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Is Organic Food Better for Us?
by Preston Andrews, Associate Professor of Horticulture, WSU, from the May 2006 newsletter
This article is the first in a series on the benefits of organically produced food.
With the coming of spring and the opportunity to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables again, the question about whether organic food is better for us keeps being raised by the media. The rapid growth in organic food sales has intensified the debate about its benefits. The American Dietetic Association (www.eatright.org) states that “nutritionally there is NO EVIDENCE [my emphasis] that organic produce is better or safer than conventionally grown produce.” I assume one reason the ADA takes this stance is that they don’t want to discourage parents from feeding their children fruits and vegetables, especially if organic produce is less affordable for them. But, what about the question, is organic food better for us?
When it comes to pesticides, routine monitoring has established that there are fewer incidences of organic produce having pesticide residues than conventional produce. This is mostly because the synthetic pesticides that are used in conventional farming are not allowed in organic farming. But, what effects may the lower frequency of pesticide residues on organic produce have on the pesticide intake and safety of consumers? An important study (Environmental Health Perspectives, Feb. 2006) conducted by Dr. Alex Lu while at the University of Washington, found that switching elementary school-aged children from conventional to organic juices and fresh fruits and vegetables for just five days dramatically reduced the presence of two major pesticides in the children’s urine. After five days on the organic diet, the children went back to their conventional diets, and the pesticide levels in their urine rose immediately. The two pesticides, malathion and chlorpyrifos, are used extensively in the production of conventionally grown fruits and vegetables. According to EXTOXNET (extoxnet.orst.edu), malathion is toxic to the immune and central nervous systems, adrenal glands, liver, and blood of animals, while chlorpyrifos inhibits an important enzyme required for proper functioning of the nervous system. These results suggest that our children are being bathed internally with pesticides as part of an unfinished “experiment,” the outcome of which is still unknown.
Besides the negative effect of pesticide exposure from eating conventionally grown produce, are there positive health benefits from eating organically produced foods? There is a small but growing body of evidence supporting the claim that eating organic food is better for us. Unfortunately, the critics of organic food only point out the flaws in studies that are poorly designed. The biggest problem with many of these comparison studies is that the crop varieties, the climate, and soils are not matched between the organic and conventional farms, so any differences between the organically and conventionally grown produce could be due to variables other than the farming method used. In a well-designed study from WSU, where the crop variety, climate, and soil were identical, we found that organic Gala apples had higher antioxidant activity than did conventional apples, especially after being stored (HortScience, Feb. 2006). Combining this study with six other well-designed comparisons of organically and conventionally grown fruits, in two-thirds of the cases the organic fruits contained more phyto-nutrients than the conventional fruits. Phyto-nutrients include important dietary constituents, like vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other beneficial compounds. Besides apples, the other fruits represented in these studies were peaches, plums, strawberries, and tomatoes. In other words, more often than not, the organic fruits had higher levels of phyto-nutrients than did conventional fruits, when grown side-by-side.
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