"Are the Benefits of Organic Food Underrated or Overrated?"
Pesticides have been classified as probable carcinogens for 25 years,
and different pesticides have been associated with different kinds of cancers.
Through a variety of mechanisms,
both genetic damage directly to our DNA or chromosomes,
or epigenetic modification - changing the way our genes are expressed.
But that's for like workers who are spraying them.
Exposure to pesticide residues that remain
on the food are at much lower levels.
More recently higher cancer rates have been noted
in those that live in areas where they spray a lot,
but what about just the food we buy at the store?
Organic fruits and vegetables have fewer pesticides,
but even the levels on conventional produce
are generally well below accepted limits.
There's still a scientific controversy about the safety
of some pesticides even under the limit,
given the possible additive effects of mixtures of pesticides we're exposed to -
something that isn't necessarily taken into account
in the pesticide approval process.
They also don't take into account toxic breakdown products like dioxins
that can form once pesticides are released into the environment.
Cadmium is another issue.
In the largest review to date involving hundreds of studies,
not only did organic foods have more antioxidant, phytonutrients,
but lower concentrations of cadmium.
That's a good thing.
Cadmium is one of three highly toxic heavy metals,
along with lead and mercury, found in the food supply.
It accumulates in the body,
and so we should try to keep intake as low as possible.
Thus the fact that organic crops only have
about half the cadmium is therefore desirable.
The cadmium is thought to come from the phosphate fertilizers
that are added to conventional crops.
Of course, not all organic foods are healthy.
The organic food industry is now worth tens of billions of dollars.
They didn't get that way just selling carrots.
We can now buy pesticide-free potato chips and organic jelly beans.
Organic foods aren't necessarily healthy foods.
In fact, they can even be worse because people, for example,
falsely judge organic Oreo cookies to have fewer calories
than conventional Oreos and so they may eat more.
Forgoing exercise was deemed more acceptable
when the person had just chosen organic
rather than conventional dessert.
In fact, leniency toward forgoing exercise was slightly greater
after choosing organic dessert than after eating no dessert at all.
Organic cookies were like viewed as having negative calories,
but organic junk food is still junk food.
Not only do people tend to overestimate
the nutritional benefits of organic foods,
they also overestimate the risks of pesticides.
People think that as many people die
from pesticide residues on conventional food
as die in motor vehicle accidents in the United States.
Organic food buyers may think eating conventional produce
is almost as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes.
That kind of thinking is dangerous because it can potentially lead to
a decrease in overall fruit and vegetable consumption.
If just half the US population were to increase
fruit and vegetable consumption by a single serving a day,
an estimated 20,000 cancer cases might be avoided each year.
That's how powerful produce may be.
But because the model was using conventional fruits and veggies,
the pesticide residues on those extra fruits and vegetables
would result in 10 additional cancer cases.
Overall, if half of us just ate one more serving,
we'd just prevent 19,990 cases of cancer every year.
Now this was a paper written by scientists for hire,
paid for by the Alliance for Food and Farming,
which is a bunch of conventional produce growers,
so they probably exaggerated the benefits
and minimized the risks. But I think the bottom line is sound.
We get a tremendous benefit from eating conventional fruits and vegetables
that far outweighs whatever tiny bump in risk from the pesticides.
But hey, why accept any risk at all when you can choose organic?
I agree, but we should never let concern about pesticides stop us
from stuffing our face with as many fruits and vegetables as possible.