According to research conducted by the Food Standards Agency in England and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, organic food doesn’t offer any health benefits to consumers. With budgets tightening due to the current economic climate, shoppers may start to reassess the viability of organic food since organic food appears to confer any nutritional or health benefits.
In an article posted on the Times Online, the message from the Food Standards Agency is clear, “Choosing to eat organic food will make no difference to a person’s overall health. Eating a healthy balanced diet is the only important thing, the report continued.”
The results of this research will no doubt cause the organic food industry to go to war with the FSA and any other organizations that espouse this point of view, or any group that arrives at similar findings. Certainly we will start to hear about the dangers of pesticides, the old bugaboo used by those aligned with the organic movement to scare people into thinking/buying organic.
This yearlong study conducted by a team of researchers from the London School for Hygiene and Tropical Health and found the differences between organic and non-organic produce were not sufficient to support claims that organic foods can improve health or provide nutritional benefit.
The leader of the research team said that while there is more phosphorus in organic food, it is available in everything and is not important for public health, and while organic food is more acidic, this has an effect on taste not health.
According to the researchers, “Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally-produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.” There’s no doubt the organic food industry will come up research that will tell us that organic is safer, healthier, more satisfying and tastes better.
The nutritional world’s version of the old Miller Lite Beer argument of, “Tastes Great,” versus “Less Filling!” Eating organic food is just another choice that people can make. It doesn’t make a person better, healthier, happier, etc, as it’s just food.
If you enjoy the idea of eating organic, that’s great. Be happy and just leave it at that.
