Slashdot Mirror
Stanford Study Flawed: Organic Produce May Be More Nutritious After All
assertation writes "A few weeks ago an article was posted to Slashdot referring to a Stanford Study stating that organic produce, contrary to popular belief is not more nutritious. According to Mark Bitman of The New York times the Stanford study was flawed. A spelling error skewed the results as well as the study ignoring several types of nutrients."
Organic produce contains more carbon, which is a rather essential nutrient.
I just won the argument over this with my vegan vegetarian girlfriend. Now this! Damn it, Well, I won't being getting any for awhile. good thing the .XXX search is up.
Cue the smug from the hippies...
I ain't gonna even look at these damn articles anymore. I'm gonna stick with cigarettes and chocolate cake.
And coffee.
And bacon. mmmmmm bacon.
"Elizabeth...I'm coming to join ya!"
just not covered in nasty pesticides and such. If it is tastier that would be a plus but I'd settle for not likely to introduce dna altering substances into my system.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I am intrigued and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
The latest findings from university research.
...and the idiot writing the hit piece doesn't seem to know that.
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/07/does-banning-hotdogs-and-bacon-make.html
"What may be more surprising to learn is that scientific evidence has been building for years that nitrates are actually good for us, that nitrite is produced by our own body in greater amounts than is eaten in food, and that it has a number of essential biological functions, including in healthy immune and cardiovascular systems. Nitrite is appearing so beneficial, it’s even being studied as potential treatments for health problems such as high blood pressure, heart attacks, sickle cell disease and circulatory problems."
They both grow in dirt (organic and conventional), they are the same plant, they don't, on balance, have more or less of anything than the rest of the fruits and vegetables. Bottom line if you want to pay 3X as much for your food buy organic. If you just want to eat and get the most nutrition for your $$, buy conventional. And don't forget, we can't feed the world's population organically. Can't be done!
Some people will only believe whatever was said the first time round, horse, bolted, yada yada. My family rejoiced that my decision to purchase mostly organic was a huge waste of my money and effort, try telling them now that the study might of been flawed. My conspiracy/cynical side tells me this is the reason sensationalist crap gets printed in the first place just to sway the opinions of the masses.
Frosted Flakes ARE better than an apple. In fact, they're Grrrrrrrreat!
Why some people see ignorance and stiffness in the face of chances for self-improving learning as something good, I can only explain with mass-insanity...
There is no bad and good in being right or wrong. It is always useful, to know better.
Second, this is not a scientific article. It is an editorial. Yes, I suppose Mister Bittman has a valid opinion, even some good supporting information to demonstrate that he has some understanding of the subject under discussion. Nonetheless, I don't think Mr. Bittman is even remotely what would be considered an expert in the areas of horticulture, agriculture, food production, nutrition, animal husbandry or any of at least a dozen other disciplines which might make his opinion any more informed than my own.
Not to criticize Mr. Bittman - he is an editorial author providing articles for a major news outlet. He has written a well thought-out, interesting editorial - but that's all. He doesn't have direct evidence to refute the findings of the Stanford Study - he doesn't even have any direct criticisms of the methodology employed by the Stanford group (which he should have, IMHO). What he has is an editorial opinion - well expressed, thoughtful, but at the end of the day still just his opinion.
You clearly have spent a lot of time on this. Could you repeat the text many times in almost the same way?
This rebuttal is exactly why news reporting is so poor. This author has no scientific training, and his specific claims of the study being flawed betray that lack. To make his point he has to redefine the definition of nutritious from "more nutrients" to "lacking pesticides". This is why scientists are needed to peer review results - not some John or Jane Doe off the streets, or a certain New York Times journalist in an opinion piece.
The study is very clear - for a certain set of nutrients, organic produce does not have more than regularly grown produce. At no point does the author of this rebuttal ever attempt to show otherwise. The fact that the study didn't test everything doesn't make it flawed. The interpretation of the results - that organic produce is no more nutritious than regular produce - may be flawed. If the study contained the most important nutrients, then the interpretation is correct. Personally I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to the Stanford scientist over the journalist until some serious peer review comes in. Frankly, there's nothing to see here but some journalist with an overblown sense of his own abilities.
Remember, you can't look dignified when your having fun! Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive
Time to do a new study, then. Bjorn! Hans! To the sciencemobile!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Lets look at the meat of the article
In fact, the Stanford study — actually a meta-study, an analysis of more than 200 existing studies — does say that “consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”
Since that’s largely why people eat organic foods, what’s the big deal? Especially if we refer to common definitions of “nutritious” and point out that, in general, nutritious food promotes health and good condition. How can something that reduces your exposure to pesticides and antibiotic-resistant bacteria not be “more nutritious” than food that doesn’t?
Because the study narrowly defines “nutritious” as containing more vitamins.
So his problem is the authors were dishonest because they didn't adhere to his incorrect definition of nutritious.
And near the end
Like too many studies, the Stanford study dangerously isolates a finding from its larger context
That's a feature, not a bug. The role of a research paper isn't to make some broad sweeping conclusion, it's to carefully explore a narrow question, were the organics more nutritious, and on that question the answer was no.
I stole this Sig
Seriously ... anyone believe this study wasn't skewed from the start. I mean paid for up front by BioAg. Anybody? Seriously if you believe that this is a real study involving the scientific method and *all that stuff* Please reply.
I actually only eat organic and non-GMO food. Not for any health benefits, but rather, because there is no other way to avoid genetically modified food in this country where GMO's are fast track approved without any real studies. People look at me like I'm crazy, but I look at them like they're crazy for just eating this sci-fi nightmare come true. I for one prefer to eat food, not genetically modified pesticide magnets patented and owned by ridiculously evil corporations like Monsanto. Just my two cents.
It's not only about nutrients but the trace pesticides heavy metals, manipulated genes and what else is good to degrade your health.
Not even talking about taste - compare an organic and not-so apple.
I may be off here but I thought the main argument for eating organic was that it wasn't covered with pesticides and herbicides that you end up ingesting.
Bittman says that Kristen Brandt of Newcastle University has found this spelling error. I find this interesting as a plant chemist. However, he just links to a HuffPo article that doesn't link to Brandt's comments. Every other study I can Google just links back to HuffPo or to nowhere.
Does anyone know where I can read Brandt's claims?
In some areas of the country, bull shit is more readily available.
paintball
Next time he's getting some oral favors, he should scream, "OH MY GOD YOU'RE EATING MEAT!"
He'll have to dump her after that, but sometimes there's a price for victory.
paintball
I usually don't buy organic food because it's more nutritious or "better" in any sense. I do it because I want to support small farmers (they have small, but yet very important role of providing food in my country), and I want to support moderate farming - I don't deny modern improvements in it, I just want to be them applied with a care.
Said that, there are lot of big mass producers who has knowledgeable people and who balance profit with long term thinking. So not so big difference in my region.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
I wonder why the particular error wasn't mentioned.
Perhaps when comparing the composition of the organic foods, the findings were
50 units of nutrients, 29 units of nutrientz. Clearly, less than the 58 units of nutrients in non-organic. (obviously, i have no idea what i'm talking about)
Or maybe no biochemist would ever make a spelling error, which raises a question of paramount importance: was this report spell-checked with an inferior dictionary? If yes, discard the report. If not, claim spelling doesn't matter anyways.
- Animals are typically better treated (yes organic doesn't mean free range, but in practice they tend to go hand in hand)
- Less toxic residues (pesticides, fertilizers, other mystery chemicals which haven't succeeding in killing us off dramatically YET)
- More Nutrition (grass fed beef vs cornfed) ---- this is the ONE item the meta-study researched
- Better for the environment (see previous lack of toxic pesticides, fertilizers, etc)
- Organic is usually produced by the smaller growers in the market
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
A well-researched Stanford study is refuted by an opinion columnist whose side job is selling books that tell you how to eat?
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Our snake oil is still good for you.
Brandt wondered how the Stanford team, led by faculty from the School of Medicine and Center for Health Policy, could have found no difference in total flavanols between organic and conventional foods when her own results showed organics carried far more of the heart-healthy nutrient. Upon further inspection, she noticed that the team had actually calculated the difference in total flavonols, a different nutrient, and reported the result with the swap of an "o" for an "a".
From an article ad The Huffington Post
Technically it's a spelling mistake which in practice meant the equivalent of searching for apples but counting the number of oranges instead, then writing up a paper on the astonishing lack of apples found.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Too many variables ... and also one places "organic" could just be the standard practice in another place that doesn't have much of a pest problem and has decent soil.
IMHO:
When talking about the supposed benefits of "organic" food, you also need to consider the cost, which is 50% to 100% higher off the shelf (not counting the added costs of those foods being more perishable). That difference could be a couple thousand dollars per year, which could have been saved and invested - creating very considerable added wealth by the time you retire! Having this much added money for health care would do far, far more good for your health than the marginal benefits (if any) of eating organic.
When seeking to improve your health through non-medical lifestyle choices, you have to start with things that have the greatest impact. Quitting poisons (smoking, alcohol, too much caffeine, etc) is the first priority - that actually saves you money. For a person with a sedentary lifestyle, getting some regular low-intensity exercise is the second priority - which can actually make you money if you're doing a part-time job or a home business. (Instead of going to a gym, I got a physically intense part-time job at a local factory to get me away from the computer ~25 hours per week, in addition to a 10 minute daily routine of pushups and dumbells at home, plus walking to the store instead of driving.) Eating the proper amount of calories with proper food choices (balance of protein / fat / carbs, with particular attention paid to carb quality) is the third priority - which can save you money as well. These things make a mountain of difference to your health, while any benefits "organic" foods may or may not have, in spite of their great cost, are tiny in comparison!
Eating healthy actually costs very little money. Plenty of non-organic green vegetables cost under $1.50/lb, most dried beans and grains are under $1.50/lb (can be a lot less in bulk), several types of frozen fish are under $4/lb, etc. Other low-price nutrition champs you can buy in bulk include: canned tomato paste, canned sardines, wheat gluten and pea powder (amazingly cheap protein), and certain dried spices. Multivitamin supplements cost pennies per day. Drink more water. Read up on every food you eat (WolframAlpha > FDA nutrition labels) - including the glycemic load, acidity, mercury levels in various species of fish, etc. Make a spreadsheet to calculate what gets you the best nutrition with best taste at lowest cost. Overpriced exotic fruits, processed cereals, soy crap, and other "health food" actually add very little nutrition - just eat more kale instead!
Make exceptions and indulge once in a while - all things according to measure. Avoid religious extremes - both "low carb" (below 150g/day) and veganism are unhealthy. The danger of animal fat, in of itself, is greatly overstated - just avoid processed meats, and limit portion sizes to ~30 grams of animal protein per meal. Avoiding "junk carbs" greatly reduces your risk of diabetes, but you do need some "good carbs" for energy (more if you're physically active). Maintaining a proper sodium (less) to potassium (more) ratio is a very simple thing that can solve most people's blood pressure problems, which can then lead to heart problems - learning to use nutrition-rich low-sodium spices is the best kept secret of healthy cooking. When you get in the habit of using slow-cookers (one for meat and legumes, another for grains), with a couple of minutes of prior planning, you can grab a hot healthy meal in less time than it takes to microwave a junk-food product!
These are just some "healthy lifestyle hacks" that I've found. Avoid fads, do your own research, track and analyze your data, and think for yourself.
--libman
That this is a reporter commenting on the grammar and writing style of a scientific study ?
So yes, organic food is NOT more nutricious, that part is true.
This does not mean
1) anything about pesticides
2) scary bacteria
3) that the sky will turn green tomorrow
And the journalist claims that not explicitly mentioning this is causing mass confusion. Okay. However the writing style of the article kind of indicates that the journalist really really really wants the opposite to be true.
But I would argue that the journalist is being very disingenious himself since it's also proven that
1) the current pesticides mainly work against the nervous system of insects. We have a totally different neural architecture (all animals do) and can take huge doses of pesticides without any effect (which is of course the whole point of them). I hear the taste is horrible but you won't die from drinking a bottle of roundup.
2) organic foods are much more dangerous to your health when it comes to bacterial or fungal contamination. Yes, organic foods are "usually" more healthy, but one infection with e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claviceps_purpurea will kill you. Despite the fact that it is not technically antibiotics resistant, how that helps you when you're very unlikely to make it to the hospital alive is a bit of an open question. Organic foods are much more likely to be contaminated, and frankly if you have to ask why, I have to question your intelligence.
3) organic foods are not just more expensive, they're more expensive to make. They're more energy intensive (so they're bad for climate change), they're more land-intensive (meaning kids in africa starve because of them), they're more labour intensive (actually this is probably good given the economic climate), and they require more large farm animals (which are very very bad for the climate)
Besides it doesn't matter. Economics (and anti-climate laws) are forcing agriculture to use massively less energy. Unless exceptions are made for "organic" agriculture it will be gone in a matter of years. It will mean less people starve, of course.
Tesy
This is no rebuttal at all. It doesn't prove anything in the study wrong, or even really try to refute any of it. I was skimming the article for the counter-argument, and couldn't find it. I don't understand the purpose here, or why /. posted this. This is a post on somebody's blog... or pseudo-journalism at best.
"Pesticides in organic production"
You really are an idiot aren't you? Pesticides in organic production are things like lady bugs that eat aphids instead of spraying on chemicals.
I think I would be able to spot it if there are lady bugs still present on the vegetables in the shop.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Part insane rant, part parody of pre-existing insane rant. Except aren't parodies meant to be at least a bit funny?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Yeah, that for me was the most interesting bit, that a spelling error could cause a statistical error. Maybe we'll never know :(
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Brandt wondered how the Stanford team, led by faculty from the School of Medicine and Center for Health Policy, could have found no difference in total flavanols between organic and conventional foods when her own results showed organics carried far more of the heart-healthy nutrient. Upon further inspection, she noticed that the team had actually calculated the difference in total flavonols, a different nutrient, and reported the result with the swap of an "o" for an "a".
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Perhaps you are APK, on the grounds that no publicity is bad publicity, and you're trollishly publicizing the troll quite a lot.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
... ...
* Natural drying process by the sun and wind (13-22 Months)
* Harvested from the clean oceans around New Zealand
Which means the salt from this is just about ready to harvest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rena_oil_spill
that was the type of study typical for those who are looking for an answer and find only the answer they have in their head.
FOR EXAMPLE
strawberries:
the seeds, on the outside, make it a vector for carrying pesticides.... if not organic, you get to ingest chemicals that are designed to kill organisms (news flash: youre an organism)
farmers:
SOME farmers plow, sow water and rip up their plants with no concern for the food's well being. you put that food right next to food that is 'loved' from seed to market, and i can tell which is which in a blind taste test.
plus the better grown food lasts longer.
this study argued that ORGANIC practices were no different EN MASSE than conventional practices.... so my buddy franca who drives 3 hours to market with her many strains of strawberries and more than 80 types of tomato is the same as archer daniels midland.
I am thinking its either Slashdot has its performance artists too, or a Google-bomb smear campaign of Mr. Kowalski.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Mr.+Alexander+Peter+Kowalski
But if mods are effective, Google can't see it on slashdot.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
Nobody is saying that conventional (i.e. chemical) farming should be banned. Organic farming is about the consumer being properly informed. THAT is why we need the organic label -- to allow the consumer to be 100% informed. If a crop is grown with chemical pesticides, or animals raised with anti-biotics and hormones, or artificial flavors and preservatives added after the fact, then the consumer deserves to know that.
A transaction isn't fair to both sides UNLESS both sides are 100% aware of what the other is offering. It's just plain common sense.
The only 'debunker' is a man invested heavily in the organic food business (he is a 'nutritionist' who banks on organic foods for all his advice), and his assertion that a spelling error caused the study to be "skewed" is ludicrous. The skewing here is by Bittman, for obvious reasons. If you read Bittman's article, and pay attention, he offers no evidence - only opinions, on any problems with the study. The study appears to be valid. Another study might disprove it, but an opinion piece by the often dubious NYT does not.
I think it may actually be the output of a Markov chain processor, something like Mark V. Shaney.
www.wavefront-av.com
Was one of the ignored nutrients, the placebo effect?
It is all speculation. One day it is good, next day bad. One day it causes cancer, next day it makes your brain grow, next day it makes you blind. All things in moderation is the best advice.
Nah, i think that's just hairyfeet's standard posting style. :P
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
The New York Times gets a lot of (often well-deserved) criticism for its science reporting—but in this case, this isn't science reporting at all. It's written by Mark Bittman, and according to his website, Wikipedia, and various other sources, the author is a food writer and editor with a degree in psychology whose background mainly consists of writing and editing cookbooks and cooking magazines (and driving a cab).
Yes, pedigree doesn't mean everything and good science can come from people who aren't scientists. But still, consider the source and take it with whatever size grain of salt you feel is warranted.
Building Better Software
That's like a two-fer for any Berkeley students and alumni.
Plants are capable of making everything they/we need given proper nutrition.
Organic produce is just BS marketing. Go read up on what is considered 'organic' by USDA standards.
Yep, nothing about carbon-chemistry there.
Organics is a sham with the exception of real organic chemistry.
The more nutritious 'organic' foods are really less-modified cultivars rather than production/shelf life/mechanical-harvesting cultivars. This has been the case with every 'organic' farmer I've come across in my travels from UK to China.
It doesn't take a major study to figure this out. Just open your eyes and talk to people.
Signed,
Your friendly(ish) horticultural researcher
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Small farmers need to come up with a new label and certification process if they want one that remains centered on the original philosophy; I don't think they can get the 'organic' one back.
Even though I am "mostly" vegan, I would suggest doing a taste test with milk. The difference to me was night and day when I first tried organic milk. I even did a blind taste test and easily picked out the organic vs. "conventional" milk.
Disclaimer: Not all organic dairy tastes the same, so try a few different brands to see which one you like best. Nearly all "conventional" dairy, however, DOES taste the same, after you know what mother nature intended milk to taste like.
... having a measurable positive effect on the organism doing the eating.
If such an effect were large, it would be easy to find in, say, rat studies, and easily replicable. Studies like that would probably be easy to find with a casual web search of the literature. My google-fu is above average, and the last time I looked, all I found was this, which was inconclusive, funded by an organic food promotion group, and unreplicated.
So, I suspect any health benefit of organic food is likely very small.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Let me get this straight:
The fact that organic produce looks, smells, and tastes so much better than conventional is just BS marketing.
It's also just BS marketing that those foods that look, smell and taste better also have been found to contain more nutrients (despite the Stanford study's conclusions).
And therefore I'm a sucker for buying into that BS marketing hype and paying more for food that tastes better and is better for me. Gotcha.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Uh, our bodies are full of phosphates. So are all the foods that we eat. Ever hear of ATP, the fundamental energy currency of a cell? That's adenosine triphosphate. Most of our enzymes have phosphate groups stuck to them, often several. Needless to say, our kidneys handle it very well--which is why it is possible to drink a soft drink--most of which are buffered with quite a bit of phosphate--without suffering kidney damage. The amount of phosphate resulting from herbicide residue would be trivial in comparison.
Antibiotics are not widely used on plant crops because the major things that kill crops are things like insects, fungi, and competition from other plants, so we use insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides. That does not make them sterile. Bacteria are everywhere, including in the soil, and there are many other pathogenic species that can be in manure besides coli. And crops are generally picked or otherwise handled by humans, and humans also carry diseases. Natural fungicides do exist, but they are not infallible--fungi and plants have been engaged in biological warfare since before our species existed, and for every weapon there is a counter weapon--which is why plants, organic or otherwise, are often harmed by fungal infection. And note that any fungicide, natural or otherwise, is fundamentally a poison. It may not poison us because our cells are different from fungi in some (but not all) ways, but there is no guarantee of safety.
One of the best Slashdot posts I've read in a while, deserving of more than a +5 score, yet for some reason it seems a lot of people don't get what you're saying.
I shall try to restate it in hopefully more clear terms (though I thought you did quite well explaining it yourself) but it probably won't do much good since they likely only read the first sentence or two of what you had to say.
The "organic" label refers to many different practices. Some of these things may be beneficial. Some of them may be complete bullshit. Thus, to study the differences between "organic" and "non-organic" produce is to study a random selection of whichever "organic" properties happen to apply to the particular "organic" produce you happen to use in your study.
Let's try the classic car analogy. In the horse and buggy days, one might have studied "motorized transportation" vs. "non-motorized transportation" and come to different conclusions simply as a result of what model of car they chose to use in their study (reliable models vs. unreliable ones), or even whether they chose a car at all, rather than a motorcycle or a motorboat. If one chose to study motorboats vs. horse and buggy, they might find that they're quite fast, but limited in their routes and destinations, and thus nowhere near being a replacement for everyday transportation. Similarly, the non-motorized category might have included walking, horseback, or piggyback, rather than horse and buggy, thus even if reliable well-built cars were used for the motorized category, they might have come to the conclusion that motorized transportation requires much wider roads. Thus the results of a study may come out for motorized transportation or non-motorized transportation, and wouldn't be incorrect in either case, but in both cases would be completely useless since no one needs to make a decision about motorized vs. non-motorized transportation, they need to make a decision about car vs. horse and buggy, or motorcycle vs. horse, or steamboat vs. sailboat.
The "organic" label suffers an even more broad definition. While specific practices that fall under that label might be very useful, the label in general means essentially nothing other than that at some point in time someone thought that a particular method was more natural than current popular methods. Thus, when one studies organic vs. non-organic, they might be studying anything. Indeed, even the non-organic half of the study is similarly broadly defined. Some farmers may be already using a process that could be certified as organic yet they simply haven't bothered to obtain the certification, and among those who aren't using "organic" methods, there's a wide range of things they may be doing as well. So when one compares organic vs. non-organic, they may be comparing any number of things to any number of other things. The same applies to consumers making the comparison themselves. They also may just as well be comparing things that have nothing to do with organic vs. non-organic, such as local vs. non-local produce, or different varieties of plant, or different harvesting times, etc.
The only way to properly study something is to make what you're studying the only variable. You grow two crops of the same plant, in the same place under the same conditions, with identical criteria for deciding when to harvest. ...but when you do this, you're not comparing organic vs. non-organic methods. You're instead testing one specific method, and thus such studies won't ever be published as supporting or rejecting the use of organic methods, as the study was more specific than that, and so doesn't apply to the organic vs. non-organic debate.
Any comparison of organic vs. non-organic can only tell you what you're statistically likely to end up with, and even that is only possible when it includes samples from all over the country, including all organic and non-organic methods, weighted for the prevalence of their use. ...and that's a huge study for someth
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm ... Range and Pasture Land- Some 788 million acres, or 41.4 percent of the U. S. excluding Alaska, are grazed by livestock. This is an area the size of 8.3 states the size of Montana. Grazed lands include rangeland, pasture and cropland pasture. More than 309 million acres of federal, state and other public lands are grazed by domestic livestock. Another 140 million acres are forested lands that are grazed. ... The real message here is that we can afford to restore hundreds of millions of acres in the U.S. if we simply shift our diets away from meat. ..."
"Cropland- About 349 million acres in the U.S. are planted for crops. This is the equivalent of about four states the size of Montana. Four crops -- feeder corn (80 million acres), soybeans (75 million acres), alfalfa hay (61 million acres) and wheat (62 million acres) -- make up 80 percent of total crop acreage. All but wheat are primarily used to feed livestock. The amount of land used to produce all vegetables in the U.S. is less than 3 million acres.
See also:
http://www.ravediet.com/links.html
And how to grown lots of vegetables on little land, which could be roboticized no doubt:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_foot_gardening
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
They have. It is "Biodynamic". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_agriculture/
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
I haven't done double-blind testing, and should state that my experience does compare nasty tasteless supermarket produce to home-grown, organic (actual, not certified), ripe, and fresh-picked vegetables. Not a fair comparison, by any measure. Supermarket "organic" doesn't fare much better in this camp.
My sister has a flock of chickens free-ranging about the farm, and their eggs taste like a different species than the ones that one buys, there again- not comparable; Forget blind testing. (Blindfolds would also be required as the yolks are a completely different color. Triple-blind?)
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
I haven't done double-blind testing, and should state that my experience does compare nasty tasteless supermarket produce to home-grown, organic (actual, not certified), ripe, and fresh-picked vegetables. Not a fair comparison, by any measure.
Indeed, extraordinarily unfair. And also quite valid.
I am too lazy to pull up the research, but I have seen some that basically says: ripeness and time between picking and consumption matter. Organic? Not nearly as much. So an organic apple from South Africa, picked well before it was ready and ripened on a cargo ship, is going to be far less nutritious or tasty than a locally grown factory farm apple, harvested when ripe and eaten immediately.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
The author really ranged all over the place, with a lot of it seemingly irrelevant. Like:
[T]he Stanford study... neglects to mention that 10,000 to 20,000 United States agricultural workers get a pesticide-poisoning diagnosis each year.
Which has exactly what to do with the nutrition of the food?
Nothing.
It may be a legitimate reason to avoid industrial farmed food, but does not diminish it's nutrition.
Dr. Dena Bravata, the study’s senior author, conceded that there are other reasons why people opt for organic (the aforementioned pesticides and bacteria chief among them),,,
Again, irreverent to the question of nutrition.
...but said that if the decision between buying organic or conventional food were based on nutrients, “there is not robust evidence to choose one or the other.” By which standard you can claim that, based on nutrients, Frosted Flakes are a better choice than an apple.
But they’re not.
That sounds like a prejudged assumption, that an Apple is an intrinsically better choice than cereal.
If, as he said, ...based on nutrients, Frosted Flakes are a better choice than an apple. is true, then YES, nutritionally, Frosted Flakes IS the better choice.
THINK! It's patriotic