From Jeff Cox

You wouldn’t think that an article in a rigorous scientific journal would be so exciting, but then you wouldn’t have read “Organic Foods: Are They a Safer, Healthier Alternative?” in the Fall, 2008, issue of Nutrition in Complementary Care (NCC), a journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Dieticians are professionals in the study of food and nutrition as it impacts health, so it’s interesting to learn what they have to say about organic food. This article, peer-reviewed and loaded with two pages of references to studies published in scientific journals, should lay to rest once and for all the disinformation about organic foods spread by flacks for big, conventional agriculture. You may have seen the headlines. I recently saw one that read, “Organic Just Means Dirtier, More Expensive.” Or you may have read the claims that there’s no scientific proof that organic food is any more nutritious than conventional food.

All that is bogus. It’s meant to scare people so they won’t buy organic food. But fear not. The authors of the NCC article put together a table that summarizes the nutritional value of organic versus conventional foods. It analyzed 41 different scientific studies and found these results:

Regarding beneficial fatty acids in milk, “organic milk has higher polyunsaturated fatty acids, total omega-3 fatty acid, a more beneficial omega-6:omega-3 ratio, higher alpha-linolenic acid, and higher levels of conjugated linoleic (CLA) fatty acids.” Human breast milk was also studied for its content of essential fatty acids and mothers who ate organic produced more of the health-promoting fatty acids in their milk than mothers who ate conventional.

Comparing organic and conventional lettuce, spinach, kale, endive, chard, cabbage, celeriac, turnip, beets, corn salad, potato, radish, and corn, organic produce contained more vitamin C than conventional. When the same produce was tested for iron, magnesium, and phosphorus, again organic food contained more of these essential minerals than conventional.

Several studies looked at antioxidants like phenolic acid and salicylic acid, and again organic foods contained more of these beneficial compounds than conventional.

Flavonoids are immune-system boosters with a wide range of health benefits. Studies looked at the amount of quercetin and kaempferol, and once again, organic food contained more of the flavonoids than conventional.

Not every study showed the benefits of getting more nutrient punch in your organic food. Some showed the benefits of what you don’t get by choosing to eat organic. Nitrates in foods can cause a wide range of illness, including cancers, birth defects, type 1 diabetes, and more. “Overall, the data indicated significantly lower nitrate content in the organic crops versus conventional crops,” the article says. A second study found nitrate levels 83 percent higher in conventional crops than organic crops.

Have a Happy, Organic Thanksgiving!
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Jeff Cox is author of The Organic Cook’s Bible and The Organic Food Shopper’s Guide, and numerous other cooking, gardening, and wine books, and lives in Sonoma County, California.
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