Organic Foods Overestimated
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Many fans of organic foods strongly believe that they contain higher amounts of beneficial antioxidants. A Danish study recently came to a different conclusion.
Similar Amounts
Scientists from the Danish National Food Institute examined the amounts of two types of antioxidants contained in conventionally and organically grown onions, carrots, and potatoes. According to their data, it cannot be said that organically grown food generally has higher amounts of these antioxidants.
Organic Still Better
This may put a needed damper on lobbying organic food with claims it cannot fulfill, as its true strengths lie elsewhere: Conventionally grown produce is often cultivated with pesticides and fertilizers that may harm health. One example here are the sometimes high amounts of nitrates they contain (PDF), which has led to the death of infants.
The usage of genetically modified crops, whose potential dangers still aren’t researched very well, present another problem with produce from this sector, that you will steer clear of when you go for organic food.
Just don’t expect it to do miracles.
Picture courtesy of Margo Conner.
15 Comments
To me, i dont really mind if mine is GM or Organic or what. As long as it tastes good, has the protien, carbs etc… that i need, then im fine. Oh and as long as it doesnt kill me 😛
Well, I hope it won’t, Hamid! 😉
hmm learn something everyday. Did not know people were claiming more antioxidants… Now I wonder if the message started as wild food (say wild blueberries which would be organic) have more anti oxidants than cultivated blueberries….
Possibly, yes. Basically organic food was heralded as better in every regard, which is overloading it with expectations.
Based on what I’ve heard the pesticides damage the soil very badly and the soil is really the source of all the nutrients. So if the nutrient amount of the food is largely dependent on the quality of the soil, going organic won’t magically make the food more nutritious, it’s only beneficial for the quality of the soil. This means that the nutritional benefits are only seen after the micro-organisms of the soil have had time to recover from the pesticides.
But then again the science seems to (at least for now) lean towards their being not much difference. But to play devil’s advocate one could give the argument that the studies (including that danish study) haven’t been conducted long enough to see the benefits. Whatever be the case though, it’s good to remember that the amount of nutrients is also dependent on many other things like weather conditions, storage conditions and freshness.
But even though organic veggies wouldn’t have a nutritional difference with conventional ones, I have no doubt that organic meat and dairy is much much better since it doesn’t have all the growth hormones, antibiotics and the animals have been on a healthier diet. Plus again, organic food has less pesticides and is GM-free.
Well, it is not THAT simple. If you for instance take the same variety of for instance tomato it will indeed have the same ammount of vitamins, minerals etc. regardless if it is grown organically or conventionally, but (make it bold):
a) It would be so only if said tomato was picked at the same stage of ripeness. If it is picked still green in Turkey and travels all the way to England it just tastes like water compared to a tomato of the same variety grown in your backyard which was picked from the plant ripe and juicy.
b) Only a limited number of fruit and vegetable varieties are grown industrially. You know, the ones that are easy to grow, bear big good looking fruits and give big yields. And those varieties not necessarily have the best nutrition values. A friend of mine did a PhD on antioxidant content in old nearly “extinct” cherry varieties compared to values found in varieties commonly grown today. Well, let’s say the results were rather shocking…
So to summarize…
It is not a mater of organic or conventional. It is a matter of local production and plant variety.
Do you have a link to your friend’s thesis? I think that would be an interesting read!
Never heard this claim either. It’s not what organic HAS that appeals to me, it’s what it DOESN’T HAVE, chemicals!
The word “chemical” is too often misused, since water is also a chemical. As for pesticides, organic food isn’t necessarily free of all pesticides, only free of synthetic pesticides. The natural pesticides used sometimes in organic foods are of course much less harmful.
That is all in all what I was driving at when I wrote about stevia as a “natural” sweetener – a chemical is a chemical.
It’s the same way as when people say “the gene for”. It’s a misuse of the word, but it’s how it’s talked in everyday language, so everyone knows what I mean.
When I say chemicals when talking about food, I’m talking about added things, man-made often, that are detrimental to health.
Apples have chemicals that age other fruit, but it’s not “chemicals”.
What about the term “organic”, then?. I am just eating an “anorganic” apple at the moment, lol.
@Evilcyber
I doubt a PhD thesis written in Slovenian would be much of a help to you ;). However, they published some articles on the topic, the most interesting being.
http://www.ftb.com.hr/40/40-207.pdf
The abstract summs it up quite well.
…Total anthocyanin content (expressed as cyanidin-3-glucoside) ranged from 29 to 62 mg/100 g of pitted cherry fresh weight (FW), with the highest content observed in Petrovka, a local cultivar. Concentrations of neochlorogenic acid and 3′-p-coumaroylquinic acid ranged from 19.5 to 53.0 mg/100 g FW and from 7.5 to 50.6 mg/100 g FW, respectively. The relative amounts of these two phenolic acids varied widely between the cherry cultivars examined in this study.
My comment: The “Petrovka” cultivar is more or less extinct since there are only a few trees left. The reason lies in low yields and scrawny fruits. Lambert and Bing are the stuff you normally find in the supermarket.
Yes, I admit, my Slovenian is a bit unsatisfactory! 😉
Seriously, thanks! This goes to show that the higher yielding cultivar were given favor over those that actually taste better. A decision I think actually is not in the interest of the consumer – you might get more cherries cheaper, but what do they taste like?
the only reason i buy organic is because its actually cheaper at the grocery store i live close to. ha
You are one lucky man! 🙂