Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Review Finds: Health Not Improved By Organic Foods


Two review articles, one published by the American Jounral of clinical Nutrition, and another by the London School of Hygene and Topical Medicine concluded that a review of literature from over the past 50 years shows no difference in health outcomes between organic and conventionally produced food.


The review concluded that the studies which showed health benefits to organic eating only focused on short-term benefits like antioxidant activity rather than long-term health outcomes. In general, the antioxidants studies did not find any differences between organic and conventional foods. The studies were also limited in scale have small sample groups and lasting over a short period of time. The US based review found that there was no difference in nutrient content between organic and conventional foods.


The reviews, however, are completely focused on pure evidence-based outcome that show biologically measurable changes. In this way, they are limited and cannot account for the social benefits of locally produced good and their benefit they may have on other areas of the environment. It also did not address possible consequence of eliminating pesticide usage on farm workers and other side products of organically grown food. In this way, their definition of "health" is extremely narrow and does not consider more broad yet equally important aspects.


Nutritional quality of organic foods: a systematic review

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/rapidpdf/ajcn.2009.28041v1
July 29, 2009


http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1869915/health_not_improved_by_organic_foods/
May 25, 2010

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