Organic food no healthier, study finds
#1
Posted 30 July 2009 - 12:28 AM
Wed Jul 29, 2009
LONDON (Reuters) - Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday.
Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007.
A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference.
"A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance," said Alan Dangour, one of the report's authors.
"Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority."
The results of research, which was commissioned by the British government's Food Standards Agency, were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Sales of organic food have fallen in some markets, including Britain, as recession has led consumers to cut back on purchases.
The Soil Association said in April that growth in sales of organic products in Britain slowed to just 1.7 percent in 2008, well below the average annual growth rate of 26 percent over the last decade, following a plunge in demand at the end of the year.
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BIGGEST SCIENCE SCANDAL EVER...Official records systematically 'adjusted'.
#2
Posted 30 July 2009 - 10:49 AM
Mark S Young
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#3
Posted 30 July 2009 - 11:54 AM
"If you've heard this story before, don't stop me because I'd like to hear it again," Groucho Marx (on market history?).
“I've learned in options trading simple is best and the obvious is often the most elusive to recognize.”
"The god of trading rewards persistence, experience and discipline, and absolutely nothing else."
#4
Posted 30 July 2009 - 05:33 PM
Mark S Young
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#5
Posted 31 July 2009 - 02:42 PM
Ames and Gold's message isn't to quit eating fruits and vegetables. They just want to debunk the hysteria over synthetic pesticides and work toward a more rational regulatory system that focuses on large risks (such as poor diet and lifestyle), not small ones (such as chemical bogeymen).
"Publicity about hundreds of minor hypothetical risks, such as pesticide residues, can result in loss of perspective on what is important," the pair writes. "Half of the US public does not know that fruit and vegetable consumption protect against cancer." Even though they contain pesticides.
http://www.reason.co...show/27753.html
But there is another puzzle—exposures to many of the most suspect pesticides have been declining for decades. A 2002 study of synthetic chemical residues in human breast milk supported by an activist group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, concluded, "Over the past few decades, levels of the organochlorine pesticides, PCBs, and dioxins have declined in breast milk in countries where these chemicals have been banned or otherwise regulated." A report from the American Council on Science and Health in New York which receives some industry support asserts that the residues of many organochlorine pesticides found in human tissues declined by 90 percent. So if exposure to pesticides is declining, why would male genital abnormalities be going up?
Make no mistake about it—massive occupational exposure in the 1970s and 1980s to some pesticides had tragic health effects such as causing infertility in hundreds of agricultural workers. But so far, the effect of low level exposures to pesticides and other synthetic chemicals on human male genitalia does not appear to have been "dramatic" and may not exist at all. Dueling ambiguous scientific studies bring to the fore a hard policy question: How much time and resources do we (government, industry and consumer) want to spend in chasing what have so often turned out to be phantom risks? In the meantime, spraying a lawn for dandelions and fire ants doesn't seem like taking much of a risk with one's manhood to me.
http://www.reason.co...how/116485.html
Edited by stocks, 31 July 2009 - 02:47 PM.
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change,
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
#6
Posted 01 August 2009 - 12:16 PM
Now get yourself one of those red rocks from Mexico they call tomatoes.
You are confusing organic with fresh and varieties which ship well compared to those which have excellent flavor.
I've been growing tomatoes since I was 5.
Vine ripened tomatoes grown in "organic" fertilizers and tomatoes grown in Miracle Grow taste the same.
It's all good.
I just avoid the pesticides, except for the ones which are good for you and your vegetable trees.
Healthy Pesticides for vegetable trees: LINK
BIGGEST SCIENCE SCANDAL EVER...Official records systematically 'adjusted'.
#7
Posted 01 August 2009 - 01:02 PM
Sort of like some other things, there is no BAD.I've been growing tomatoes since I was 5.
Vine ripened tomatoes grown in "organic" fertilizers and tomatoes grown in Miracle Grow taste the same.
It's all good.
btw: you do know how to ripen green ones to save for the winter,-- tomatoes that is.
A DOG ALWAYS OFFERS UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. CATS HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT!!
#8
Posted 01 August 2009 - 10:02 PM
you do know how to ripen green ones to save for the winter,-- tomatoes that is.
Simple: put them on a shelf in the garage.
We usually have the last one with Christmas dinner.
BIGGEST SCIENCE SCANDAL EVER...Official records systematically 'adjusted'.
#9
Posted 02 August 2009 - 07:57 AM
You can also wrap them in several sheets of "news-paper" place them in back of a closet or other cool dark place and they last and last.you do know how to ripen green ones to save for the winter,-- tomatoes that is.
Simple: put them on a shelf in the garage.
We usually have the last one with Christmas dinner.
I actually had some "big boys" to last till mid Jan. Course lasting depends on how fast you eat them.
A DOG ALWAYS OFFERS UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. CATS HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT!!
#10
Posted 02 August 2009 - 09:15 AM
More to the point, organic crops - because they are untreated with chemicals - have correspondingly high levels of natural fungal toxins. Thus they balance out: artificial pesticide residues in non-organic crops, natural fungal toxins in organic. The only real difference is that the former are cheaper to grow - and this takes us to the heart of the issue, according to Professor Ottoline Leyser of York University.
"People think that the more natural something is, the better it is for them. That is simply not the case. In fact, it is the opposite that is the true: the closer a plant is to its natural state, the more likely it is that it will poison you. Naturally, plants do not want to be eaten, so we have spent 10,000 years developing agriculture and breeding out harmful traits from crops. 'Natural agriculture' is a contradiction in terms."
And this is a critical point. The idea that natural is good and anything else is bad has become deeply rooted in society. Yet the belief is flawed, for it implies the living world exists merely to provide humans with bounteous amounts of produce. Nature is a shopping trolley created for our exploitation, in other words. But fields are not natural and crops are not natural. They are the end result of thousands of years of hard work and experimentation by human beings. And that is why agricultural produce is good for us today.
http://www.guardian....2/organics-food
Edited by stocks, 02 August 2009 - 09:23 AM.
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change,
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.