Organic Food Isn't More Nutritious | Hacker News Reader

Organic Food Isn't More Nutritious

seedmagazine.com

12 pointscolins_pride28 comments

I never thought the argument was that organic food is more beneficial nutritionally. I thought it is supposed to be less harmful overall. This is an important distinction.

I'm not aware of any quantitative research which shows that, though it is a popular opinion in California, regardless.

Edit: Thanks, down-modders. Real mature. You know what you call beliefs without evidence? Religion.

How about pointing out some evidence if you disagree with me?

If I had a free thinker award to give, I'd give you one. It's amazing how otherwise "open minded" people seem to fall prey to the dogmas of organic/all-natural/no-additives/USDA-approved/recycled-packaging marketing.

But seriously people, how many lives does genetically engineered rice have to save before you admit that "all natural" sometimes means "inferior", and "artificial" is sometimes "good". You know what's 100% organic? Malaria. And there's little more artificial than the chemical-soaked neon bednets saving millions of lives across Africa.

That's a ridiculous argument.

You could distribute Big Macs to the starving masses and credit McDonalds with saving millions of lives, but that wouldn't make it recommended eating for those of us with access to alternatives.

It isn't an argument - note my use of the word "sometimes". It's a counter-example to the dogma of organic == good, artificial == evil. The burden of proof that a BigMac would be healthier if it were made from "all natural" ingredients. So, show us one study which shows people who only consume "organic" food to be healthier than those who eat genetically engineered food. You simply won't find it.

For a more concrete argument, let me point you to The China Study [1], which gives more evidence for vegetarianism being related to good health than the "organic" lobby could ever dream of for "organic food". If people really cared about their health, they'd be vegetarian.

Organic food has a lot more to do with identity marketing (like BMW and A&F) than it does real nutrition.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study

You are demonstrating the same 'them and us' attitude that is present in the original article. You show your mistake by lumping together 'organic/all-natural/no-additives/USDA-approved/recycled-packaging' as if they were all a single proposition pushed by some united group of science haters. If you can't evaluate each proposition on it's merits then you are failing prey to dogma yourself.

> the burden of proof that a BigMac would be healthier if it were made from "all natural" ingredients.

Why should the burden of proof fall one way or the other on this proposition? This is the classic technique of those who see themselves as guardians of scientific orthodoxy.

> which gives more evidence for vegetarianism being related to good health than the "organic" lobby could ever dream of for "organic food"

That doesn't mean that knowing the value of organic food also wouldn't be useful.

How is it that saying what goes into our food must be going into our bodies Means we aren't thinking straight? Don't forget there was a period when cigarettes were seen as ok for you too.

How is it that saying what goes into our food must be going into our bodies Means we aren't thinking straight?

Because that would be a gross oversimplification of "food" and "bodies". Many drugs have a narrow therapeutic index, meaning the difference between "save your life" and "kill you" is a small matter of dosage. How do you explain that using "what going into your body must be [good|evil]".

I don't think the original commenter was thinking along these dogmatic lines. I think he's coming from the direction that there's a lot that we don't know about food, and how our metabolism works. Sometimes, it's best to leave well enough alone, until we understand more.

As for hybrid rice, yes, it saved lots of lives. But many argue that there were negative side effects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

Here's a story that predates the Green Revolution. I think it might be illuminating.

A long time ago in China, there was a public official named Confucius. (Yes, that Confucius.) For the betterment of his nation, he engaged in a huge campaign to popularize the eating of polished (white) rice. He did this because white rice is much easier to store for longer periods, and more conducive to warehousing and other logistical activities. Thus did Confucius greatly reduce the incidence of famine in his country. However, in the following years, there was an epidemic of beri-beri in China.

Human beings didn't discover vitamin B1 until the late 1800s.

Informative example, but metaphor != empirical evidence. Why not claim that USDA approved organic food is the "white rice" of our times?

In the absence of solid evidence, metaphorical reasoning is a valid technique to use to explore the possibilities.

> Why not claim that USDA approved organic food is the "white rice" of our times?

Why not indeed. It could be true. How does one work out the a priori likelihood of this being true to know whether it is worth looking into further? Metaphors might be one valid method. I can see an argument that some pesticides actually enhance human health. An analogue here would be the decline in iodine levels in milk when farmers stopped using iodophors.

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/184_06_200306/letters_20...

I'm not saying I think the proposition is likely to be true but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand and I wouldn't assume you are being unscientific for proposing it without proof.

Living in a society with rising cancer rates and given the choice between food bathed in possibily carcinogenic pesticides and food that isn't, curiously enough I'll choose the food without the pesticides.

If you avoid everything "possibly carcinogenic", or even everything "certainly carcinogenic", you'll have a very long and boring life.

I suspect you were down modded for making a snide comment.

I for one down-modded you for obnoxiously whining about being down-modded, something which I'm quite sick of.

Well, you'd figure that a belief that people hold so vehemently would have some evidence behind it. I really haven't seen any. But I guess it's accepted to hold a belief without evidence if it conforms to group norms. Snide comment or not, this group of unusually smart people is not so different from other groups that are held in low esteem by it. It's funny how that happens.

It's interesting, and telling, that several hundred smart people have viewed this comment, but not one of them has decided to offer a link to any sort of evidence.

I have lived on the east coast my entire life so I would say it is a popular belief elsewhere. My understanding is that when you consume organic food you consume less chemicals, etc.

Yes, absolutely. Conventional produce has residue of pesticide, for example on the skin of an Apple.

There was a study done that highlighted that some of the pesticides used in conventional produce can have a carcinogenic effect even in 1 part per trillion.

We don't even fully understand the elements and combinations of substances that make up 'nutritious'. So the claims of the author that 'Organic Food Isn't More Nutritious' are demonstrably an overstatement.

It's funny how the author can exaggerate the studies findings like this while showing such disdain for others who respond to his exaggerated conclusion rather than address the studies findings directly. The study has some good information but I'd prefer to hear it from an author that wasn't so partisan to a particular view.

> "The Soil Association’s response, published in papers across the land, entirely disregarded the intent of the study and instead argued that organic food is better for the environment and contains less pesticides than non-organic food. But in the very first paragraph of the report, the team states that they aren’t looking at the impact on the environment of organic agriculture or the effect of pesticide use, both of which the FSA has extensively examined in other research."

> "The FSA study is good science and by attacking, rather than endorsing it, the organic lobby in the UK has been plainly unscientific."

true, but the SA's response is an excellent marketing response. ple think what they're told, and if no one outright makes the claim about the environmental impact, then people will conclude, oh, it's already to eat non-organic.

But it is more tasty.

Indeed. We still don't understand enough about food to say that organic food is not better. If you stopped eating real food and only ate lard, soy protein, cardboard, and a vitamin pill, you would probably not do too well. But that is all we use to understand the nutritional value of food. (Vitamins, minerals, fat, carbohydrates, and protein.)

(Admittedly the American food system is getting close to this. Corn is soooo good for you(r wallet), after all.)

We still don't understand enough about food to say...

Here here! The notion that we pretty much understand what's going on with food, digestion, and metabolism is as widespread as it is harmful. We have only scratched the surface.

I remember seeing a diagram of human metabolism during a talk. It was huge and messy! Spaghetti-coded-Rube-Goldberg-intertwined-messy! And it's only a diagram of what we do understand -- there's even more in there! Biology at the cellular and molecular level was not "designed" to be understood by a human intelligence.

I prefer the taste of conventionally grown produce. It is difficult to measure taste, but I haven't seen any blind taste tests resulting in a clear winner either way.

The only convincing argument I have seen in favor of organic food is the environmental argument. I have to balance that against my belief that for every acre of organic crop grown, somebody somewhere is going to sleep hungry.

I realize, however, that any scientific or quantitative argument for or against organic food is irrelevant. Organic food tells a story that many people want to be a part of, and it will continue to grow in popularity.

any scientific or quantitative argument [...] is irrelevant

A sign of the dark ages, and the death of the enlightenment. No, I don't imagine we'll burn witches at the stake, but my wife and daughter can't eat half their favorite foods when we visit some relatives' homes (for fear of really upsetting people), precisely because of nutritional dogma.

A sign of the dark ages, and the death of the enlightenment

Relax, man! He's just talking about the realities of marketing.

For many, it's not so much Organic/Natural vs. big-bad industry/science. A lot of the organic and/or local stuff is fresher and tastes better. Not all of it will be, though. But if someone can make some money convincing people that it is, then someone will. That's just the market.

Actually, I think people should go by taste. We have only a partial understanding of food and our metabolism, but we've probably evolved very keen ways of determining what food is good for us. The only conscious attention we probably need has to do with moderation. (Otherwise, I'd eat a box of ice cream sandwiches every day!)

Branding has shown to make things more tasty regardless of the actual food. How do you know you aren't just paying for the luxury of eating a familiar "all natural" brand?

All 'Organic' means for produce is no pesticides. Pesticides have little or no effect on flavor, especially if you wash your damn food.

Fresh, ripe, varietal, easily-spoiled produce grown in non-industrial settings at a small scale on non-exhausted land by small groups of opinionated people does taste better.

It used to be that produce sold as 'Organic' was largely correlated with the above, but now 'Organic' is a huge profit center for big agribusiness. Being grown without pesticides doesn't make the standard shitty produce any better tasting, nor is it really much better for the environment. It just has bigger profit margins.

There's a metafilter thread about this here:

http://www.metafilter.com/83702/Cuz-Im-freefree-rangin

Reply on news.ycombinator.com