The debate has been raging for a while over whether it is better to buy organic or not. In July 2009 the Food Standards Agency (FSA) released a report that 50 years of studies had been analysed and that organic food had no significant benefits over conventionally produced food*. Every newspaper in the country ran the story and organic was suddenly seen as a pretentious middle class thing and another way for supermarkets to rip off customers (to be fair it probably had that image already).

For anyone who looked at the study in detail there were some glaring errors in the criteria for what constituted a ‘significant health benefit’. For starters the amount of toxins that the food what contaminated with was never looked at. So the fact that these fruits or vegetables had been continually sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides was ignored. This is a big reason for eating organic food and can have a significant impact on health. But not according to the FSA.

Some of the nutritional benefits they did find were decided to be not important so didn’t make it into the final decision. For example the report showed a higher rate of beta-carotene in organic food, sometimes as much as 53% higher. Beta-carotene can be converted into vitamin A in the body and is an anti-oxidant, protecting the body against ageing. But according to the FSA this is not very important.

If we forget the health implications for a second and look at the wider picture conventional farming looks even worse. A lot of the chemicals that are sprayed on the crops run off into rivers and lakes. This has an affect on the animals who live in the water or who drink from in. Not to mention the humans who are also affected when this makes it into their water supply or they eat fish or seafood that has been living in the contaminated river or lake.

The amount of nutrients in the food is one thing, but what about the nutrients in the soil? The conventional farming method is intensive, taking nutrients but not putting anything back. Organic farming encourages crop rotation and giving fields years off to protect the soil. Conventional farming encourages monocultures as far as the eyes can see year in and year out. The soil is slowly being depleted of its nutrients and if it is not in the soil it is not going to be in the food. Looking forward 50 years we want our children or grandchildren to still able to get nutrients from the soil. Conventional farming is short sighted and makes no allowance for this.

Petrol. Yes petrol. It is what is used to make fertilisers for conventional farms (not to mention the chemicals made by the same companies who made warfare in World War II…same technology, different use, talk about business diversification). No longer being concerned with the quality of the soil, fossil fuel energy can be added to the earth to grow fruit and vegetables. But this comes at a cost. As the soil becomes more depleted, ever more synthetic fertiliser is used. According to Michael Pollan in The Omnivores Dilemma it now takes more than a calorie of fossil fuel to produce a calorie of food. With the earth’s limited resources, creating a further debt with every piece of food produced can’t be the way forward.

And then there is the whole animal welfare side of things. I don’t think that anyone can argue that factory farming of animals is cruel and inhumane. For the record I eat meat and my conscience is clean. But I can not support the cruel idea that animals have some how become just a commodity and are now produced like machines similar to a car in the Ford factory.

Organic has become a bastardised word. Companies are doing the bare bones minimum to get the certification so they can charge a premium. But just because of this cynical approach of the minority does not mean that organic food is not beneficial. If you don’t believe in the big supermarkets approach to organic and you have the time then I highly recommend making your way to a Farmers’ Market. They are becoming increasingly popular and gives you a chance to speak directly with the person who produced the food to find out how it is grown. You can use this link to find out where your nearest one is.

We are what we eat. And just as importantly we are what we eats eats too. If your fruits and vegetables are ‘eating’ chemical fertilisers and pesticides or your meat is living off grains that it was not designed to eat and being given regular drug injections, guess what? You are also eating that too.

When everything is taken into consideration the decision of whether to eat organic or not doesn’t seem so difficult.

* I always find it ironic that what is called ‘conventional’ farming uses synthetic fertilisers and has only been around for the last 70 years or so. Surely ‘conventional’ farming should be the organic kind that was always used and this new type of farming should be given some other name like ‘chemical farming’. I think if the name were changed it would have an impact on the way people thought about it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 13th, 2011 at 7:03 am and is filed under Diet, FSA, Michael Pollan, Organic Farming, Organic Food, Pesticides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.