This week the health blogosphere, newswires and cocktail party circuits were buzzing over the report from the report for the U.K. Food Standards Agency that came to the conclusion that organic food offered no more nutrients than ‘conventionally’ produced foodstuffs. (I find it strange to call the way we mass-produce food conventional, particularly when you think that most of what we eat today didn’t exist 50 years ago and the stuff that did exist is now produced in a way that is so foreign to the way its been done for the thousands of years before that calling it conventional is about as realistic as calling one of those ‘meal replacement‘ products a meal…but I digress — for an interesting take on this go see Food Inc. in theatres).
This finding didn’t surprise me at all. There isn’t any particular reason why ‘conventionally’ grown food should be any less nutrient rich than organics. But as Marion Nestle writes, that misses the point. It’s the same case that I’ve been making in my social circles the past few days as people talk about organics and how this has them reconsidering things. It shouldn’t — unless physical health is the only reason why you eat something. And I would argue that there are many good reasons to eat organics that have just as much to do with health, but do so in a way that goes beyond nutrients.
Organics are much more friendly to the planet for starters. The problems with birds & wildlife, and environmental degradation due to pesticides has been well-documented.
Pesticides are also highly toxic to those who are administering them — very often low educated, non-protected workers and their families – despite efforts to reduce this.
Organics also provide a vehicle for supporting local farmers, which brings added environmental and economic benefits.
All of these things produce health in our community. These are the social determinants of health of the food system and not just the nutrient portion of it. And there is much reason to believe that these social and environmental determinants play as big of a role in our health as anything we gain from nutrients.
Health is indeed a complex system both physically, socially, and as a concept in its own right. Viewing the link between organics and physical health (vis nutrients) as straightforward (and one that some organic supporters are doing through their critique of the report) reduces this complexity and potentially does the organics movement more harm than good. My suggestion would be to look at all the other benefits that organics can confer and focus on that.
This doesn’t mean the door is closed and that more research shouldn’t be done, but I think a lot of people will be happy enough knowing that the organic food they eat is doing the planet good, animals good and their local economies good and that is healthy in its own right.
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