The Superiority of Organic Food

Craving something healthy after the holidays? If you are thinking about buying bio products, this article by Rick Cornell Hellmann is definitely worth a read!

Food scandals and unidentifiable ingredients continuously shake consumer faith. Conversely, organic

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food promises the highest standards, strict controls, sustainable management, and even health benefits. Is organic food (a.k.a. bio food) really healthier than conventionally grown or genetically modified (GM) food? What does science say?
Organic farming may encompass many criteria but the minimal requirements are not to use synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides [1]. Additional requirements vary from country to country but may include a transition period from conventional farming, conservation of agro-ecosystems and their biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil quality.

Loaded with Nutrients
Organic food is superior with regard to its vitamin (27% more ascorbic acid) and mineral content (21% more iron, 29% more magnesium, and 13.6% more phosphorous) in comparison to conventionally grown foods [2,3]. Conventionally grown foods also contain 15% more nitrates, a potential health hazard whose recommended limits in drinking water are in the low ppm range [3]. Phytonutrients (polyphenols, carotenoids, and flavonoids) occur at higher concentrations in organic produce. Flavonoids act as potent antioxidants [2], protecting cells from harmful free radicals. The carotenoid lycopene reduces the incidence of cancer and the polyphenol compound anthocyanin improves neuronal and cognitive brain functions as well as eye health [2].

ORGANIC FOOD IS SAFER THAN 

CONVENTIONALLY GROWN FOOD 

Organic food contains more nutrients and fewer pesticides but there are still quality differences among organic foods depending on the land they are grown on [2]. The produce from mature organic farms (more than 10 years of organic-only farming) contains even higher levels of the previously mentioned nutrients compared to produce from non-mature organic farms [2]. A longitudinal study showed that flavonoid levels in organic tomatoes increased each year, while it stayed constant for conventionally grown tomatoes. This increase correlated with increasing levels of soil-bound organic matter and decreased manure application to the soil and indicates that the nutritional difference between organic and conventionally grown foods will only increase over time [2,4].

Resistant Pests
The use of pesticides in farming and the use of antibiotics in animals has led to the emergence of antibiotic resistance, which was recognized as a global public health threat long ago [5]. The use of the term “superbugs” to describe bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics may now have to be reconsidered with the emergence of actual bugs resistant to multiple insecticides as a result of human farming, most notably genetically modified crops that continuously produce insecticides. Because of the artificial environmental pressure, Darwinian evolution is happening at a facilitated pace.

Nothing is Purely Organic
The label “organic” doesn’t ensure that the food is absolutely free of pesticides or genetically modified organisms. Long-lasting pesticides seep into the ground, contaminate drinking water and are spread through rivers. Less than 0.1% of the ≈3 billion kg of pesticides used worldwide reach their target pests [6]. Genetically modified pollen travels with the wind and residual quantities of this will be present in organic foods too. However, only 2.6% of organic food has detectable chemical residues of more than one pesticide compared to 26% of conventionally grown food [2]. Therefore, it's not that organic food is completely safe, it's just safer than conventionally grown food. 

Health Benefits Prove Elusive
Despite having a higher concentration of essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants and lower concentrations of artificial chemicals, organic foods have not yet been proven to have the multitude of health benefits that they are associated with. A reduced risk of skin allergy (eczema) is the only measured health benefit that organic foods have been shown to have [2]. Many of the beneficial compounds found abundantly in organic food are available as health supplements or contained in functional food but the science around organic foods is new. PubMed for example, does not have the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) term for “organic food” – “health food” is recommended as an alternative search term [2]. But this may mean an entirely different thing.
Perhaps the reason that organic food hasn't been definitively linked to health benefits is that we only recently found out that the nutritional value of organic food grown on mature organic farms is better than food grown on newer farms. Older studies did not take this information into consideration, so future research might yield some interesting results.
 
[1] Johannson et al, Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2014
[2] Crinnion, Altern Med Rev, 2010
[3] United States Environmental Protection Agency
[4] Chassy et al, J Agric Food Chem, 2006
[5] Roca et al, New Microbes New Infect, 2015
[6] Pimmentel, J Agric Environ Ethics, 1995

by Rick Cornell Hellmann, PhD Student AG Schwab
this article appeared originally September 2015 in Vol.08 Issue 3 "Food for Thought"