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Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

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Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#61

Post by gmac »

MrQuincle wrote: post #58

There is publication bias with respect to publishing something that shows a difference between organic and non-organic food. I think a meta-analysis will only amplify this tendency. I'd be happy if they actually put hypotheses out there why organic food would be better, come up with a possible mechanism, and test that. Cadmium (which they state as the one metal that comes with lower concentrations for organic food),…

The antioxidants are maybe a red herring, but surely a key and blindingly obvious hypothesis is: food that's not been sprayed with nasty chemicals will be lower in levels of nasty chemicals. That (plus this similar hypothesis: environments that haven't been sprayed with nasty chemicals will be lower in levels of nasty chemicals) is the whole reason I buy organic stuff, and appears unsurprisingly vindicated here.

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#62

Post by MrQuincle »

gmac wrote: post #61
MrQuincle wrote: post #58

There is publication bias with respect to publishing something that shows a difference between organic and non-organic food. I think a meta-analysis will only amplify this tendency. I'd be happy if they actually put hypotheses out there why organic food would be better, come up with a possible mechanism, and test that. Cadmium (which they state as the one metal that comes with lower concentrations for organic food),…

The antioxidants are maybe a red herring, but surely a key and blindingly obvious hypothesis is: food that's not been sprayed with nasty chemicals will be lower in levels of nasty chemicals. That (plus this similar hypothesis: environments that haven't been sprayed with nasty chemicals will be lower in levels of nasty chemicals) is the whole reason I buy organic stuff, and appears unsurprisingly vindicated here.

Composting manure might concentrate metals, and other issues, which are difficult to think about when the processes are not known to the buyer: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/green_room/...

My grandpa who had an orchard was not into organic farming at all, but also he already used wasps to get rid of certain insects. I think it's important to know what happens down there on the field and to me "organic" comes across at times as a marketing trick, but's that maybe me. :-)

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#63

Post by byerley »

Isn't this directly at odds with the Stanford study from 2012? - http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2012/09/little-evidenc...

"No consistent differences were seen in the vitamin content of organic products, and only one nutrient — phosphorus — was significantly higher in organic versus conventionally grown produce (and the researchers note that because few people have phosphorous deficiency, this has little clinical significance). There was also no difference in protein or fat content between organic and conventional milk, though evidence from a limited number of studies suggested that organic milk may contain significantly higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids."

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#64

Post by [deleted] »

SixSigma wrote: post #51
mark_l_watson wrote: post #13

I am generally pleased with the good availability of locally grown organic food where we live in the mountains of Central Arizona. If people don't want organic food, I could generally care less except for one thing: efforts to put legal roadblocks in the way of locally grown food. For example: A few years ago our Senator Jon Kyle, after taking large campaign contributions from Monsanto, submitted the American Food Sa…

You might choose not to eat the non-organic food but you can't avoid the Atrazine [1] in the rain, which is enough to turn the male northern leopard frog tadpoles to turn into hermaphrodites. The families of the people who work in the factory farm system are also affected. You can see talks [2] on both these subjects in the Edible Education course from Berkeley [3], hosted by Michael Pollan and Raj Patel. I can recom…

[deleted]

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#65

Post by boyaka »

hrvbr wrote: post #15
SigmundA wrote: post #11

The problem with the term "organic" is it's broad and not well defined. It's like "agile" in our space. There are some standards varying by country some government enforced some not, and those standards have changed over time. This data seems to encompass data from many countries over a long period of time. This means how something is classified in the organic bin or not in highly inconsistent in the data set. The pa…

In the EU it's not a vague concept. There's a strict legislation for any product sold as organic, along with a logo. Main rules, taken from the EC site: - Crops are rotated so that on-site resources are used efficiently - Chemical pesticides, synthetic fertilisers, antibiotics and other substances are severely restricted - Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are banned - On-site resources are put to good use, such…

I think rather than talking about GMOs we need to point out the crops that are seriously and obviously bad for us: the transgenically modified crops, or apparently I just found it can be called TGM. [0]

This saves us from the debate every time where somebody talks about how all our food and animals are GMO. The real destroyers of the American food supply are the 7 major crops that have been transgenically modified with bacteria that produces insecticide and herbicide resistant bacteria so they can spray the crops with herbs: Corn, soy, cottonseed, alfalfa, papaya, canola, sugar beets.

[0] http://books.google.com/books?id=IX5mo9ylOF0C&pg=PA38&lpg=PA...

Edit: Here's some good info about terminology I guess: http://iddl.vt.edu/courses/HORT4764/lessons/seeds/seeds_page...

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#66

Post by ramblingrain »

byerley wrote: post #63

Isn't this directly at odds with the Stanford study from 2012? - http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2012/09/little-evidenc... "No consistent differences were seen in the vitamin content of organic products, and only one nutrient — phosphorus — was significantly higher in organic versus conventionally grown produce (and the researchers note that because few people have phosphorous deficiency, this has little clinic…

No. It sounds to me like the Stanford study failed to find a significant difference. That's different from demonstrating equivalence. There are some quotes in the article about how this disagrees with another study (not the Stanford one, but nonetheless). The paper itself quotes the paper you reference and draws many comparisons. This sounds like another look, with more data, and the Stanford study was by no means final. All of these are meta-analyses of hundreds of papers, so it's a pretty new area of statistical analysis and a very difficult one.

I haven't read the papers yet. For me, organic food means I'm not paying someone to add XYZ to the environment, and I like that. The risk assessment has not been done, and (see other comments) environmental affects are widespread and very troubling.

- full paper, source article: Higher antioxidant concentrations and less cadmium and pesticide residues in organically-grown crops: a systematic literature review and meta-analyses. http://csanr.wsu.edu/m2m/papers/organic_meta_analysis/bjn_20...

- full paper, Stanford article: Are Organic Foods Safer or Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives? http://media.dssimon.com/taperequest/acp75_study.pdf

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#67

Post by z92 »

alrs wrote: post #50

How well paid are the people who jump in to these threads to astroturf on behalf on a lobby? Are they on-call to deal with weekend work? Is it the same players that have been doing this since the 80s, or is there someone disrupting the industry?

> Are they on-call to deal with weekend work?

Reading some of the answers here, I am having a first hand experience on how strong the lobby is.

My guess is that, they are full time employee. There should be hierarchical overseeing managers and performance review, for it to be this much effective.

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#68

Post by toufka »

asadotzler wrote: post #21
jeremyw wrote: post #17

And a 2012 survey of 200+ studies showed no significant difference in nutrition or contaminants. http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1355685 http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/healthcare-triag...

2012 was a long time ago. Seriously. Would you use un-patched software from 2.5 years ago? I wouldn't. Science can move fast too. Relying on old data is foolish when there's a lot more newer data that can be analyzed.

Most of the papers used in this study were published between 1990 and 2010. The data is likely older than that.

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#69

Post by wyager »

>Cadmium, which is one of only three metal contaminants along with lead and mercury for which the European Commission has set maximum permitted contamination levels in food, was found to be almost 50% lower in organic crops than conventionally-grown ones.

More info? Did it go from .0000000002mg/kg to .0000000001mg/kg?

I'm not very satisfied by this summary.

Re: Higher antioxidant, lower cadmium, and lower pesticide residues in organic crops [pdf]

#70

Post by interpares »

This is great. Now if only I could use an app to make sure that a piece of produce labeled as organic was truly organic.

The higher prices associated with organic produce seem like they could be a big temptation for bait-and-switchers. I know there are stringent certifications, but the incentive is there.

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