"Are Organic Foods Safer?"
The stated principles of organic agriculture
are “health, ecology, fairness, and care,”
but if you ask people why they buy organic,
the strongest predictor was concern
for their own health or their family’s.
People may spend more for organic
more for selfish, rather than altruistic motives.
Although organic foods may not have more nutrients per dollar,
consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure
to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Food safety-wise, they found no difference in the risk
of contamination with food poisoning bacteria, in general.
Both organic and conventional animal products were commonly contaminated
with Salmonella and Campylobacter, for example.
Most chicken samples were found to be contaminated,
either way, with Campylobacter, about a third with Salmonella.
But the risk of exposure to multi-drug resistant bacteria,
resistant to multiple classes of antibiotics,
was lower with the organic meat.
So they both may carry the same risk of making us sick,
but food poisoning from organic meat
may be easier for doctors to treat.
What about the pesticides?
There's a large body of evidence on the relation
between exposure to pesticides and elevated rate of chronic diseases,
such as different types of cancer, diabetes,
neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and ALS,
as well as birth defects and reproductive disorders,
but they’re talking about people who live or work around pesticides.
Take Salinas Valley, California, for example,
where they spread a half million pounds of the stuff.
Daring to be pregnant in an agricultural community like that
may impair childhood brain development
such that pregnant women with the highest levels
running through their bodies, as measured in their urine,
gave birth to children with an average deficit of about 7 IQ points.
26 out of 27 studies showed negative effects of pesticides
on brain development in children.
These included attention problems,
developmental disorders, and short-term memory difficulties.
If you compare kids born with higher levels
of a common insecticide in their umbilical cord blood,
those who were exposed to higher levels are
born with brain anomalies. And these were city kids,
so presumably this was from residential pesticide use.
Residential exposure to pesticides,
like using insecticides inside your house,
may be a contributing factor for cancers like childhood leukemia,
suggesting that awareness be increased among populations
occupationally exposed to pesticides about
their potential negative influence on the health of their children,
though I don't imagine most farm workers have much of a choice.
Pregnant farm workers may be doubling the odds
of their child getting leukemia
and increase their risk of getting a brain tumor.
So conventional produce may be bad
for the pregnant women who picks them,
but what about our own family when we eat them?
Well, first of all, just because we spray pesticides on foods in the fields
doesn’t mean it ends up in our bodies when we eat it,
or at least we didn’t know that until this study was published in 2006.
Researchers measured the levels of two pesticides
running through children’s bodies by measuring
specific pesticide breakdown products in their urine.
Here's the level of pesticides flowing through the bodies
of 3 to 11-year olds during a few days on a conventional diet.
Then they went on an organic diet for 5 days
and then back to the conventional diet.
It’s clear that eating organic provides a dramatic and immediate
protective effect against exposures to pesticides
commonly used in agricultural production.
The study was subsequently extended.
Can you guess when the kids were eating organic?
You don't even need the labels on the graph to tell.
What about adults though?
We didn’t know... until now.
13 men and women consume a diet
of at least 80% organic or conventional food
for 7 days and then switched.
And no surprise. During the mostly organic week
pesticide exposure was significantly reduced,
and not just by a little,
a nearly 90% drop in exposure.
So it could be concluded that consumption of organic foods
does provide protection against pesticides,
but does that mean protection against disease?
We don’t know — the studies just have not been done.
Nevertheless, in the meantime, the consumption of organic food
provides a logical precautionary approach.