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."
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.
This article is so incredibly biased that it's hard to discover what's actually wrong with the Stanford research. This one reads like a raving lunatic jumping up and down because "the study didn't account for pesticides!" Well, it was a study that compared nutrition based on the nutrient content of the different production methods of food. Imagine that - they studied a bunch of numbers and totaled up their findings. Note that they did not study "which is worse for the environment", or "which food contains more residual agricultural chemicals", or "which tomato tastes better", or "which food contains more antibiotic resistant bacteria", yet those were the arguments he continually raised. That was not what this study studied!
Then he blames the study because “[t]he researchers started with a narrow set of assumptions and arrived at entirely predictable conclusions." Again with the "not really surprised" response. What did he think they were supposed to do, poll the newspaper food editors and ask them which variables to study? If they don't start with a specific set of assumptions and control for as many variables as possible, the results will be meaningless. So he's outraged because they didn't pick his particular variables? Get over it.
Now, could someone study the amount of residual pesticides in ordinary produce versus organically grown produce? Of course. Could someone study the human health effects of those doses of residual chemicals? Sure.
I, too, would like to see the study go even further. I'd ask the researchers to add just a few more data points and have it become meaningful not just to outraged food writers but to all Americans. They should compare the nutrition value per dollar spent in the grocery store, instead of nutrition values per gram. Then the food writers can publish that right next to the unemployment and poverty statistics, and maybe they can write another article about "how low-income people are ruining the ecology of this country because they don't buy as much organically grown food as gainfully employed newspaper food editors." Then we'd could measure his reaction to having both organically grown and genetically modified tomatoes being thrown at him.
John
If there's a "Times to not make someone angry" list, I'd say that'd be in the top five.