Stanford Organics Study Misses the Point

10 Sep, 2012

by Lisa J. Bunin, Ph.D., Organic Policy Coordinator, Center for Food Safety

Stanford Organics Study Misses the PointAre Organic Foods Safer or Healthier than Conventional Alternatives?” Stanford University researchers attempted to answer this ques­tion in their recently released analy­sis of pub­lished lit­er­a­ture on the health, nutri­tion and safety of organic and con­ven­tional foods. The study has def­i­nitely kicked up a lot of dust—some of which is based upon ques­tion­able num­ber crunch­ing, and it largely misses the point of why organ­i­cally grown food is a supe­rior choice. In fact, it’s fair to say that the study itself erro­neously char­ac­ter­izes what defines “safer or health­ier” food and mis­judges the crit­i­cal impor­tance of the farm­ing sys­tems used to pro­duce it. The con­fu­sion this creates—and the poten­tial mis­in­for­ma­tion it can spread—needs addressing.

While the lim­ited nutri­tion fac­tors the study com­pares showed mar­ginal dif­fer­ences at best, that’s a moot point. It’s not the nutri­tional fea­tures that dis­tin­guish organic from con­ven­tional food that are most rel­e­vant; it’s the safer, health­ier grow­ing prac­tices that define the organ­ics sec­tor that deserve focus. Safer and health­ier for the envi­ron­ment, farm­work­ers and wildlife. Safer and health­ier for human con­sump­tion. While the study’s con­clu­sion offers a pass­ing nod to this dif­fer­ence, its authors fail to rec­og­nize the over­whelm­ing impor­tance of the qual­ity of grow­ing prac­tices as the defin­ing dif­fer­ence between the two pro­duc­tion meth­ods. Their conclusion?

The evi­dence does not sug­gest marked health ben­e­fits from con­sum­ing organic ver­sus con­ven­tional foods although organic pro­duce may reduce expo­sure to pes­ti­cide residues and organic chicken and pork may reduce expo­sure to antibi­otic resistant-bacteria. [empha­sis added]

In the stud­ies they exam­ined, pes­ti­cide residues were found on 7% of organic pro­duce sam­ples, ver­sus residues on 38% of con­ven­tional pro­duce sam­ples. Given this one piece of data alone, their con­clu­sion is baf­fling. According to Dr. Charles Benbrook’s cal­cu­la­tions, using the same data used by Stanford researchers, the risk is even lower. His cal­cu­la­tions show “an over­all 81% lower risk or inci­dence of one or more pes­ti­cide residues in the organic sam­ples com­pared to the con­ven­tional sam­ples.” Wouldn’t such a dra­matic reduc­tion of ingested pes­ti­cides rep­re­sent “marked health ben­e­fits”? Based upon the study’s own review of what con­sti­tutes “organic,” con­sumers who buy organic are assured that they will avoid toxic chem­i­cals in their food, water, air and land. Exactly who doesn’t think that sounds like a safer, health­ier eat­ing experience?

The qual­ity and com­po­si­tion of the meat we con­sume is another crit­i­cal com­po­nent of the organic food land­scape. Antibiotic resis­tance is a huge pub­lic health con­cern, and it’s another rea­son why peo­ple buy organic meat. A recent Consumer Reports pub­lic opin­ion poll found that 72% of those asked responded that they were either “very con­cerned” or “extremely con­cerned” that wide­spread use of antibi­otics would lead to antibiotic-resistant super­bugs. The good news for organic con­sumers is that the Stanford study con­firms that organic food is safer in this regard. Where was that mean­ing­ful fac­toid in the head­lines we’ve seen in the media? Researchers actu­ally found that the risk of find­ing bac­te­r­ial resis­tance to three or more antibi­otics was 33% higher in con­ven­tion­ally raised grown chick­ens and pigs than in those that are organ­i­cally raised.

Putting their unre­mark­able basic nutri­tional eval­u­a­tions aside, the real ques­tion Stanford researchers needed to ask and answer is: What are the health con­cerns that moti­vate peo­ple to choose organic over con­ven­tion­ally grown foods? People eat organic fruits and veg­eta­bles because they are grown with­out the use of syn­thetic pes­ti­cides, her­bi­cides, genet­i­cally engi­neered seed, and sewage sludge. They buy organic meat and dairy because organ­i­cally raised farm ani­mals are not rou­tinely admin­is­tered syn­thetic growth hor­mones or antibi­otics, like their con­ven­tional counterparts.

Other ben­e­fits include the fact that these ani­mals are required to be pas­tured and fed a 100% organic diet, which can­not include poul­try lit­ter or ani­mal by-products. Certified organic prac­tices also require the humane treat­ment of ani­mals, which is not the real­ity for con­ven­tion­ally reared ani­mals. Moreover, all organic food must be cer­ti­fied by an inde­pen­dent third-party cer­ti­fi­ca­tion orga­ni­za­tion, which means that USDA-deputized agents annu­ally inspect organic farms and their records to ensure com­pli­ance with the Organic Food Production Act.

For peo­ple who reg­u­larly pur­chase organic food, it is incon­ceiv­able that food repeat­edly sprayed with toxic chem­i­cals has no long-lasting, detri­men­tal effects on their health. They under­stand that agro­chem­i­cals kill most, if not all, of the liv­ing organ­isms in the soil, and that adding syn­thetic fer­til­iz­ers to feed crops depletes rather than builds soil, as required in organic farm­ing sys­tems. Agrochemicals can leach into the ground­wa­ter, rivers, streams, and the ocean, dis­rupt­ing nat­ural ecosys­tems, killing aquatic life and caus­ing eutrophic “dead zones.” Organic con­sumers sup­port ecological-based farm­ing meth­ods that enhance the soil’s own nat­ural fer­til­ity through the use of good farm stew­ard­ship prac­tices, includ­ing com­post­ing, crop rota­tions and inter­crop­ping to attract ben­e­fi­cial insects and fix atmos­pheric nitro­gen into the soil. That way, plants uptake nutri­ents from the soil, and not from syn­thetic chemicals.

Despite some of the mis­lead­ing, shock head­lines that appeared when the study was first released, includ­ing, Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Poultry (The New York Times) and Little evi­dence of health ben­e­fits from organic foods, Stanford study finds, (Stanford School of Medicine web­site), a more accu­rate and informed one came from the Organic Trade Association’s response, Stanford research con­firms health ben­e­fits dri­ving con­sumers to organic. This is good news for organic con­sumers and any­body who wants to join them. Good news that seems to have been hid­den from view in the Stanford report. In the end, the head­line we should be see­ing more and more came from Consumer Reports: Don’t Give Up on Organic Food.

Source: Center for Food Safety release

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  • http://www.facebook.com/davilyn.eversz Davilyn Eversz

    When I orig­i­nally read this arti­cle some­thing else seemed amiss to me. Only 38% of the con­ven­tional grown pro­duce showed pes­ti­cide residue? This is incon­ceiv­able to me. If you spray pes­ti­cides, her­bi­cides, syn­thet­ics on some­thing – and test it – it is going to show up. Some pro­to­col must not have been fol­lowed cor­rectly – or stor­age or test­ing was not correct.

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