Attention Whole Foods shoppers: Everyone hates you

I really like how the media has tried to create their own definition of "organic". For most folks, "organic" means free from pesticides and artificial hormones. The media would have you believe that it should mean "more nutritious" and then extrapolate that since it isn't "more nutritious" that somehow it isn't "healthier". I don't know if monsanto or some pesticide producer is in campaign mode or if the media is just stirring the pot to generate "news" so they can sell some ad spots.

 

I thought 'everyone' hated Prius drivers?

It seems 'everyone' have a lot of hate between them. They need to calm down and relax.

 

whackjobs. the purpose of producing these papers is to keep funding coming. it's a self perpetuating useless drain on society. but i don't hate them grumpy, i feel sorry for their wasted lives.

 

I really don't get that study at all. Whoever claimed that eating pesticide free food was more nutritious? The point of organic is to not eat poisons and avoid other additives and processing as much as possible.

 

I always thought that "organic" means that it doesn't come from mines. Likewise, "natural" foods contain no supernatural ingredients. When you start redefining or repurposing perfectly good words, you run into problems with understanding what they now mean. If we had proper words for "pesticide-free" or "hormone-free" so that you didn't need a manual when buying food, maybe there would be fewer arguments, if not fewer research papers.

Richard

"I don't care if there's chemicals in it as long as my lettuce is crisp!" - Grace Slick

 

I would be interesting to know who funded the study and who sits on Stanford University’s Center for Health Policy board and what their connections to agribusiness are. "Follow the money."

 

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A local organic farmer explained to me why his produce is more expensive: all the labor to keep the weeds down first and foremost, and expensive natural fertilizer second. He also mentioned that produce fairs are not more profitable for him than selling wholesale because of the unbought product that goes to waste. Got me to thinking, although no easy solutions.

Thanks for the comments above folks. Spot on.

 

Organic as in organism. There are many things that are mined that result from organisms, bat guano comes to mind.

 

There are some people who claim that organic food is more nutritious just as there as some people who want to return to an agrarian subsistence culture. Then there is the majority of people.

 

According to an interview on NPR this morning, the study was funded entirely internally at Stanford. However, bear in mind, as the original post in this thread states, that this was a "meta- analysis". In other words, Stanford did no original research but instead analyzed the results of many existing studies. The question then becomes: "Who paid for all the studies they reviewed?", and it's a good bet that a lot of these were industry funded.

 

You can probably count the latter group on two thumbs, or you mixing them up with people who advocate for sustainable agriculture.

 

Studies shows drinking two glasses of water in the morning doesn't make you run faster. So why bother drinking water at all?

 

Note that the U.S. has legal definitions of organic and 100% organic. Way more info than I ever wanted to know, especially if you start following the various links:

Organic food - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Despite a claimed lack of scientific evidence, I personally believe it to be safer (on a cumulative basis) to avoid unnecessary pesticides, hormones and antibiotics. There's also a lot of room for uncertainly about certain types of genetically modified foods, given the speed and nature of today's modifications, not to mention related unfair business practices by agribusiness. As someone already noted, organics can be more environmentally friendly, but that's a more complicated issue. For some foods, e.g., chicken and eggs, organic seems much more humane.

 

I'm always surprised by the closed-mindedness that is typical of food and nutrition related studies. In most cases, nutrition content is measured by content of known nutrients (vitamins, minerals, protein, etc). Properties of food that are beyond this set of limited known parameters is not considered as it has no effect on "nutrition." The problem is that by this reductionist "we know all there is to know about what constitutes human nutrition" approach, we might as well be eating nothing but vitamin pills and protein goop (since it would fulfill the FDA requirements for nutrition).

I make no claims about organic food or practices. I buy organic/sustainable/whatever in most cases simply because the food is better quality and tastes better (regardless of any environmental consequences ).

 

No, the two things are on the list of things that enviroskeptics think that all environmentalists think.