No Health Benefits from Organic Food
A recent review of 240 studies has concluded that:
The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods. Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Organic produce has become increasingly popular in recent years. There are several reasons that consumers might prefer organic produce, including the belief that organic farming is better for the environment and more sustainable. I am going to focus in this article about the health effects of organic produce. Environmental claims for organic farming are complex and controversial – I will just say that such claims largely fall prey to the naturalistic and false dichotomy fallacies. In my opinion, farming practices should be evaluated on their own merits individually, based on evidence rather than philosophy. Sustainable and environmentally friendly farming are certainly laudable goals and I support farming practices promote them, however they are labeled.
The alleged superiority of organically grown produce is a separate question. In a 2003 survey 68.9% of people who purchase organic food said they did so because they believed it to be healthier (more than any other reason given). However, fifty years of research has so far not produced convincing evidence that there is any health benefit to consuming organic food. Likewise, systematic reviews of nutritional quality of organic produce also reveals no difference from conventional produce.
The recent review is therefore in agreement with previous reviews – organic produce is not more nutritious or healthful, but it is more expensive.
Some studies that find small differences in the content of specific nutrients may be due to confounding factors. For example, organic produce is generally smaller than conventional produce, so if nutrient content is measured by mass (as opposed to the total for an individual vegetable or piece of fruit) organic produce may have a slightly higher concentration. This does not necessarily translate to more overall nutrients for the consumer. Further, many studies measure multiple endpoints (nutrients) and find some differences, but may not be properly accounting for multiple analyses. The researchers in the recent study found that results were “heterogeneous” – meaning that there were significant differences in outcome among the studies. This could indicate a lack of replicability of specific outcomes, indicating that differences were more artifacts of method rather than genuine.
One type of study that I have not seen is essentially the equivalent of an “intention to treat” analysis – what is the impact of buying organic food in the real world. Even if there are tiny nutritional advantages to organic food (although to be clear this conclusion is not supported by the evidence), is there an overall nutritional advantage to eating organic? Does the higher price mean that for many consumers fewer overall fresh produce will be consumed?
The recent review did find that organic produce had fewer pesticide residues than conventional farming. However, there is no evidence that these low levels of pesticides present any health risk. The review found:
The risk for contamination with detectable pesticide residues was lower among organic than conventional produce (risk difference, 30% [CI, −37% to −23%]), but differences in risk for exceeding maximum allowed limits were small.
So while there was a difference, this did not result in a significant difference in terms of exceeding safe limits. Further, studies looking at health outcomes did not find any significant difference between consuming organic vs conventional produce. These studies are limited in number and duration, however. Further, there may be a bias in how these studies are performed. Organic farming does use pesticides, but only “natural” pesticides are allowed. There is little to no evidence that these organic pesticides are less harmful for consumers or the environment. It is just assumed that they are based upon the naturalistic fallacy.
Even if we take the most pro-organic assumption – that there are more pesticides on conventional produce and that those pesticides have greater negative health effects than organic pesticides, it must still be recognized that simply washing fruits and vegetables effectively reduces pesticide residue. If minimized exposure to pesticide residue is your goal, thoroughly washing your produce is probably the easiest and cheapest way to achieve that end.
Differences in bacterial contamination were similar. There were no differences seen in E. coli contamination. There was a 33% greater chance of isolated a multi-antibiotic resistance bacteria on conventional produce, but no evidence this translates into a health risk. Again – even if we assume a difference in health risk (something not demonstrated by the data) this can be remedied by thorough washing.
Conclusion
The recent review of organic vs conventional produce agrees with previous systematic reviews that there is insufficient evidence to conclude that organic produce is healthier or more nutritious that conventional produce. Despite the scientific evidence, the alleged health benefits of organic produce is the number one reason given by consumers for buying organic. This likely represents the triumph of marketing over scientific reality.
Posted in: Nutrition
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I want my Star Trek replicator, do away with pests and farmers altogether, have clean beef, fresh Kerguelen cabbage, tillage radishes, fugu, humane foie gras, whatever — year ’round, or whenever the tricorder says my body mythology thinks things are in season. Nor more more organic food guilt trips nor senescent hippies’ smelly underarms. Perfection.
^ I was just dreaming about a scenario in which I finally end up with my celebrity crush, and how it would ultimately be a nightmare because all she’d want to talk about is organic produce and acupuncture.
I want a specific Star Trek transporter: one that targets aphids, spider mites and fungus gnats. After weeks of work in late spring, I had finally removed all of the aphids from my greenhouse plants (mostly peppers, hot and not hot, plus a basil plant). So they grew in the warmth without aphids for most of the summer, then I found some one there yesterday! So they were all moved to the deck. I just sprinkled the postal carrier as he delivered the mail under the deck while I was washing off aphids. I assured him it was just water, and he did enjoy the mist since it is a warm day.
How do the aphids get to the second floor greenhouse? (it was a balcony off the master bedroom that we enclosed with a roof and three sides of windows, it had skylights but they were removed because it sounded like a drum when it rained… not something you want next to your bedroom) I am going to clean the greenhouse (it is also bookcases and a great place for reading, with a great view… and a reason I cannot use ladybug beetles), clean all of the pots, even bleach out the pea gravel used for drainage, and tomorrow pick up clean potting soil at a nursery sale. I will start seeds in November, and hope that no aphids find their way back.
If the lemon trees need to be brought in during very cold weather, I will be keeping them downstairs and hope nothing migrates up the stairs. I love Meyer’s lemons, and I hope Dr. Novella has better luck with his banana tree than I have had with these potted lemon trees (they are loved too much by spider mites, their leaves fall off).
I found that fungus gnats can be removed by putting yellow painted popsicle sticks covered in tanglefoot, and also by putting a layer of perlite on top of the soil that has been hit with the spray version of tanglefoot though this year I think I’ll use crushed white rock). It helps to see the bugs that fall back to the soil after they have a shower (in the master bath), and catches the gnats as they crawl out of the soil. Not only are they annoying when they fly around while the greenhouse as I am reading in there, they damage roots and even feed on leaves.
This is part of my litany of tales of why organic gardening may be fun, it is not cheap nor is it easy.
I think this depends on what one means by “proper temperature.” I’m certainly not going to run a heritage turkey up to the USDA’s recommended 165°F.
I’m a little surprised that no one has responded to this assertion by Stanmrak:
There are two testable hypotheses in that statement. Is there reliable evidence (beyond “looking around”) to support either of them?
Assuming their claimed facts, that logic makes sense to me.
From a study I just fabricated about street gangs:
5th-street gang (245 members): 24 traffic citations for not wearing seatbelts in year 2011
7th-street gang (287 members): 1 traffic citation for not wearing seatbelts in year 2011
One might conclude that the gang on 7th street does a better job of educating its members about seatbelt laws. But you wouldn’t want to make that claim and then have someone else point out that the 7th-street group is a motorcycle gang.
Mal Adapted, it probably was not worth responding to that old and boring trope. Apparently doubling the average lifespan in a century is not good enough for some.
Stan Mrak’s assertions are endless. A lot of people have resorted to ignoring him. Every time he shows up, I check to see if his moronic century theory of heart disease (in short, he credits the lack of heart attacks 100 years ago to the magical powers of eating lard, and ignores the fact that back then people died 25 years sooner due to infections and didn’t have time to get heart disease) is still on his website. Yes, the stupid is still there:
http://www.antioxidants-for-health-and-longevity.com/best-cooking-oil.html
And that’s basically the same argument you addressed. 100 years ago some guy dies at age 50 from an infection. Yesterday someone else died from a heart attack at 75. Stan Mrak describes that as “getting sicker”.
It is ironic to bring this up here. Mrak thinks we are getting sicker because we are eating less lard, when in fact we are living longer because we aren’t dying from infections. The guy is just bat-side-down backwards on everything.
CC, yes but the conventional and organic farms were growing the same fruits and vegetables. They had samples of each type of fruit and vegetable from both types of farms. It is just that the conventional farms had fewer instances of contamination than did the organic farms.
They simply didn’t want to report the conclusion that their data led to.
That paper is available for free, if you put the title into Google Scholar it will come up and can be downloaded as a pdf.
Hey Steven,
What do you think of this response by Benbrook on Sept 4:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/benbrook_annals_response2012.pdf
Reading it, it appears to be fairly level-headed, though it does not offer too many answers of his own — or if he does through his own studies, it may be that his articles/findings just didn’t make it into the news.
Philippe
The passage you quoted seems to be saying that this is not the simple case, but rather that the conventional farms were not growing the same fruits and vegetables in the same quantities.
“disproportionately smaller number of produce types that
appear to be more susceptible to contamination such as
lettuces and leafy greens collected from conventional operations.”
CC – “And that’s basically the same argument you addressed. 100 years ago some guy dies at age 50 from an infection. Yesterday someone else died from a heart attack at 75. Stan Mrak describes that as “getting sicker”.
It is ironic to bring this up here. Mrak thinks we are getting sicker because we are eating less lard, when in fact we are living longer because we aren’t dying from infections. The guy is just bat-side-down backwards on everything.”
Yup, but it’s not just infections. There is also the difference in record keeping over time. In 1912, When cardio-vascular disease wasn’t recognized early or treated, many people just had heart attacks or strokes and died immediately or quickly at home. How were these deaths tracked?
Also, food was fair less plentiful to the majority of people than it is today. So people ate less, they ate more staple foods, such as beans, potatoes, rice, etc to there’s a good chance they ate alot less fat over all in 1912.
Another consideration is the protective effects of physical activity in CVD. Compare the physical activity level of the average rancher, farmer, factory worker, mason…even clerical worker in 1912 to that of the average software engineer, retail worker, factory worker today.
Barbie says “Epidemiology is Hard!”
Just as an aside, If you clarify that you are setting aside infection, malnutrition and occupational injury (public health, worker rights or environmental issues), people in 1912 were probably overall “healthier” than they are today.
So as long as you make it clear that you are setting aside those issues, you can write a headline. “People Healthier in 1912 Than Today” and you would be just as accurate as an SBM headline.
Steven Novella, in attempting to defend his claim that a 300% greater risk of exposure (which he has mistakenly claimed is only a 33% greater risk, thus mistakenly under-reporting the actual risk by 909%) to antibiotic-resistant bacteria in purchasing conventional chicken and pork as compared to purchasing organic chicken and pork, wrote:
“Or it may be that any increased risk is offset by risks that are greater in organic food.“
Would that be the magical mysterious undetectable-by-scientific-methods evil organic woo? Is that mentioned in the Stanford paper?
The USDA (Nutrient Content of the U.S. Food Supply, 1909–2000) gives 12.6% of total calories from fats and oils in 1909–1919 and 21.7% in 2000. Lard consumption was quite stable through the end of the 1950s.
CC, if you look at the data they supply, it directly contradicts the impression of their statement.
surfgeorge, why don’t you look at the papers I cited on fecal bacteria found on organic vs conventional produce. That produce is usually consumed raw, unlike pork and chicken which is cooked. Thus the risks of organic produce are higher than the risks of conventional produce.
@ConspicuousCarl
Pitiful arguments, Carl. Apparently, you don’t even know the difference between ‘sick’ and ‘dead’. Living a few years longer drugged up on pharmaceuticals and suffering endless side effects from them isn’t an improvement in my book. And reducing the theory of heart disease to lard consumption is laughable. Nowhere do I assert that. But how do YOU explain the fact that the rate of heart disease continued to rise, even as saturated fat consumption decreased dramatically over several decades?
@stanmrak, it must be difficult watching your entire world crash down around you. Haha!
“Before 1920, coronary heart disease was rare. Back then, people cooked with butter and lard, both high in saturated fat. However, by the 1950′s, the rate of heart disease had grown so dramatically that it became the leading cause of death among Americans.”
1909–1919: Butter, 4.4%; lard & tallow, 3.8%
1920–1929: Butter, 4.6%; lard & tallow, 4.2%
1930–1939: Butter, 4.8%; lard & tallow, 4.2%
1940–1949: Butter, 3.4%; lard & tallow, 4.3%
1950–1959: Butter, 2.5%; lard & tallow, 3.8%
Now, perhaps you would like to connect the “by the 1950′s” dots.
@daedalus2u:
As I have repeatedly said, as per Steven Novella’s request, I am only commenting on the Stanford paper and Novella’s misreporting of the data, his suggestions that run contrary to those of the CDC and the USDA FSIS, and his interpretation that there is “no health benefit”, or that it is not reasonable to conclude that there might be a health benefit, from not selecting a product that has a 300% greater risk of exposure to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Well, that and the fact that no one associated with this site will call out Novella on his errors.
daedalus2u wrote:
“Thus the risks of organic produce are higher than the risks of conventional produce.”
As I understand your words, you are claiming that the Stanford systematic review is wrong when they state “Escherichia coli contamination risk did not differ between organic and conventional produce.” Is that correct? What is your evidentiary basis for invalidating their findings? What other findings in the Stanford systematic review are invalid in your view, and why?
My understanding is the the vast majority of food-borne illness involving meat (includng of course the chicken and pork referenced in the Stanford systematic review) are not due to inadequate cooking, but from prior-to-cooking cross contamination during unpackaging and preparation wherein hands, utensils, and surfaces are contaminated, and then other foods are cross contaminated. The claim that “cooking makes it safe” ignores this fact.
I have emails to the CDC, USDA FSIS, and the Stanford systematic reviews lead author asking for clarifications on some of the specific data. I’ll be sure to share whatever I hear back from any of them, if I hear back.
The Stanford systematic review abstract conclusion has two sentences:
The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods. Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
I want to compare Novella’s claim of “no health benefit” with the conclusion of the systematic review.
The Stanford abstract conclusion makes no mention at all of “health benefit”, it simply states, in the first sentence, the concept “nutritious”. Would more “nutritious” be the only possible “health benefit” from organic products? There is no real reason to deduce that from what is written in the abstract conclusion. One could speculate on that, but one wouldn’t be affirming anything from the abstract. In fact, it’s possible (if I can play the “may”, “could”, “potential”, etc. game myself as Novella does) that the second sentence (re reduced exposure to pesticides and antibiotic-resistant bacteria with organic products) of the abstract conclusion could be interpreted as suggesting that there could possibly be a health benefit to organic produce despite a lack of nutritional superiority.
I wonder if we could write slightly modified versions of that first sentence of the abstract conclusion:
original:
The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods.
modification 1 (re “strong”):
The published literature contains less-than-strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods.
modification 2 (re “significantly”):
The published literature has strong evidence that organic foods are more nutritious than conventional foods, but not significantly so.
Of course the question is how is the term “significantly”defined, and since I don’t have a copy of the full paper yet, I don’t know the answer to that. But there is a systematic review of organic vs. conventional products that does conclude that there is a significant nutritional benefit to organic products, and that that significance likely has a clinical impact.
I posted a link earlier, but no one has seen fit to comment on it. I should mention, that at least according to some commentors, this systematic review, covering largely the same original research as the Stanford review, used a more rigorous methodology of determining higher quality of original studies, and a higher standard for admitting them into the systematic review.
I’ll post it again:
Agroecosystem Management and Nutritional Quality of Plant Foods: The Case of Organic Fruits and Vegetables (www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07352689.2011.554417), which includes “A meta-analysis of the published comparisons of the content of secondary metabolites and vitamins in organically and conventionally produced fruits and vegetables” and a computer modeled benefit outcome
With your absurd argument about rates of heart disease before 1920, you apparently don’t know the difference between “living” and “dead”.
Two decades is not “a few”.
A dishonest attempt to confuse “drugged up” on recreational drugs vs. medication by insulin, lipitor, etc.
Nice try. You state that people used to eat loads of lard and other saturated fats, and look how they didn’t have heart attacks, and then you have an entire page on your website talking about the best source of saturated fat.
Even you shouldn’t lower yourself to the cliche BS of slithering around your own position by claiming that you didn’t say exactly what you said.
And here are some of your own exact words:
“If you need to use any oil for frying or baking, saturated fats are the best,”
Depending on how many you mean by “several”, I already did. We have more heart disease than we did 8 decades ago because we aren’t dying sooner from other causes. You still don’t get this, and it is pathetic.
In the last 2-3 decades, one reason why people are not eating healthier is probably fake experts like you, who are always distracting people with nonsense.
MY ONE PIECE OF DATA IS BETTER THAN UR DATAZ!
There is not a thing called “nutrition” that if you get more of it you will be healthier.
Organisms require multiple nutrients in different amounts depending on their physiology, what is going on with their health, and many other things.
Other than due to gross deficiencies, it is very difficult to determine how “nutritious” a specific diet is for a specific person. The best diet advice remains: eat a lot of different things, not too much and mostly plants.
Exactly why this diet advice is correct is not well understood. It is not due to consumption of specific compounds, so models that pretend it is are wrong.
@daedalus2u:
First you seem to be claiming that there is no known causal or necessary relationship between nutrition/diet and “health”, apparently in order to invalidate a systematic review (covering much of the same research that the Stanford review did, but with a possibly higher quality standard) that claims there is. That study claimed a nutrition-based health benefit from an organic diet as opposed to a diet of conventionally farmed foods. Apparently you don’t like that conclusion so you claim that nutrition is unrelated to health, and therefore even if the systematic review is correct, that there is a health benefit from nutritionally superior organic foods, that there really isn’t because nutrion has no causal bearing on health, except for gross deficiencies.
Then you give nutrition advice you claim is valid and effects health.
You can’t really have it both ways. Either nutrition effects health, however complex that might be. Or nutrition does not effect health, and if that is the case as you claim, you would not be so silly as to then venture some opinion on what kind of nutrition effects health. Would you?
@SkepticalHealth:
Are you asserting that one systematic review is “singular” data and another systematic review is “plural” data? Which is which, and why?
What does nutritionally superior mean? You don’t have to eat as much of it to get the requisite calories and vitamins?
Part of the issue is proxy versus real health endpoints. The lit review seemed to compare mostly proxies – antibiotic-resistant bacteria, levels of specific vitamins in specific foods and pesticide levels. You can therefore take the results either way – they more found pesticides in non-organic foods and this is horrible, or they found traces of pesticides in non-organic foods that are unlikely to cause health problems and this is good. Where you go from these actual findings depends in large part on assumptions and (I would say more so in the case of pro-organic groups) ideology. If you assume pesticides are a universal evil that does harm, you’re going to proclaim organic food a win. If you assume pesticides are safe in small amounts, you can proclaim this a victory for an agricultural system that produces large amounts of food cheaply. However, neither type of food has been linked to higher or lower levels of morbidity or mortality – real health endpoints.
For either “side” to proclaim this definitive or fatally flawed is engaging in rhetoric rather than science, if you are talking about the effect of organic food on human health. We just don’t know.
Of course, since the organic food movement is based more on the naturalistic fallacy than on emprical measures, they automatically lose a lot of credibility right from the start – in my opinion anyway. Anybody eating organic now, when there’s no real science to support it, should just accept the fact that they’re doing it for ideological reasons (or at best an extreme application of the precautionary principle), not empirical ones. Nothing wrong with that, so long as you don’t treat it as a war (or argument) to be won.
@WilliamLawrenceUtridge:
So you’re asserting that a person choosing NOT to consume the product that is 300% more likely to be contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria is “doing it for ideological reasons (or at best an extreme application of the precautionary principle).” What would the comparative contamination level have to be for such a choice not be “ideological” or “extreme”?
Your “opinion” painting “the organic food movement” with a broad brush to make it out to be monolithic is interesting. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I don’t believe it is warranted by looking at the diversity of writings by pro-organic advocates.
Someone could make the same “fallacy oriented” and “ideologically rather than evidence oriented” claims against skeptics. Take for example this article by Novella: He misstates what a particular statistic applies to (only two items, not the dozens analyzed that would be under the “produce” label); he misstates the probability of contamination by a factor of 909% (my personal opinion is that that is an error that is statistically significant); he gives advice directly contrary to that of the CDC and the USDA FSIS without presenting any evidence that his assertion is more valid than the government agencies responsible for informing the public of how to prevent food-borne illness; he makes non-evidence based assertions that the increased risk of ARB exposure is either 1. inconsequential, or 2. there is some mysterious unnamed evil woo in organic products that makes the decreased risk of exposure with those products ineffective.
See any fallacies or ideology in that?
Oh, and we’re 6 days and 132 comments in, and not one single person associated with this site, nor any of the commentors supporting Novella’s views, have commented on his errors. Not one. Ideology? Or what?
weing wrote:
“What does nutritionally superior mean? You don’t have to eat as much of it to get the requisite calories and vitamins?”
From the Newcastle University systematic review that I posted above:
“Based on the assumption that increasing the content of biologically active compounds in fruits and vegetables by 12% would be equivalent to increasing the intake of fruits and vegetables by the same 12%…”
Meaning that eating the equivalent number of calories of organic foods, as opposed to the same number of calories of conventionally farmed foods, the resulting increased 12% of the nutrients would yield a health benefit.
surfgeorge, data is plural, datum is singular.
The assumption that “nutrition” is proportional to quantities of biologically active compounds is not correct.
I appreciate that those in the cult of organic want to somehow prove that organic is better so as to justify their organic fetish. There isn’t any mystical magical benefit that foods grown under organic conditions provide.
Organic farming is not a science based idea. There aren’t any compelling ideas as to why organic foods should be better than non-organic foods. Organic proponents claim there is, but when they show the data it is not compelling.
“Meaning that eating the equivalent number of calories of organic foods, as opposed to the same number of calories of conventionally farmed foods, the resulting increased 12% of the nutrients would yield a health benefit.”
Assuming that there really is a 12% increase in nutrients (which ones?), what would that health benefit be? 12% less calories needed? Does that apply to poisonous plants too? If I were to grow belladonna organically, can others be poisoned with a fewer number of berries than conventionally grown?
DU2 “Organic farming is not a science based idea. There aren’t any compelling ideas as to why organic foods should be better than non-organic foods. Organic proponents claim there is, but when they show the data it is not compelling.”
And conventional methods of using antibiotics in feed to speed and increase growth of livestock in spite of warnings from the FDA and other science based organizations concerned with the “potential” increases in antibiotic resistant pathogens (ARP) IS science based?
Actually, yes, it is. Conventional livestock and poultry coorporations are using science to improve their profit margins, therefore enabling them to lobby for the “rights” to continue the practice in Washington, contribute to politicians election campaigns (or PACs) and advertising that rally’s support from citizens. An overall good result for them using science (Hurray!)
Science Based Farming at it’s best, I’d say. And the wonderful thing for those coorporations is that if increases in ARP cause negative public health consequences, much of the additional financial burden is not going to fall on them. It will fall on the public in the form of increased taxes, medical bills, sick days and suffering.
But, of course, if I buy organic meat instead. I am purely an ideologue. I guess that’s true. My idea is that if enough people start buying organic meat or other meat that has been raised without production antibiotics., some of the large convention operations will see a beneficial market and start offering their own brand of meat grown without the use of production antibiotics* (the FDA’s recommended approach). Therefore we could possibly see at least a decrease in the use of production antibiotics and therefore a possible decrease in the risk of ARP effecting public health.*
Clearly, I’m being irrational and emotional in my ideology.
*This is what happens when you have an two economics professors in the family.
@weing:
“Assuming that there really is a 12% increase in nutrients (which ones?)”
Read the abstract as posted. Clearly stated.
“what would that health benefit be?”
Read the abstract as posted. Clearly stated.
“Does that apply to poisonous plants too? If I were to grow belladonna organically, can others be poisoned with a fewer number of berries than conventionally grown?”
Probably. If you had read the abstract (why would a supposed critical-thinking skeptic need to read a systematic review before attempting to mock it and criticize it, when they already know, apparently by ideological means, that it’s wrong?) you’d know that:
“Ecological and agronomic research on the effect of fertilization on plant composition shows that increasing availability of plant available nitrogen reduces the accumulation of defense-related secondary metabolites and vitamin C, while the contents of secondary metabolites such as carotenes that are not involved in defense against diseases and pests may increase.”
and
“A meta-analysis of the published comparisons of the content of secondary metabolites and vitamins in organically and conventionally produced fruits and vegetables showed that in organic produce the content of secondary metabolites is 12% higher than in corresponding conventional samples ( P< 0.0001)."
therefore, IF the substance in belladonna that is toxic to humans is a secondary metabolite of the plant that serves as a defense against diseases and pests for the plant, organic is probably more toxic. I think it'd behoove you to apply for a research grant to test your hypothesis.
Yes, because the choice is not made based on a reasonable evidence base or end point. Your comment contains an assumption that 300% more antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a number that has meaningful health consequences. To date, I am not aware of any science supporting that assumption. I could be wrong of course. But ultimately the choice to eat organic is not an empirical or evidence-based one. There’s nothing wrong with making ideological decisions in the absence of evidence (at least nothing wrong with it when the only impact is to your wallet and nobody dies). But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still an ideological choice.
My opinion is very much my opinion, you don’t need to put it in quotes. The organic food movement certainly isn’t monolithic. I was a member for many years (in the fact that most of the fruits and vegetables I bought were organic). But meta-analyses like this one illustrate that the movement is not evidence-based in terms of health impact. Which is fine, there are lots of reasons to eat organic. I just don’t think any of them are actually supported empirically.
As I say above, the antibiotic resistant bacteria argument is, at this point, at best an extreme application of the precautionary principle. At best. Ironically, organic food has been associated with an increased risk of death – E. coli from an organic sprout farm in Germany killed 31 people last year. Rather than worrying about antibiotic resistant bacteria on food, not yet found to have had an impact on human health as far as I’m aware, I would be more concerned with E. coli that has acutally killed people.
Meh, the overall conclusion of the meta-analysis remains unchanged – no evidence that eating organic has any meaningful health consequences.
Probably because you come across as a strident, ideological nit-picker engaging in the kinds of logical fallacies and ad hominen attacks we see all the time here. And unlike antivaccination lunacy, the overall health impact of this area is pretty close to nil. I would like to think Dr. Novella has better things to do.
@MTR
Well, in a sense. It does increase food yields. The glut of food available in the world today means we forget the food insecurities of centuries past. Cheaper meat, for better or for worse, is a commodity that people want. It’s delicious, filling, provides valuable protein and vitamins and is the centrepiece of many meals. We’re now seeing the consequences. I personally would love to see more expensive meat that is not based on health-endangering and often inhumane rearing practices – but I still love pig and I haven’t been arsed to look into a regular supply of (quite expensive) heirloom pork.
I think a lot of this discussion seems to be because of the is-ought dilemma, the distinction between empiricism and ethics (which is my terribly loose understanding of the is-ought dilemma anyway). At this point we don’t even know the “is”, we don’t know if organic food or antibiotic-fed beef have any empirical consequences. We can’t move into an “ought”, a moral, ethical, political or economic statement about what we should do, on any sort of empirical grounding yet. So instead, people rely on preferences, assumptions, rhetoric and ideology to inform what they buy. Nothing wrong with that, it’s just wrong to cloak your taste and assumptions in science when the science isn’t actually there.
@daedalus2u:
Thanks for the spelling information. I knew that. Really.
I was responding to SkepticalHealth, who had written: “MY ONE PIECE OF DATA IS BETTER THAN UR DATAZ!” (an attempt at humor using the lolcats format?) after I posted the Newcastle University systematic review that concluded there is a health benefit from organic as opposed to conventionally farmed foods, and thought perhaps, since it’s unlikely that they had read it (if they follow the mode of most of the posters here) that perhaps they were unaware that it was a systematic review that had included several hundred papers.
daedalus2u wrote:
“The assumption that “nutrition” is proportional to quantities of biologically active compounds is not correct.”
So the conclusion that “nutritional deficiency diseases” are attributed causally to an insufficient “quantity of biologically active compounds” is incorrect? I think if you can prove that you will win some kind of award or something. Congratulations!
WilliamLawrenceUtridge wrote:
“Yes, because the choice is not made based on a reasonable evidence base or end point. Your comment contains an assumption that 300% more antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a number that has meaningful health consequences. To date, I am not aware of any science supporting that assumption. I could be wrong of course. But ultimately the choice to eat organic is not an empirical or evidence-based one. There’s nothing wrong with making ideological decisions in the absence of evidence (at least nothing wrong with it when the only impact is to your wallet and nobody dies). But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still an ideological choice.”
and
“As I say above, the antibiotic resistant bacteria argument is, at this point, at best an extreme application of the precautionary principle. At best.”
I contend that the data in these two recent studies, and other studies, is sufficient evidence that a reasonable person is justified in considering a 300% increased risk of contamination in a product as an unwarranted risk. And that such a choice is neither “ideological” nor “an extreme application of the precautionary principle”. Everyone is free to interpret the evidence against antibiotic resistance bacterial disease transmission in their own way, and have whatever standard of “proof” they choose, but this evidence, in my view, warrants reasonable discretion and is neither irrational nor ideological. To the people who want to continue to expose themselves to that greater degree of risk, I hope you’re correct in your assumptions.
Chicken as Reservoir for Extraintestinal Pathogenic Escherichia coli in Humans, Canada
Emerging Infectious Diseases Vol. 18, Number 3 March 2012
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/3/11-1099_article.htm
Food-Borne Origins of Escherichia coli Causing Extraintestinal Infections
Clin Infect Dis. (2012) doi: 10.1093/cid/cis502 First published online: May 21, 2012
http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/06/07/cid.cis502.abstract
WilliamLawrenceUtridge wrote:
“Probably because you come across as a strident, ideological nit-picker engaging in the kinds of logical fallacies and ad hominen attacks we see all the time here.”
Now that’s funny! Even the slightest bit of something that others would gleefully label as some well-deserved insolence is now labeled “ideological nitpicking”! I love it! Please list “the kinds of logical fallacies and ad hominem attacks” I’ve posted. I’m curious. Really. Name one ad hominem. Is “Novella under-reported the risk of exposure by 909%” ad hominem?
WilliamLawrenceUtridge wrote:
“Meh, the overall conclusion of the meta-analysis remains unchanged – no evidence that eating organic has any meaningful health consequences.”
It makes no difference to you, nor is it significant nor worthy of note or correction, that there are errors and ideologically-based evidence-free claims by the author in his reporting and interpretation of a systematic review on a blog called “Science-Based Medicine”. Your agreement with the conclusions some aspects of the systematic review overrides any concern about inaccuracy or ideological claims. Good to know.
WilliamLawrenceUtridge wrote:
“I personally would love to see more expensive meat that is not based on health-endangering…”
What is “health endangering” about meat?
@WilliamLawrenceUtridge:
I apologize for my error. I ought to have phrased that last question:
What is “health-endangering” about animal “rearing practices”?
WLU – Yes, I did say it was science based farming, didn’t I?
“At this point we don’t even know the “is”, we don’t know if organic food or antibiotic-fed beef have any empirical consequences. We can’t move into an “ought”, a moral, ethical, political or economic statement about what we should do, on any sort of empirical grounding yet. So instead, people rely on preferences, assumptions, rhetoric and ideology to inform what they buy. Nothing wrong with that, it’s just wrong to cloak your taste and assumptions in science when the science isn’t actually there.”
Actually that’s why I keep pointing out the FDA’s recommendations. I’m under the impression that the science IS there. The empirical data IS there saying that the use of antibiotics for production increases the risk of ARP in the public.
So we know the is. The problem is the ought.
Would you include, say, organophosphate exposure among banana-plantation workers as lacking adequate empirical evidence of harm?
Regarding antibiotic resistant bacteria. I am a bit skeptical here. Bacteria have been around for over 3 billion years. They’ve been exposed to and survived all sorts of chemicals in that time. We’ve been trying for less than a hundred years. If they could talk, they could easily say, been there, done that. I don’t think we make much difference.
@WLU – but if my efforts and the efforts of other people who are interested in the issue are helpful, maybe you’ll be able to get your no production antibiotic pork slightly cheaper and more conveniently someday. (I don’t know if I want my pork to my heirloom, though, I’ll take the new stuf)
weing – So MRSA isn’t real? or just not serious? You lost me.
MTR. It’s real all-right, and serious. I just suspect it has been around longer than we think.
Weing – Oh thank god, I was afraid you had gone off some sort of denialist deep end. But, what you appear to be saying is contrary to what I learned in biology and what doctors have told me. “Over use of antibiotics can lead to more antibiotic resistant bacteria.”. Are you saying that’s not established science or that you are skeptical of this bit of established science?
I am skeptical of it. I am not sure it is that established. It is more taken for granted. I do recall reading about studies done on bacteria found in excavations that were resistant to current antibiotics. I’ll have to do a search for this. One may have had something to do with Henry Hudson. They tried to explain it by the content of iron in the specimens. But that’s just off the top of my head.
I found a few articles about antibiotic resistance in ancient bacteria. Still looking for the one I read years ago.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/ng33933p56368477/
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0034953
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v477/n7365/full/nature10388.html
Interesting – Thanks weing!
Sorry but I believe you should reconsider your position on this study, after you have considered the fact that one of the major financial contributors to the Freeman Spogli Institute is the Cargill Corporation. (http://www.cargill.com/corporate-responsibility/environmental-sustainability/environmental-partners/stanford/index.jsp) They have an obvious incentive to slant the results of this study against any suggestion that organic foodes are better than conventional. See (http://www.cornucopia.org/2012/09/stanfords-spin-on-organics-allegedly-tainted-by-biotechnology-funding/)
There were apparently many flaws in the way the study evaluated its data. For example:
- The nutritional analysis appears to favor specific nutrients that were found in similar levels in both conventional and organics, and ignores nutrients that occur in higher levels in organics. Studies of conventional versus organic nutrient levels have been done, and according to at least one published survey of these studies (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/afrd/research/publication/168871), organic produce contain about an average of 12% more nutrients than conventional produce. See also http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/stanford-organics-study-public-health_n_1880441.html
- The amounts of pesticides and other harmful chemicals in the food were not considered in the analysis. Both organic anc conventional foods have these (organic in trace amounts), and naturally conventional foods have much higher levels. But in the analysis the amount and number of kinds of pesticide found was not factored in; only whether or not any pesticide at all was found. See (http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/09/five-ways-stanford-study-underestimates-organic-food)
- The comparative percents of conventional versus organic foods containing pesticides was also misrepresented; the report states that conventional food is 30% more likely to contain them. But the numbers in the details of the report show that 7% of organic foods sampled contained pesticides compared to 38% of the conventional foods. That’s a factor of more than FIVE times greater chance of conventional food containing the pesticides, not to mention that they are in much higher levels on each conventional product compared to organic.
Also, check this article:
…”one of the key co-authors of the study, Dr. Ingram Olkin, has a deep history as an “anti-science” propagandist working for Big Tobacco…”
http://www.naturalnews.com/037108_Stanford_Ingram_Olkin_Big_Tobacco.html
You might as well believe all the “scientific” studies that the tobacco industry used to publish which used statistics to show that smoking cigarettes is not harmful to your health.
Yah. And you state this right after using Mike Adams as a source.