The Black Vault

There have been several studies carried out which focuses on uncovering any benefits from eating organic vs conventional foods. This one comes from the University of Buffalo and has pretty much claimed the same findings... which is that eating organic offers no benefit over eating conventionally grown food. They do however claim that this study does not take into account the potential dangers associated with the use of pesticides or antibiotics. Then, Dr. Baker proceeds to state, "I think eating non-organic is fine".
http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/local/stud ... ganic-food

Personally I am very upset with these claims and/or beliefs that non-organic is fine. I try to eat as much organic as I can. This choice was never based off the possibility that organic offered more nutrients. My choice is based off the harmfulness that pesticides and antibiotics may pose to our health. I think this is the core reason most people choose organic. Not to mention the choice to not support mass spraying of harmful chemicals.

Why did they not complete the study and include the impact of ingesting chemical residue and antibiotics? Why are these people so quick to claim conventionally grown food is just as safe to eat as organic, even when they admit the effects of pesticide residue have not been studied?

I remember when the big craze was all the Health food stores in the late 60's, and big advocates of things like certified raw milk, etc. I thinks its been found that the hype was all hype at least with that, and that raw milk, that was not homogenized had some serious risks. I may be wrong but I thing they can not sell it in california anymore. Another big fad was from the AMWAY company, where they started the concepts of pyramid scheme business, and one of the products was there AMWAY vitamins, claiming they were better because they were all natural, and organically grown. Their multivitamin was many natural ingredients one of them was alfalfa, and other natural ingredients causing allergic reactions, including breathing problems and deaths as I remember. AMWAY dealers were holding themselves out as nutritional experts, when in fact they were not qualified, nor medically trained, resulting in many lawsuits against AMWAY. How could anyone claim 100 MG vitamin C tablet that was from non-organic source, was better than their 100MG Acerola Cherry one and they were 10 times the cost? Almost the same kind of argument about brand name prescription drugs, vs generic. WE had always herd the controls inside the generic brands were not as reliable, who knows, we all are forced to take generics now.

There definitely is a big controversial practices of feed and how they fatten up cattle. Natural grass fed range cattle vs. barn raised on hay and grain, that may have many ingredients. I think we all know the story of poultry.

Most home vegetable gardens are usually very organic, nobody puts pesticides on them, and everyone knows how fresh and better tasting they are. We had back yard chickens for years, and let them out of the chicken yard to scratch and peck in the grass every night. They were the best eggs you ever had, and the yokes stand up like domes, very colorful. So called "fresh" eggs from the markets, are flat tasting, the yokes fall flat, they are horrible once you have had home grown. I have herd "Fresh" means they can be frozen up to one year, before you see them in your market.

Question is how do you trust the label and what are their standards of what they claim is organically grown? Unless you grown it yourself, IMHO much of it is hype, unless you are shopping at exclusive markets, like Bristol Farms. Bottom line is you will pay more for them. Very good restaurants usually buy higher grade produce, that regular market produce, and also high grades of meat, and it is obvious when they do. Not saying its organic, but it is much higher quality.

John may have some input on this subject, they have been buying a lot of organic things.

I can say that in New York State; running an Organic business is very stringent. Licenses, testing, "audits". I'm sure it adds to the cost of farming organically but I believe it is necessary. I know of a couple "organic" farms close by that were shut down because they were lying about their produce. There are some wineries in the Finger Lakes region that produce organic wine. I got into a conversation with the owners of one and they filled me in on the effort it takes to farm organically.

I also heard that one of the challenges of organic farming is that close by conventional crops can pollinate organic crops which basically defeats the purpose.

I'm hoping to get a garden going in my yard in the near future, but to many other project going on has prevented me from doing so. I'll get there I'm sure, just a matter of time.

Capricorn wrote:Why did they not complete the study and include the impact of ingesting chemical residue and antibiotics? Why are these people so quick to claim conventionally grown food is just as safe to eat as organic, even when they admit the effects of pesticide residue have not been studied?

Because Monsanto would probably sue them too.