There's a new study out touted as the latest news on the nutritional value of organic foods. It appeared August 5th in the Seattle Times:

[seattletimes.nwsource.com]

Should we be worried?

Worried about what?

brian1cs Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Worried about what?
Worried that the already too small section of Organic
produce at my local food store will disappear altogether.
The news article didn't help matters.....WY

money talks and bullsh!t walks, so long as you are putting your dollar there the market for organics will remain. don't fret about it, people who eat that way already know the benefits. i wouldn't worry.

The studies ought to look at the anti-nutrients, or toxins in the foods. In the case of meat, there ought to be a huge difference.

I read this story on CNN recently. If Monsanto type companies & the government goons continue to have their way, then I am worried as well. I could really care less about any "studies" like this that I see -

I heard a saying a few years ago that I pretty much live my life by these days...

"I believe none of what I hear & half of what I see..."

Sad but true. That is what it has come to in this world of deceit & greed. From a John Mayer tune - "when they own the information, they can bend it all they want..."

Bottom line - keep providing me with Organics, I will keep purchasing, I don't care about the "studies" results. Of course, how do I KNOW that the food I am purchasing is really organically grown? That little usda organic sticker?

Give me a break...

Wheatgrass Yogi wrote-

"brian1cs Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Worried about what?
Worried that the already too small section of Organic
produce at my local food store will disappear altogether.
The news article didn't help matters.....WY".


Oh ok.I got it now. Thanks WY.
That's terrible! Even though most of my food now are not organic, I've been thinking of adding more and more to the point where my diet is about fully organic.
Before now I didn't think it necessary but this summer I planted a kitchen garden(organic)and I can taste the difference between the two.

The thing that worried me was that this seems to have the imprimatur of unbiased analysis, and it's a pretty decisive rebuke of the idea that organic produce is more nutrient dense. I am sure that the common belief that organic produce is healthier must be based on agricultural studies. I know I've come across some from the USDA . . . Curiously, in the reprint of the original article in my and I'm sure other local papers, the data about who conducted the study and what their disciplines were was omitted. It just referred to "British researchers." I still can't shake the idea that some special interest is behind this information. Poisoning soil and animal feed cannot possibly result in food that is nutritious. The underlying problem with this study is that governments could potentially use it as a springboard for legislation. I don't think it's a coincidence that this came out as there is growing concern about these latest so-called food safety bills, and more noise about protecting and favoring organic producers.

I fear becoming paranoid . . .

"Curiously, in the reprint of the original article in my and I'm sure other local papers, the data about who conducted the study and what their disciplines were was omitted."


Tamukha - read my prev. post - From a John Mayer tune - "when they own the information, they can bend it all they want..."

I see this over & over in the media, I can hardly stand to watch any news or any media info. at all anymore. I am way past paranoid at this point...I am a realist.

To start with, it's just one review, notwithstanding that reviews are analyses of multiple studies over time. It's just as possible other reviews on the same subject show opposite results. Just for an example, in 2006 a Hungarian review on the same subject matter showed organic foods were higher in Vitamin C, polyphenols and flavonoids [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

The review itself was comissioned by the UK Food Standards Board, an entity created after the Mad Cow Disease/BSE incidents. What the relationship is between the Board and stakeholders isn't entirely clear to me. Who paid for the review may not be as telling as who's behind it.

Finally, as many have said on this thread, environmental protection remains among the main benefits of buying organic.

[thejakartaglobe.com]

“Organic farming is an integrated approach which conserves soils, encourages biodiversity, eliminates greenhouse gas-intensive nitrogen inputs, conserves genetic diversity and brings more income to the grower,” said Andrew Lee of the Sustainable Development Commission.

Molly Connisbee of the Soil Association said that organic farms have on average 30 percent more species and 50 percent more wildlife like birds, butterflies and bees.

“Other environmental benefits are self-evident — there’s less dangerous waste on organic farms and almost no pesticide use. Artificial nitrogen fertilizer is banned in organic farming, so there’s less runoff of nutrients that cause algae blooms in coastal waters,” she said.

along these lines...

[www.youtube.com]

permaculture food forest, very interesting. the positives and the stumbling blocks. i want to try it out.

Hi,

A govt. backed study that's objective? Yeah, just like the inter govermental panel on climate change. I prefer to make my own decisions based on logic, not some biased agency. I find it interesting that the real temperature of the planet has actually COOLED over the past 12yrs but the congress rushed their cap & trade tax a day before the information leaked out.

That my friends is 'the inconvient truth'

I'll buy organic thanks. It tastes better to me.

Love is patient, love is kind, it is not self-seeking, love ALWAYS protects,always endures. (1corinthians 13)

God IS love!! (1john4)
Jesus Christ...... The ONLY way to Heaven.
I am the Way, the Truth & the Life..(John 14:6)

joewood,

That's why I call it CHICC instead of global warming, which is a misnomer. CHICC--Catastrophic Human Induced Climate Change.

If organic "tastes better" then it MUST be healthier, right? Hopefully this will induce people to contiue to invest in organics.

Even if organic food turned out to be no more nutritious than non-organic (which I strongly doubt, mind you!), I'd still buy it whenever possible, because pesticides are poisons that I'd rather not have in my body.

Sharrhan:


[www.facebook.com]

joewood Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi,
>
> A govt. backed study that's objective? Yeah, just
> like the inter govermental panel on climate
> change. I prefer to make my own decisions based on
> logic, not some biased agency. I find it
> interesting that the real temperature of the
> planet has actually COOLED over the past 12yrs but
> the congress rushed their cap & trade tax a day
> before the information leaked out.
>
> That my friends is 'the inconvient truth'
>
> I'll buy organic thanks. It tastes better to me.


Your assertion is that the temperature of the planet cooled over the past 12 years? Please cite your authority. Thanks.

The earth's temperature has increased dramatically over the last 20 years.
[www.epa.gov]

[color-=blue]LOL, I can't believe we still have to debate with people over climate change/global warming. It's so obvious, and has been documented over and over again. The corporate sector wants us to believe it's not true; don't believe the hype.[/color]

Sharrhan:


[www.facebook.com]

kwan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> LOL, I can't believe we still have to debate with
> people over climate change/global warming. It's so
> obvious, and has been documented over and over
> again. The corporate sector wants us to believe
> it's not true; don't believe the hype.

No question. If the guy has data, I'd like to look at it. Sometimes data conflict. But on this issue, the weight of evidence is pretty one sided as it stands today, in my mind, even without an Inconvenient Truth. btw, I'm Paul. Hello. Not sure why I'm still here since I'm still debating. But I'm still here and still 100 percent raw and loving it. Also sent you a PM for context.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2009 03:15PM by pborst.

Tamukha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There's a new study out touted as the latest news
> on the nutritional value of organic foods. It
> appeared August 5th in the Seattle Times:
>
> [seattletimes.nwsource.com]
> 09599887_organicstudy05m.html
>
> Should we be worried?

Worry doesn't solve anything -- its pretty much a waste of time to worry about anything in my opinion.

Sure, it's a narrow study seemingly designed to discredit the claim of "nutritional superiority" of organic foods. They did the analysis on just 13 nutrients "most commonly reported" which supposedly includes titratable acid, which looks to me an attempt to explain away higher ascorbic acid (vitamin C) previously attributed to organic produce (i.e. the Hungary study).

[www.lshtm.ac.uk]

loeve,

Wow. This article is even more specific than the summary published in the Seattle Times, which means that my local paper's version omitted more than I initially thought. For example, one of the study's authors states, "Research in this area would benefit from greater scientific rigour and a better understanding of the various factors that determine the nutrient content of foodstuffs’." That, coupled with what you say about their consideration of titratable acid, could be interpreted as an arrogant dimissal of anyone involved in organic production, i.e. you pro-organic people--your claims are just not scientifically sound. I guess we are supposed to conclude that conventional produce is as wholesome as organic by magic or something, since using non-synthetic fertilizers and natural pesticides is evidently a fool's errand.

Back to being worried that this is just the beginning of a concerted effort by science to abet industry.

Tamukha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> loeve,
>
> Wow. This article is even more specific than the
> summary published in the Seattle Times, which
> means that my local paper's version omitted more
> than I initially thought. For example, one of the
> study's authors states, "Research in this area
> would benefit from greater scientific rigour and a
> better understanding of the various factors that
> determine the nutrient content of foodstuffs’."
> That, coupled with what you say about their
> consideration of titratable acid, could be
> interpreted as an arrogant dimissal of anyone
> involved in organic production, i.e. you
> pro-organic people--your claims are just not
> scientifically sound. I guess we are supposed to
> conclude that conventional produce is as wholesome
> as organic by magic or something, since using
> non-synthetic fertilizers and natural pesticides
> is evidently a fool's errand.
>
> Back to being worried that this is just the
> beginning of a concerted effort by science to abet
> industry.


yeah, except we will be there waiting for them, critically analyzing every assertion, reflecting on it with our own experience, finding out who paid for and who's behind the study... in other words.. maintain our healthy skepticism as we've always done and maybe still being allowed to agree to disagree among ourselves. Or maybe not, we'll see.

The thing is that these studies are almost kind of "evolving" to get better and better at achieving the "right" conclusion with the least amount of obvious contradictions. In the future I don't think there will be any loose ends, so by the year 2020 maybe, I will give up on scientific studies forever. They'll be too organised, too corrupt. Nothing will persuade me it's not because they would be so elaborate.

If you take the antidepressant industry for example, at first they didn't know what they were doing... they developed damaging pills such as prozac and marketed them. Then in the late 90s the media were up in arms about these so-called anti-depressants. They don't make people happier, they just stimulate them a bit (they are almost certainly depressed in the first place from being on SAD). They push them to do things. They cause people to commit murders and suicide. All of their studies were complete failures.

The makers of the antidepressants were extremely worried. Here their billion dollar industry was crumbling. They started huge PR campaigns, they became excellent manipulaters of the press. Now do you HONESTLY believe that with millions and millions of dollars every year at stake that they wouldn't tamper with evidence????? Of course they would! God help me for saying it, but if I were offered a million dollars to fudge results, so would I!!! (although I'd use half of it fighting against the industry and for raw foods again). You heard of the Virginia Tech Massacre? Of course you did, what you never heard though was that he was pumped full of antidepressants, he was totally addicted to them. If he was high on ecstacy or heroin or anything else and totally addicted to it people would say that's what caused it, but these guys seem to get a free ride every time. This isn't just the antidepressants industry, this is the whole pharmaceutical industry. And they're getting better and better and better at it.


pborst Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tamukha Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > loeve,
> >
> > Wow. This article is even more specific than
> the
> > summary published in the Seattle Times, which
> > means that my local paper's version omitted
> more
> > than I initially thought. For example, one of
> the
> > study's authors states, "Research in this area
> > would benefit from greater scientific rigour and
> a
> > better understanding of the various factors
> that
> > determine the nutrient content of foodstuffs’."
>
> > That, coupled with what you say about their
> > consideration of titratable acid, could be
> > interpreted as an arrogant dimissal of anyone
> > involved in organic production, i.e. you
> > pro-organic people--your claims are just not
> > scientifically sound. I guess we are supposed
> to
> > conclude that conventional produce is as
> wholesome
> > as organic by magic or something, since using
> > non-synthetic fertilizers and natural
> pesticides
> > is evidently a fool's errand.
> >
> > Back to being worried that this is just the
> > beginning of a concerted effort by science to
> abet
> > industry.
>
>
> yeah, except we will be there waiting for them,
> critically analyzing every assertion, reflecting
> on it with our own experience, finding out who
> paid for and who's behind the study... in other
> words.. maintain our healthy skepticism as we've
> always done and maybe still being allowed to
> agree to disagree among ourselves. Or maybe not,
> we'll see.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2009 07:19PM by SuperInfinity.

Tamukha,

This study is not new research, but a systematic review of research papers in PubMed, Web of Science, and CAB for the last 50 years. So this study is like a summary of existing research.

So no new research was done during this study. And in the existing literature, no one was ever paid to prove or disprove the superiority of organic versus commercial literature.

So why does anyone give this new study any credence, if there was no new research done?

As mentioned earlier it's the Food Standards Agency behind the report--

"The important message from this report is not that people should avoid organic food but that they should eat a healthy balanced diet and, in terms of nutrition, it doesn’t matter if this is made up of organic or conventionally produced food." [www.food.gov.uk]

That's not what the report concludes, at least from the brief free abstract --

"Conclusions: On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods. [www.ajcn.org]

The Food Standards Agency director arrives at a conclusion about nutrition. The commissioned report claims lack of evidence concerning "nutrient quality". I wonder if they are speaking the same language.

Bryan,

But this is exactly my point: they trot out this massive survey of all this data dating back fifty years(before the advent of "organics" but in the first term of ascendancy of mass agribusiness) and toss out stuff they think is "invalid" and then make a blanket generalization about the nutritive quality of organic foods. It's worse than if they'd done new research. New research would've required the methodology to be transparent, would be subject to peer review, and would be reproduced in full or in summary in many publications. With this thing, you can't even go look up the original data to see whether you agree that this or that piece of original research was truly valid. And as loeve points out, the conclusion is ambiguous. So confusing.

>Back to being worried that this is just the
> beginning of a concerted effort by science to abet
> industry.<

Many of us believe it is. Remember the program on '60 Minutes' awhile back that presented all sorts of (faulty and/or fallcious) arguments against organic food? The corporate media will likely never support organics, herbal supplements rather than allopathic medicine, raw veganism, etc., and so forth, and neither will our increasingly corporatized government, or the universities (which get massive research funding from the corporate sector).

Sharrhan:


[www.facebook.com]

Here is the Organic Center's rebuttal to the London study, based on a more thorough accounting of research results (Click the link and then click "Organic Center Response to the FSA Study":[www.organic-center.org]

A community of honest researchers is beginning to make themselves heard with evidence about the nutritional benefits of organic foods that directly competes with old "evidence" published from more traditional sources.

Recently the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) issued an Action Alert in response to learning that the American Dietetics Association (ADA) was refusing to allow a presentation at their annual Expo of the research results on organic nutrition compiled by their own Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group (HEN). Instead, the ADA had decided to showcase an opposing view.

Here is the censored presentation: [www.organic-center.org]

In addition to the results of comparison studies that show that organic produce has an overall higher nutrient content than conventional produce, organic produce has a much higher antioxident content than conventional produce. Conventional produce has a much higher content of nitrates.

There was such a hue and cry due to the OCA alert, that the ADA requested HEN to put together an ADA response (I don't think it's out yet).

Check out this lady's website. She is a researcher for UC Davis. A list of some of her projects is included with links on her home page: [mitchell.ucdavis.edu]

And there are many others that I'd also like to link, but I ended up with so many links that I lost track of them!

Anyway, the point is, lots of good stuff is happening behind the scenes; and in this "age of the internet", the truth will not be squelched forever!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2009 11:09PM by suncloud.

suncloud,

Thanks for doing all this homework for me : ) The information you linked to is both enlightening and galling, the latter because it means my gut instinct about the validity of the British study seems correct--they apparently ignored any research done by Dr. C. Benbrook, et al, likely because it would be inconvenient to include it. I shall be spending a lot more time at the Organic Center's website; thank goodness they exist!

Hi Tamukha,

Thanks for starting a great thread. It's wonderful that so many here are speaking up for organic!

It's sad that the research "establishment" seems to be so far behind on the research.

I'm just starting to read "The China Study", by Dr. Colin Campbell and his son.

Have you read this? It's fascinating!

Dr. Campbell is from Cornell University and discovered the chemical we now call dioxin. This book is much more than a review of The China Study. It's a review of the entire system of hidden information about the correlation between the consumption of animal products and disease.

For instance, according to Dr. Campbell, there is a well-established link between auto-immune diseases and dairy products. Two examples are the link between Type 1 diabetes and infant formulas made from cow's milk, and multiple sclerosis and dairy products.

Why aren't we all aware of this?

According to Dr. Campbell, doctors who try to educate themselves and their patients are being scorned by the profession. He tells about several of his friends and colleagues that this has happened to, even though they are great doctors and much more successful in treating their patients than the mainstream doctors who are scorning them. It's sad, but I just don't believe this can last forever. There will come a time when there's enough evidence, enough access to evidence, and enough people who are tired of being sick!

Thanks again for starting a great thread and giving us all a chance to vent!