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UK's FSA Finds No Health Benefits To Organic Food
blackbeak writes "The UK Food Standards Agency's 'Independant Organic Review' results were just released, and the BBC rushed to publish the findings in the shockingly titled article, 'No Health Benefits to Organic Food.' From the article, 'There is little difference in nutritional value and no evidence of any extra health benefits from eating organic produce, UK researchers found.' A peek into the research at Postpeakpublishing provides a slightly deeper look."
The review did not look at pesticides or the environmental impact of different farming practices.
says it all really.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
The point behind organic food is that it's better for the environment, not healthier to eat. But thanks for the useless study, UK!
And really, organic food has never been about health. It's more about sustainable practices and all that jazz. Organic food is more an environmental concept than a health concept.
That said, when and if I buy organic foods, it's usually fruits, vegetables, or nuts; and I do so because they are of noticably better quality than standard supermarket faire. For me, it has nothing to do with health OR environmentalism... Organic produce simply tends to be better quality from a culinary standpoint.
The report specifically doesn't look into the main reasons why I tend to buy organic - which aren't do to with health issues primarily, but to do with environmental and animal husbandry factors.
In the UK at least, organic farmers do practice lower intensive farming, leaving hedgerows in and wider strips for wildlife to flourish, they're not allowed to use antibiotics to promote growth in cattle (though they can use antibiotics to treat disease).
I've never taken the health issues seriously, but I do take biodiversity (and antibiotic resistance) very seriously and I'm more than willing to pay a little more to farmers who take additional care to help protect the country's wildlife.
There is one exception to this: I do buy organic carrots with health mind. Various studies have shown that carrot skins do retain a fair amount of insecticide and other pesticide residue. I'm a lazy bugger who likes to eat carrots raw without peeling them and so feel marginally happier choosing organic.
"That is technological improvement, so there's no really any reason why technologically made or improved food would be more riskier."
Utter Horsepuckey.
So because technological improvement has helped us get where we are now, it can do no wrong at all?
What nonsense. Look at the whole trans-fat thing for an example. Carcinogens added technologically as a preservative.
The problem with your point is - in my opinion - that in the area of food, technological advancements are either scams or used to sell us processed cheap shit.
Our national consumer protection organisation recently published a list of what some "food" items really are made of. Technology is used to get away with as little of the original ingredients as possible and add as much cheap filler (corn, soy, cheap oils) as possible. How can technologically engineered food with 20% real ingredients for taste and 80% cheap filler be good?
A [name insitution here] study has determined that using electric cars does not get you from point A to point B any faster than combustion engine powered cars..
Doh !
--Ivan
Replace "Health Benefits" with "Nutritional Benefits" and it's ok. You certainly won't starve eating non-organic food. And you'll get pretty much the same level of basic nutritional elements (vitamins etc.).
But you will get more pesticide contamination, more genetically modified food, more additives and a few other nasty bits and pieces. And you will create more impact on the environment.
And keep in mind that this was a meta-study, just looking at existing publications. Their selection criteria pretty much guaranteed the domination of conventional food studies carried out by the industry.
-- Truth suffers from too much analysis.
Couldn't agree more.
That and all the chemically dependant "fast-grow, high-yield" fruits and vegetables taste like arse compared to the more traditional ones.
Going for higher, cheaper yield is not always good.
Exactly,
I eat organic for 2 reasons, one is I don't want my body filled with the left over amounts of pesticides (in the case of fruit and veg) and antibiotics and hormones (in the case of meat). I especially don't want my 1 year old son's body being subjected to those if I can avoid it.
But to be honest the main reason I do it is because it tastes so much better. Carrots actually test of carrot rather than crunchy water taste you get from a standard supermarket carrot.
We get organic veg delivered to our door from a local farm and it last much longer due to shorter pick to delivery time scales. There is also the added bonus of getting a wider variety of veg.
As a result I eat a wider range of vegetables, it tastes nicer, and because of the longer shelf life I throw less away. This means that it costs me the same or less than buying normal super market veg. Couple that with the convenience of it delivered to my door it is a no-brainer really!
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
in my opinion - that in the area of food, technological advancements are either scams or used to sell us processed cheap shit.
Around the turn of the last century, we needed about 80% of the US population working on farms to feed us all. Today, it's more like 4%, and we're the world's biggest food exporter. What do you think made that possible?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
And hell, I rather eat food thats *NOT* made in cow shit just because its "natural" based on human history and was the only way to make it at the time.
Jeez. It has fuck all to do with naturalness, but nitrates, phosphates and potassium (NPK).
If you keep taking them out of the soil as you grow crops, the soil degrades till it's no use any more. So you've taken all these nitrates out and you've eaten them. Where do you think they end up? They end up in your shit and piss and they have to be dealt with by the sewage treatment plants. Or dumped in the rivers and oceans, causing algal blooms. That's just dumb.
The other alternative is that you manufacture nitrates. That is called the Haber Bosch process and it involves burning a shit load of fossil fuels to produce the hydrogen and energy required convert the nitrogen in the atmosphere to ammonia. The phosphates and potassium are usually mined. All of which require vast amounts of energy and leave big holes in the ground. As long as energy is plentiful and cheap you can just about get away with this.
Is this like magic or something? The miraculous Walmart magic food onto their shelves? The evil miners and chemical producers dig big holes and burn fossil fuels solely to anger the woolly headed (but nice) environmentalists? America goes to war with *iraq* despite the terrorists being *Saudi* and the supposed terrorist ring being resident in *Afghanistan* and *Pakistan*.
Deleted
Another problem is the unusual mixes of things. You can eat a lot more fat (without gagging) if you mix in a heap of salt. Fatty salty foods are not too common in the wild, but modern food mixes them together, which messes up our instincts about how much to eat.
Also, Coke has far too much sugar to taste good, but the added food acid makes it palatable.
You see, twostix, there is this literary device known as a "rhetorical question". This literary device is used when the writer/speaker knows that the answer is obvious, and will be automatically arrived at by the audience just in the asking of the question. See also: Socratic method.
I find it even more amusing that your answer, while partially correct, is actually not even accurate. Certainly, machinery has been a huge factor, but the answer was "technology" in general, rather than specifically JUST machinery. We have better fertilizers and irrigation technologies. From our knowledge in genetics and biology, we have been able to figure out better crop rotations, breeding methods, and in some cases, how to directly manipulate the genes of plants to bring about a better yield. Technology has given us better ways to preserve the food, so that we don't need everything directly from the market within a few days of being harvested, allowing farmers to greatly increase yield. We have MUCH better transportation systems as well, so that farming needs to be less localized. There are many, many other factors involved in this equation, but I think my point is clear.
F-, twosticks.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
"That is technological improvement, so there's no really any reason why technologically made or improved food would be more riskier."
Of course, the welfare and quality of life of the animals that make up our food is of no concern to you? Or the effect on the environment? Just that the food is not "risky" to your health?
I'm not a vegetarian, but frankly, the shit that we're doing to our animals to mass produce meat cheaply is disgusting.
And define "risky", because from here I'm sitting, there are a large number of direct and indirect risks we suffer thanks to mechanisation and industrialisation of our food supply. Environmental destruction, such as poisoning our water supply, the earth, and the air. Increased risks of diseases, too. IMO, things like swine flu are direct results of the mechanisation and industrialisation of our food process.
It is no coincidence that La Gloria (which is suspected of being ground zero for Swine Flu) just happened to have a huge hog farm operated by Granjas Carroll (50% owned by Smithfield Foods). Their hog operations generate lagoons of waste stuffed with antibiotics, ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorous, nitrates, heavy metals - all sorts of shit that isn't shit.
Slashdot won't let me C&P the URL properly, so combine it together: http://www.rollingstone.com/ /politics/story/12840743 /porks_dirty_secret_
the_nations_top_
hog_producer_is_
also_one_of_
americas_worst_polluters
It's not just our meat, either. Chlorine being used to wash "ready to eat" foods? Growth hormones, antibiotics and all sorts of shit in milk? What about pesticides? Just recently saw a report that suggests the cocktail of pesticides could be behind Colony Collapse Disorder. Carcinogenic ingredients being added to food?
Again, IMO, the incidents of cancer that we're seeing these days are directly linked with what we're doing to our food supply.
Technology's a great thing, except when it gets in the hands of greedy, unethical bastards who couldn't give a shit except to their bottom line.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Machinery is not a form of technological advancement now?
Technology in food production isn't just for processed food, it's having a tractor to work your ground instead of a digging stick. Even organic farming uses technology, the question is which technologies to accept and which to reject. Personally I'm not a big fan of poisons sprayed on my food regardless of what this study says.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
I think you're missing the point. I'm not arguing against the killing of animals (although I do respect those who take a stand against it). I said quite clearly, I'm not a vegetarian. I don't mind people eating meat.
The point is that we torture them for their entire, short, miserable lives. Lions don't imprison 823 million impala in huge concentrations, artificially increasing their weight to grow abnormally fast in shorter time spans and thereby crippling some 27% them, keeping them in their own shit for so long that they suffer burns on their legs.
And unless you consider humans to be just dumb beasts that simply cannot make ethical choices, saying it's "nature" is a cop out. We can change things. Compassion in World Farming is a good place to start.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Again, IMO, the incidents of cancer that we're seeing these days are directly linked with what we're doing to our food supply.
You're absolutely right.
-We have access to plentiful and cheap food today.
-We don't die of starvation.
-We live long enough to get cancer.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
I challenge you to find cheaper food than the organic produce grown within a few miles of my home. If people would focus on buying locally produced veggies and meat, it would cut a huge chunk of transportation cost (and waste) out of the system.
My Babylon
What they did not look at was the effect of using herbicides and pesticides on health.
Or how about the impact of herbicides and pesticides on the land on and around the farm where the food is grown? It isn't just about the food itself; personally I think that food that isn't making the surrounding environment toxic is healthy for me and my kids too.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Spot on. I've never been under any impression that (properly-prepared) organic food is healthier than non-organic, but by buying organic, you're supporting a sustainable practice that doesn't contribute to water table pollution, among other things.
If organics aren't in someone's budget, fine, but if you can spring for them, it's a good way to promote sustainable practices, and is a lot more direct than nebulous "carbon offsets."
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
Your short response is so pregnant with errors of thought, that I wonder if it were not meant merely to goad.
Let us suppose that your monoculture becomes the opportune host for a parasite, and eliminates 80% of all strawberries on earth - as there are no other lines to introduce for survival. This has already happened once, to the Banana. The chalky item eaten today, a "Cavendish" is very different from the fruit of my early childhood. That's because those "Big Mike" variety went extinct in the '60's from Panama disease. The replacement was discovered in Asia after many years - and was transplanted in Central America. Trust me, youngster: it's a poor replacement.
Your proposition says the particular choices that we are making at this point in economic, climatic and political history are near-perfect, and without genetic diversity, will serve nearly all circumstances into perpetuity. Not bloody likely.
You also assume that lines are chosen for their "tastiness". This is almost NEVER the case! They are chosen for pest/pesticide hardiness, storage and shipping convenience - and... their suitability to industrial-scale monoculture methods!
For my point, try eating an heirloom apple sometime. Do so, while also sampling that tasteless Fuji from you favorite grocers.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Organic foods can be grown using pesticides, but they must be organic pesticides only. What does this mean? Not a lot, as many organic pesticides are just as harmful as synthetics (or worse). Many so called "natural" pesticides haven't been tested thoroughly either, so long term exposure is not known.
...
e.g.: Rotenone: An effective organic pesticide and breaks down quickly, but is toxic to humans. Has possibly been linked to Parkinson's. Nicotine is natural but extremely toxic.
Just because something is organic or natural doesn't mean it's not deadly. Do a search, plenty of scientific papers detailing these results. FWIW many organic farmers try not to use pesticides
Never mind that using "Organic" agricultural practices exclusively would lead to massive starvation all around the glob. The only reason that we have enough to feed the global population now is the use of "Modern" agricultural practices that grew out of the "Green Revolution".
Mass-producing cheap food is good. Mass-producing cheap food that isn't healthy is...?
Mass-production tends to specialize since specialization is very efficient. In the US, we mass produce food by specialized on corn, soy, and something else that I can't remember. However, our bodies may not be able to handle an over-specialized diet. For example, we get certain nutrients more efficiently when eating certain food combinations. There's also evidence that things like high fructose corn is really unhealthy since we never evolved to eat it. Go read the omnivore's diet and in defense of food books for more details. Diet and food production is a very non-trivial subject.
So, the real question is: can we mass produce cheap, healthy food? The really nasty question is, what do we do if we can't mass-produce enough cheap healthy food to support future (or even current) population growth? Do we trust evolution to select humans that can live on cheap unhealthy food? Do we start producing healthier but more expensive food and let the have-nots die or eat unhealthy food? Do we find a way to create cheap healthy mass-produced food without going bankrupt?