Roadmap to Studies on Organic Food and Nutrition Issues

Compiled by Chrysalis Farm
Posted on SANET
January 3, 2002

.....came up with many interesting sites including sites that claim that the "are no studies". One site critical of the idea that organics are more nutritious is:
http://www.consumeralert.org/issues/food/organicfood.htm

A good site for studies favoring the view that organics are more nutritious is: http://www.edenfoods.com/info/09192001.html and it has links to several studies.

One of the best resources that compiles info from various studies revised in May 2001 is from ATTRA and can be found at:
http://ncatark.uark.edu/~steved/food-quality.html

Here's an excerpt from an article in Conscious Choice from Oct. 2001 that can be found at:
http://www.consciouschoice.com/food/organicmatters1410.html

"While the vegetables grown by small-scale, local farmers like me remain nutrition powerhouses, the sad fact, backed now by countless studies, is that most organic produce in our stores is no more nutritious than conventionally grown produce. In 1997, Joan Dye Gussow, professor emeritus of nutrition and education at Columbia Teachers College and a friend to organic agriculture, wrote an article entitled "Is Organic Food More Nutritious?" Seventy years of studies comparing store-bought certified organic and conventional fruits and vegetables, she said ruefully, have produced no hard proof that certified organic food is more nutritious.

Another proponent of the organic movement, Virginia Worthington, compiled the results of thirty different studies comparing 300 vegetables. Certified organic produce in these studies had a higher nutritional content 40 percent of the time and conventionally grown crops were more nutritious 15 percent of the time. While Worthington interpreted this as a victory for organic produce, the results still mean that 45 percent of the time there is no nutritional benefit to buying organic produce and 15 percent of the time organic is actually the worse choice. These comparative tests have provided the supporters of modern, industrial chemical agriculture with ammunition for shooting down claims of the supremacy of organic agriculture." >{? Here's another excerpt from the Sustainable Farming Connection found at:
http://www.ibiblio.org/farming-connection/news/aanews/9706.htm#Is

'Is Organic Food More Nutritious?

"Is organic food more nutritious?" wrote Joan Dye Gussow in the first part of a two-part series on organic food in Eating Well (May/June, 1997). "I've been asked -- and been asking -- that question for 30 years."

While the idea that organic food is more nutritious is "long on history," she wrote, "it's short on evidence....There's plenty of anecdotal evidence, but little hard proof that organically grown produce is reliably more nutritious. But being healthful is different than being more nutritious. After poring over the cumulative evidence from 70 years' worth of studies, the sum total strongly suggests that food grown according to organic principles is likely to have a variety of qualities that should, over the long term, make it more healthful.

"For example, organic foods usually have few, if any, chemical residues, and lower levels of nitrate nitrogen. These facts in and of themselves, while not a statement about nutritional values, make organic foods healthier."

The introduction to the series states that "what began as a grass-roots farming movement is now a $2.8 billion-a-year industry. And the long-held assumptions about organic food -- combined with the growing emphasis on health in this country -- has rendered it an industry with seemingly endless potential, already growing by more than 20 percent a year." '

Possibly, Beth, it is fair to say that evidence is inconclusive, but it is false to say that the claim of higher nutrition is "not backed up by science" or that there "are no studies" supporting that. I feel confident that some day soon, we will be able to conclusively state that under most conditions, organic foods grown in rich, living soils are more nutritious when well designed, replicable studies are finally conducted.

From: Chrysalis Farm at Tolstoy
An Organic Micro-farm
Practicing Sustainable Agriculture
33495 Mill Canyon Rd.
Davenport, WA 99122
(509) 725-0610
FAX: (509) 695-6422
www.thefutureisorganic.net
bright@famrc.org

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