Organic produce more nutritionally "dense"?

[sciguy]

Ok, I was driving into work this morning, and heard an ad for a grocery store extolling their virtues for carrying organic (and locally grown) produce.

Then there was the bit that wiggled my balony detector (above and beyond the usual ad-speak). This is paraphrased from memory, so I may be off: "Organically grown produce is 20% denser in nutrients than mass-farmed produced."

C'mon, no matter how it's grown, an onion is an onion, right?

Well, maybe not (remove space between "www" and ".sfgate" since even unchecking "automatically parse links" won't get me past the 15 post restriction on URLs):
www .sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/25/HOG3BHSDPG1.DTL

Basically, the hypothesis seems to be that commercially farmed produce may be getting "pushed" (from chemical fertilizers and use of high-yield hybrids) so fast that they produce fewer nutrients than plants grown more "naturally".

Unfortuantely, that was the only "woo-free" site I was able to come across with google. That article referenced studies done by organic-center.com, so it's possible that there's some bias. Is this concept familiar to anyone else?

 

[tkingdoll]

The closest the Soil Association will get to a statement is:

Some scientific studies have shown that there are more nutrients in organically produced food.

But they don't say which studies.

They further state:

The UK Food Standards Agency has stated there is no difference between non-organic and organic food.
However the Agency may have overlooked a study which reviewed 150 research projects comparing organic and non-organic food.3 This study confirmed that, despite varied research methods, there is a trend towards fewer undesirable components or contaminants, and higher desirable components (such as vitamins) in organic food compared with non-organic food.

 

[Dogdoctor]

I did not see if they were comparing the fruit by dry matter basis or as is. If you remove the water what is the difference? In addition they did not show what is the cost per "X amount" of nutrient for fruit grown various ways. Those would be more meaningful data.

 

[jimlintott]

C'mon, no matter how it's grown, an onion is an onion, right?

I'm not so sure.

Have you had any of those genetically engineered monstrosities they call Strawberries, lately. You know, they are the size of bowling balls and taste like parsnips.

 

[Number Six]

I don't know whether it's true or not. I'm skeptical of it but you never know.

But it seems like this shouldn't be too hard to test. You get two different groups of fruit and you test them. (I'm assuming there are relatively simple lab tests to determine the amount of various constituents.) I'm going to try to think of problems with this approach just out for fun.

First of all, someone may say "That kind of fodd isn't really organic." In other words, you have to pick your standard for "organic." I know that now the Feds have an official definition so that would be one easy one to use.

Another problem might be that even if it's certified "organic," someone might claim it wasn't really that becaue pesticides from the non-organic field next door drifted over or whatever. I'm not sure this holds up though. I mean, if "real" organic food can't even be grown without great difficulty then it seems that whether it is healthier is a moot point.

Another problme might be, where do you get the food? Could you just go to the supermarket and get it? If you did this and used the Fed definition then the whole thing seems so easy. You go to the local supermarket, buy some organic food and similar non-organic food and take them to a lab and test them. What am I missing? Because that seems soooo simple that people would be doing it left and right and we'd know the answer now for sure.

Those are the only problems I can think of although I'm guessing there are other biases that would have to be guarded against.

 

[Ririon]

I used some nutrition tables at a previous job. It was claimed that the vitamin content was adjusted from time to time. Apparently all kinds of fruit and vegetables have a lower vitamin content than they used to 10 or 20 years ago. If that is true, that would probably support this claim.

 

[sciguy]

Dogdoctor, in the pdf file linked in the "references" at the end of the article, it did appear they were comparing by dry weight. And the cost thing was something I hadn't thought about. Maybe people would be better off (from a pure price perspective) buying cheaper produce plus a bottle of multivitamins.

Number Six, I've been thinking through things like that too. Testing methods might vary depending on what the root cause is thought to be.

1) If it's solely the chemical vs. organic field processing (fertilizers, chemical ripening agents, maybe herbicides, etc), then you should be able to take the same seed line, grow them with the two different methodologies, and compare the resulting food. How long does it take from sowing to harvest? What differences are there in the yield per acre? What differences (if any) are there in the nutritional content of the results?

2) It might be a difference in the stock used to seed the fields. Commercial growers may be using hybrids / seed lines that were chosen solely to maximize yield per acre, while the organic growers use less "bred" strains, which (coincidentally or deliberately) provide more vitamins. So any benefit from organic produce is just due to which sub-strain of broccoli they grow.

Just to be clear, I certainly don't have anything against organically grown vegetables. It's just that anything "organic" seems to attract some of the more fringe claims (IME, most with little or no evidence), and I was wondering if the nutrition factor was one of them.

 

[Dogdoctor]

Dogdoctor, in the pdf file linked in the "references" at the end of the article, it did appear they were comparing by dry weight. And the cost thing was something I hadn't thought about. Maybe people would be better off (from a pure price perspective) buying cheaper produce plus a bottle of multivitamins.

The point I was getting at is if you spend $X for a given amount of vitamins raised the usual way and spend $X+y for the same amount of vitamins grown organically then why bother? You can just eat a little more fruit.

 

[Anders W. Bonde]

'tsfunny - around these parts, "organic" produce is usually smaller, wrinkeled and full of spots and what appears to be fungus attack. And always a lot more expensive. If I compare a tall, well-built human with a nice complexion with a small, pale, hunchbacked zit-faced ditto, I'd assume off-hand that the former had better living conditions - and I'd assume the same applies to analogous vegetables etc. And I'm sure that someone in the food chain eating humans would go for the yummy looking one, too.

She who must be obeyed is very much an "organic" produce fanatic - I've asked her numerous times for evidence that "organic" is more nutritious, but neither of us have found any. Having said that, it makes sense to me that pesticide residue probably ain't good for human consumption - but is it worse than fungus and rot?

Me, I buy "organic" if I find it tastes better - otherwise I want to see scientific evidence that "organic" is superior, as it had better be due to the much higher cost.

[/RANT]

 

[Flange Desire]

I'm not so sure.

Have you had any of those genetically engineered monstrosities they call Strawberries, lately. You know, they are the size of bowling balls and taste like parsnips.

Just by the way (you probably already know this) ....

All the food crops we grow have been genetically engineered.
It used to be called selective breeding,
and farmers have been doing it for millenia.

I do agree that some of the lager strawberries are fairly tasteless.

 

[clarsct]

Ok..

Explain what is meant by 'nutritionally dense'.

I'm afraid it just doesn't seem to make a damned bit of sense. More nutrients per pound? Well, that could be measured.

Let's see the studies. Give me numbers, not drivel.

 

[jimtron]

One potential problem here is the meaning of "organic". If I'm not mistaken, there's not a consensus on precisely what the term means.

 

[Geckko]

The "nutrients" are simply the chemical composition of the substance in question.

Unless they are comparing different strains or varieties i can't see how putting cow dung on something rather than a "non-organic" fertiliser will do that.

Also, as per earlier comment, if measurement are made by weight, a less hydrated substance will have higher "nutrient"/weight ratio.

Also, also, this appears to be a meta-analysis - famously unreliable. Doesn't mean it's wrong, but it needs to be treated with great care.

Also, also, also, regarding the comment someone made about measured vitamin content of certain produce falling over time. I could imagine that is possible because we are in fact growing different things - varieties that give high yields and grow faster. SO we aren't comparing like wit hlike.

 

[Mojo]

One potential problem here is the meaning of "organic". If I'm not mistaken, there's not a consensus on precisely what the term means.

"Organic" generally just relates to the types of fertilisers and insecticides allowed to be used (in the case of meat, also the types of medicatiion allowed to be used on the animals). It's just another variation of the old "chemicals are bad, but anything natural doesn't contain them" fallacy.

Ironically, there was a health scare in the UK recently (within the last couple of years, I think) relating to one of the pesticides that is allowed in most organic farming regimes.

 

[Mojo]

Apparently all kinds of fruit and vegetables have a lower vitamin content than they used to 10 or 20 years ago.

I've seen this claim made in respect of minerals (specifically iron in spinach) but not vitamins. I couldn't find any reliable source for the claim about minerals, or the claim behind it which was that intensive farming has leached minerals out of the soil.

 

[Darat]

I used some nutrition tables at a previous job. It was claimed that the vitamin content was adjusted from time to time. Apparently all kinds of fruit and vegetables have a lower vitamin content than they used to 10 or 20 years ago. If that is true, that would probably support this claim.

I heard a radio show talking about this but they were talking about "micro-nutrients" such as say zinc being lower in more intensively farmed crops not so much a difference between organic and the other-organic produce.

 

[Darat]

"Organic" generally just relates to the types of fertilisers and insecticides allowed to be used (in the case of meat, also the types of medicatiion allowed to be used on the animals). It's just another variation of the old "chemicals are bad, but anything natural doesn't contain them" fallacy.

Ironically, there was a health scare in the UK recently (within the last couple of years, I think) relating to one of the pesticides that is allowed in most organic farming regimes.

Yep I mean organic farmers wouldn't want to use any nasty chemicals on their organic crops like say Pyrethrum^WP or Rotenone^WP would they?

 

[Stitch]

I recommend you read panic nation - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/18...f=pd_bbs_1/104-9577777-2056761?_encoding=UTF8

It has a very good section on organic food. In short, organic and non-organic put the same chemicals on the produce, it's just that in the case of Organic it's in the form of dung etc that has to rot down to release the nutrients compared with them being delivered directly in non-organic. Oh and you don't have all the bacteria etc associated with dung when you go with non-organic.

 

[Hardenbergh]

Root vegetables like carrots and potatoes are known to soak up pesticides from the soil. Organic farmers will plant root vegetables to clean the soil from pesticides. Only eat organic root vegetables.

http://angeles.sierraclub.org/news/SS_2004-07/organic.asp

http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/overview.htm
http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/flaxoil.htm
Kevin Trudeau would be proud.

 

[Mojo]

Root vegetables like carrots and potatoes are known to soak up pesticides from the soil. Organic farmers will plant root vegetables to clean the soil from pesticides. Only eat organic root vegetables.

But don't buy them from organic farmers!