"Are Organic Foods More Nutritious?"
Are organic foods safer or healthier
than conventional alternatives?
Two separate questions.
Some consumers are interested in getting more nutrients,
whereas others are more concerned about getting less pesticides.
Let’s do nutritious first.
Hundreds of studies reviewed, and they didn’t find
significant differences for most of the traditional nutrients
like vitamins and minerals and so concluded
that despite the widespread perception
that organically produced foods are more nutritious,
they didn’t find robust evidence to support that perception.
They did, however, find higher levels of phenolic phytonutrients.
These so-called secondary metabolites of plants
are thought to be behind many of the benefits ascribed
to eating fruits and vegetables;
and organic fruits and vegetables had between 19 and 69% more
of a variety of these antioxidant compounds.
The theory was that these phytonutrients
are created by the plant for it’s own protection.
For example, broccoli releases the bitter compound sulforaphane
when the plant is chewed to ward off those who would eat it.
Bugs take a bite and be like, "Ew, this tastes like, broccoli !"
But pesticide-laden plants are bitten less by bugs
and so may be churning out less of these compounds,
whereas plants raised organically are in a fight for their lives
and necessarily have to produce more protection.
That was the theory anyway,
but we don’t have good evidence to back it up.
More likely it has to do with the fertilizer.
Plants given high dose synthetic nitrogen fertilizers
may divert more resources to growth rather than defense.
These antioxidants may protect the plant, but what about us?
More antioxidant phytonutrients in organic vegetables
and so yes, more antioxidant activity,
but also more antimutagenic activity.
They exposed bacteria to a variety of mutagenic chemicals like benzopyrene,
the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon found in barbecued meat,
or IQ, the heterocyclic amine found in grilled/broiled/fried meats
as well as cigarette smoke,
and there were fewer DNA mutations in the petri dishes
where they added organic vegetables
compared to the petri dishes where they added conventional vegetables.
Preventing DNA damage in bacteria is one thing,
but what about effects on actual human cells?
For example, yes, organic strawberries may taste sweeter and better,
and have higher antioxidant activity and more phenolic phytonutrients,
but let’s stack them up head-to-head against human cancer cells.
Extracts from organically grown strawberries suppressed the growth
of colon cancer cells and breast cancer cells significantly BETTER
than extracts from conventional strawberries.
Now, this was dripping strawberries directly
onto cancer cells growing in a lab,
but as we saw there are real life circumstances
in which strawberries come in direct contact
with cancerous and precancerous lesions,
reversing the progression of esophageal cancer,
and so presumably organic strawberries would work even better,
but they weren’t tested.
So, although in vitro studies show
higher antioxidant and higher antimutagenic activity
as well as better inhibition of cancer cell proliferation,
clinical studies on the impact of eating organic
on human disease simply haven’t been done.
Based on antioxidant phytonutrient levels,
organic produce may be considered 20 to 40% healthier,
the equivalent of adding 1 or 2 serving’s worth
to a 5-A-Day regimen.
But organic produce may be 40% more expensive,
so for the same money you could just buy
the extra servings worth of conventional produce.
So from a purely nutrients-per-dollar standpoint,
it’s not clear that organic foods are any better.
But people may buy organic foods to avoid chemicals,
not because they are more nutritious,
which brings us to the next question,:
"...or are organic foods safer?".
Which I’ll address next.