provides another copious set of links to refutations (based on citations, not appeals) of traditional saturated fat studies and other indications of its overly maligned status.
I'll also note the penultimate sentence of the abstract you link: "The Masai vessels enlarge with age to more than compensate for this disease."
Exercise or not, it's worth noting that the study does not draw any strong correlation between saturated fat and a decreased health.
Yes, saturated fats are the molecular basis of many hormones including testosterone and estrogen. You may need very little of them but you do need some.
Quick version: Monsanto is one of the companies creating GMO products and there methods are highly questionable to me.
I would think that lack of thorough testing before releasing is a good start, in addition to cooking some of the test results to see what was desired and ignore what was detrimental to the test subjects.
Isn't it currently illegal in the US to label a food as containing GMO's? Some of the same politicians that were instrumental in getting HMOs introduced into food markets (and the aforementioned ban on wording) were previous or became employees of Monsanto. Not the most disinterested of parties...
Then there is the speculative links to species decline. Gene-modded soy is grown with the intention of being dowsed in pesticides, which are having negative impacts on surrounding plant and animal cultures.
Fields in South America are now allegedly only capable of producing GMO corn, as cross pollination occurs, more bizarre plant reproduction ensues, until the line dies relatively prematurely (as it is designed to do) so that more seed _must_ be bought from Monsanto.
And then there are the legal issues of Monsanto suing any farmer who complains that their fields have become contaminated for using Monsanto seed without paying for it.
All I have read and heard so far is despicable behaviour on Monsanto's part, so I distrust their products, since I can not trust the corporation.
I guess I have yet to learn of a GMO product that I want to consume. Breeding for traits, as I understand has been done for many, many years would seem to offer natural selection a way of killing of the inappropriate strains, in addition to giving humans time to consume, then observe any possible negative reactions (Don't eat the mushrooms with the red tops - bad!)
Having a food factory produce vast quantities of recent experiments that overwhelm other sources of non-experiment strains gives me pause for concern. I understand from general consensus that we were told DDT was perfectly safe, and I vaguely remember seeing a promotional video showing children being sprayed with it, to show how "safe it was." I now understand that it is not safe at all.
I guess it again circles around to whom do I trust? And is the information I am receiving accurate?
This year I lost every single one of my potatoes to scab. Imagine I planted those just after a civil war in central Africa. I need as much food - now, as I can get, right? Potato scab could seriously fuck me up. Therefore GMO potatoes sure seem like a great idea to me - if they're immune to scab.
Before 'monocrops' were engineered, nations went to war over food because it was scarce. Disease killed entire crops. Since Borlaug bred disease resistant rice and wheat - war is down. Way down. We make enough food.
Except - to keep up with growing populations, we have to use GMO technology to increase our agricultural output. Organic food is a first world nice to have. GMO food is a whole world MUST have.
Here's two facts that may change your attitude - or at least make you question what you think you know.
1) The father of the monocrop, Norman Borlaug won the Nobel prize for saving a billion lives by increasing agricultural output enormously... and yet most people have never heard of him. Bizarre, isn't it?
2) During the famine and widespread starvation in Africa in the 80s, Greenpeace successfully opposed the export of 'chemical' fertilizers from Europe to Africa. They were banned. Bizarre, isn't it?
The GMO fears are luddite. There is widespread misinformation. The FDA is incredibly strict here.
Gosh, you really want to grow some crops, I see. Well, I've got these seeds that are completely resistant to disease, only they cost 10x more than regular seeds and they're engineered so that you don't get any more seeds from the results. But you'll get a huge yield, we promise, more than enough to keep coming back to us and buying.
...One year later...
Oh, you say your crop failed? We didn't mention they needed twice as much water? That maybe they weren't as resistant to disease as we said? That there's another disease we hadn't engineered against? That the pesticides they were engineered to work in conjunction with will ruin your soil for everything else? Now you have no money left? Hmm, well... that sucks for you. Thank your government for our lucrative subsidies, though. When you commit suicide, I'm sure we'll be able to find a large corporate farming operation to come in and take over.
GMO isn't the problem (that we know of). Abuse of GMO, for the purpose of locking farmers in, that's the problem.
I don't personally know any farmers in impoverished parts of rural India, where this scenario isn't hypothetical at all, no.
As to what I sound like, my uncle is a successful independent farmer in North Dakota. He's not organic, but he strongly opposes GMOs in their current form strictly because of the lock-in issue.
Maybe I have been misinformed. I had it in mind that monocultures were only good for the first couple of years, then they failed miserably due to too much soil depletion for that specific crop, insect over-predation as insects exploited an abundant food source and overpopulated, and too disease prone, as there is less diversity to keep unwanted organisms out of the system...
I have been taking the easy (read lazy) way out with my two acres: I have been telling my neighbors that having many types of ground cover keeps my ground cover healthier by promoting a healthy ecosystem of insects (and birds), in addition to the plants themselves. While the neighbors keep the RoundUp nearby for the "undesirables"and reach for Scotts TurfBuilder every year, I just mow once in awhile... :)
Come to think of it, I water a whole lot less then they do, as well.
And as to the last sentence in your previous paragraph, I have the distinct feeling that the FDA (we are talking the USA's Food and Drug Administration, right?) might have been helpful in its early years, but it is now not only a hindrance but an outright danger. Similar to the human tendency to assume the existence of traffic lights means they do not have to examine a road intersection for themselves, the idea that the FDA is a good watchdog seems to me to be luring people into yet another false sense of security about their food and drugs.
I seem to recall (pun intended) increasing news stories about how little I can trust our current food system in providing safe items for my table if I am not mimicking a Consumer Reports-style monitoring of FDA alerts about bad food in the delivery system. Oops, that was shipped how many months ago? What alert color are we at now for spinach, orange? :)
Maybe I am assuming too much, but isn't the FDA overwhelmed with the job it is currently doing, and only spot sampling at that? Aren't we suffering from too many companies taking advantage of low to no oversight and shipping whatever they need to keep their bottom line healthy?
Charles Murray had an interesting idea about allowing a second market to arise that was caveat emptor, in return for lower costs to introduce food and drugs into the marketplace. Of course, it requires more responsibility on the part of the consumer, so we leave the existing FDA market in place beside it for those who desire their safety "government approved"...
1) Imported food where raw animal and human waste are used outside of FDA guidelines (i.e. no uncomposted manures used in fields within 120 days of harvest if the vegetable touches the ground, 90 days if it doesn't).
Look at #1. Its actually totally consistent with organic practice, other than the safety violation ;)
2) Rat and other animal feces in processing facilities - a la peanuts.
The FDA is not overwhelmed at testing GMO foods. They're overwhelmed in testing imports, and inspecting production facilities. Think of the scope of those two problems. The FDA sits at a chokepoint of GMO, and not at imports.
BTW - regarding monocultures you DEFINITELY have it wrong. They were responsible for a many times multiplication of agricultural output. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
The current applications of it are however completely uninteresting to me. They center around higher yields. That's achieved through pesticide resistance and pest resistance. There's also some for other properties like shipability.
None of those features interest me. And despite the fact that the risk from them is arbitrarily close to zero, I chose not consume them, simply because again I don't see anything I care about.
Lower prices don't tempt me because I can easily afford food. Additionally I am quite upset about agricultural subsidies and protectionism and would like to see those go away. Thus price reductions not related to the elimination of farm subsidies only serve to remind me of my anger at this policy.
It's a risk/benefit problem. If things go wrong, we're talking about serious and permanent damage. What if roundup-ready plants end up messing with the bee population (or whatever)? What will happen to species down the food chain? What affects will arise after a while from bio-magnification? Point is, nobody yet knows. GMOs are fine, but you had better be 100% sure of what the consequences are.
GMOs significantly increase crop yields and are helping feed a growing world population. I think most of the world is willing to take the risk of a few genes getting loose for the benefit of keeping the world fed.
Actually, the two biggest benefits of GMOs should lead to their support by environmentalists; the fact that most environmentalists oppose GMOs, without knowing anything about the science in my experience, show their opposition is religious rather than rational. The two benefits are 1) because of their higher yields, less land need be cultivated, letting much go "back to nature", and 2) GMOs mostly need less cultivation, which means less fuels for tractors and less transportation for fertilizers, and less requirements for many pesticides.
That's all perfectly true until something wipes out your monoculture, then it is a bit of a problem.
Too many eggs in a single basket is always a dangerous strategy, it will work perfectly for a long time and then one day you lose all your eggs. That's only a matter of time.
Could you please point out examples where GMO crops have been wiped out because of monoculture? I have yet to see any examples and yet people continue to use that argument. (Serious question, I would love to see more info on this issue!)
That is exactly the problem, this will work until it fails. Score to date: 0.
But we do have examples of such crop failures due to monocultures in 'regular' agriculture. All we have with regards to a GMO problem is speculation and a hope that it will never happen.
The only instance that I'm familiar with that shows a little bit of what the risks are is a south african incident where farmers lost up to 80% of their GMO corn crops.
Hem... maybe I am mistaken but most gmos are not to increase yield, better taste or better nutritional qualities.
Usually, if we look only at the ones who are actually available on the market, is to enable the use of mass herbicide or resists specific pests. A lot of them look more motivated by marketing factors to create vendor lock-in.
I see GMOs in food as a temporary escape for monocultures. Ultimately I think we'll need to abandon this practice.
I was thinking about this the other day, a couple things that came to mind were -
Is it not due to genetic diversity that we see the great complexity of species that have evolved on this planet, and the resiliency of the biosphere?
It would seem that the introduction of species that are in many ways genetically identical would lead to similar problems that are found in the monoculture crop production of industrial farming, i.e. greater susceptibility to pests and disease.
I also get the feeling that potential risks are not properly accounted for in the current system where wealth is often seen as arbitrary fiat capital and not as the health of our environment, the real wealth as it allows human beings to flourish and fuels the wealth of our ideas and actions.
Say there were detrimental effects of gmo food consumption how long would it take the public to become informed? There is still widespread use of plastics and chemicals with documented scientifically evidenced deleterious health effects. I suspect more people are 'marketed to' than read scientific reports.
There are the classic 'case study accomplishments' of gmo like the modified rice that provided vitamin A to a malnourished population. Counterpoint to this is that we live on an abundantly productive planet and the obstacles to proper nourishment of the members of our species are typically political.
We don't see large percentages of other species that are under-nourished, we also don't see other species that have developed lopsided and convoluted systems as ours have.
Regarding Monsanto et al. -
" Big Biotech with Monsanto leading the pack wants to replace those millions of years with seeds like the Terminator (named for the action hero governor of California) which goes sterile after one growing cycle and obligates farmers (they sign binding contracts with Monsanto) to buy more, a process Mexican investigator Silvia Ribiero tags "bio-slavery". "
- http://www.counterpunch.org/ross02142007.html
" Farmers are forced to sign contracts, agreeing to buy GMO seed at a company-fixed price. Monsanto's super-duper "Terminator" seed, named after California's action hero governor, goes sterile after one growing cycle and the campesinos are obligated to buy more. By getting hooked on Monsanto, Mexican farmers, once seed savers and repositories themselves of the knowledge of their inner workings, become consumers of seed, an arrangement that augurs poorly for the survival of Mexico's many native corns. "
If the number of corn species declines what happens if something like Panama disease that affects bananas were to strike corn crops? Ever more genetic modification, beholden to just a few large corporations for the solution?
A cynic might point out a certain degree of environmental havoc might work to the benefit of gmo companies as far as the short-sighted goals of a fiat currency profit are concerned.
" Moreover, as farmers from other climes who have resisted Monsanto and refused to buy into the GMO blitz, have learned only too traumatically, pollen blowing off contaminated fields will spread to non-GMO crops. Even more egregiously, Monsanto will then send "inspectors" (often off-duty cops) to your farm and detect their patented strains in your fields and charge you with stealing the corporation's property. "
" Mexican corn is, of course, not the only native crop that is being disappeared by global capitalism. Native seeds are under siege from pole to pole. In Iraq, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers come together to form the birthplace of agriculture, one of the very first acts of George Bush's neo-colonial satrap L. Paul Brenner was to issue the notorious Order 81 criminalizing the possession of native seeds. The U.S. military spread out throughout the land distributing little packets of GMO seeds, the euphemistically dubbed Operation "Amber Waves." To make sure that Iraq would no longer have a native agriculture, the national seed bank, located at Abu Ghraib, was looted and set afire. "
- http://www.counterpunch.org/ross11212007.html
To see a company attempting to become an arbiter of food supply by claiming property rights over plants that have evolved to the benefit of all the species on this planet naturally raises some questions and opposition.
