You Are What You Eat

There's always a tendency for people to use scientific studies to justify their preconceived notions. Such is the case with the recent Stanford study that found that organic food doesn't provide any more nutrition than conventionally produced food. Writers like Roger Cohen of the New York Times call it the "Organic Fable."

There's a lot of hype about organic food, but no more than any other product. Reasonable people buy organic food not because they think it has more nutrients (though the study actually did find some organic food to be consistently more nutritious), but because organic food contains fewer contaminants and poisons.

The study found that conventional vegetables and fruit contain many more pesticides, while conventional meats contain hormones such as BGH and antibiotics used solely to increase weight. Similar studies have found that simply keeping animals in clean environments increases weight by just as much. The problem with using antibiotics in healthy animals is that it's creating superbugs, undermining the most powerful tool in our arsenal against disease. In fact, the Stanford study found:

[O]rganic meat contained considerably lower levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria than conventionally raised animals did, but bacteria, antibiotic-resistant or otherwise, would be killed during cooking.

And since cooks never touch the meat they're preparing, and everyone loves their steak well-done, it's impossible to be infected by such bacteria. Right?

Cohen falsely claims that the Stanford study found the level of pesticides "safe." The study only found pesticide concentrations to be within federal guidelines. Whether those federal guidelines are really safe is a different question. Cohen trusts that government regulators, who  are constantly under pressure by farmers, politicians, and lobbyists from the pharmaceutical, agriculture and chemical industries, have made all the right decisions. But unlike the authors of the study, regulators do not make decisions based solely on the science: they take into account production costs and accept that a certain number of deaths, diseases and deformities are inevitable.

Thus, there's a great deal of reasoned debate whether those federal guidelines for pesticide levels are too high, especially for pregnant women. Developing fetuses are extremely sensitive to environmental contaminants, especially herbicides like atrazine, which mimic sex hormones and can cause reproductive system deformities.

There are many other reasons to prefer organic production. Genetically engineered crops are modified to improve their resistance to pests or herbicides. There is evidence that such genetic modifications can jump to other species, specifically the weeds that herbicides are intended to kill. Insects and weeds also evolve resistance to pesticides and herbicides very quickly, even without cross-species pollination. These conspire to force the production of new and stronger chemicals, which present significant risks when these toxins are consumed by humans and animals.

Organic foods are typically produced in many varieties, including "heirloom" varieties. Most conventional tomatoes, for example, are a monoculture engineered for color, shipability and delayed ripening. Selecting for these characteristics often comes at the cost of taste and nutritional value, producing the infamous cardboard tomatoes. The use of a wider variety of plants in organic agriculture means that the risk of an entire crop being wiped out by disease is lower.

Conventional agricultural practices are extremely energy-intensive, using vast quantities of oil for tilling and fertilizers. Many organic practices are based more on traditional farming methods.

The question really is: would you rather eat food produced with minimal contaminants, or food that contains widely variable levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, pesticides, drugs and synthetic hormones that ultimately have unknown effects on your body and the bodies of your children?