The Organic Myth
Last year in a New York shopping mall a large group of men and woman took part in a study.Participants ate two samples of yogurt. They were told that one sample of yogurt was organic and the other non-organic. After eating the yogurt the vast majority of participants called the organic sample more appetizing, healthier and better tasting. Participants were willing to pay up to 25% more for the “organic” kind. What the participants didn’t know, however, is that both samples of yogurt were identical. The study, conducted by Cornell Researchers, concluded that organic labeling induced a type of “halo effect.” The participants tricked themselves into believing the food was better, based solely on the organic label.
What we eat and where it comes from is a very complicated problem. It’s a problem that everyone seems to have a different answer to. Whether we grow our own food or buy it at a supermarket, we all have our own idea of what is healthy and what is not. However, there is a common goal between most of these ideas: we want to be healthy and feel good. In our search for the “best” way to eat (if there even is such a thing), we as consumers have created a tragic flaw. We have reduced theories to buzzwords, sacrificing science for convenience. Ambiguous words like “natural,” “fresh” and “superfood” have invaded supermarket isles, each with a promise of being better. Of all these different buzzwords, there is one with a better reputation than nearly all of the others. The term is “organic.” It’s a term brimming with righteousness that customers rarely question. This however, I believe to be a mistake. For all of the term’s contentions, there lacks much, if any, evidence to back it up.
Knowledge of this organic “halo effect” may be new to consumers, but to food giants it’s well known. When the whole organic movement started, around 50 years ago, the movement was very different. Born out of 1960’s counterculture, organic farming symbolized an attack on "cold" and "maniacal" corporate farms. It was an attempt to return to nature in a turbulent society. Regardless of whether any of these farming methods were (and still are today) effective, the movement came from a pure place.
As the movement grew so did society's collective consciousness of the natural world. This is something that did not go unnoticed by food’s largest businesses. Today you can find organic TV-dinners, organic high fructose corn syrup and an entire range of organic frozen and processed food. Many of the organic industries best selling companies are owned by the likes of Coca-Cola, Heinz, Pepsi and Kraft.
As major companies have entered the industry, they have made an effort to relax regulation and lower expenses. For instance, Whole Foods, by its own admission, sells only 10-15% locally grown food. The food not locally grown is often outsourced to other countries that often lack the stringent regulation that exists in the U.S. For example, the Cornucopia Institute has estimated 50% of organic soybeans eaten in the U.S come from China. These examples only scratch the surface of the perversions that have helped grow the organics industry to the 30 billion dollar entity it is today. What has remained constant throughout all this change and upheaval however, is the organic image. We still picture organic food as grown on small farms by small families. This is an image the industry wants to protect at all costs. The organic image is the organic business.
Beyond the deceiving image and “halo effect,” the question remains: is there any intrinsic value to organic food? Based on our most up-to-date research, the answer appears to be no. Starting with nutrition, there simply doesn’t seem to be much, if any, difference between the two kinds of produce. According to Stanford University’s analysis of nearly 250 studies looking at this exact issue, conventionally raised vegetables, animals and fruits aren’t any less nutritious than organic foods, nor did they contain notably larger amounts of pesticides. It may however, seem surprising that organic foods contain any pesticides at all. Yet they do. FDA rules let organic farmers use “natural” pesticides to treat their crops. Naturally occurring however, does not mean safe. According to a University of California Berkley study, half of organic pesticides when used irresponsibly, are cancer-causing. The few (yet undeniable) success’s in organic food can mostly be attributed to small scale farms. These successes don’t represent the real organic industry, and can’t be reproduced on a large scale.
Today, according to the Hudson Institute, half of the land on our planet is used for agriculture. Based on our growing population, this is a startling number. In order to have enough food to feed the world we need to be more productive with less land. Organic farming does not do this. In a large study conducted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, it was found that organic food yields 20% less food than conventional farming. If we were to try and scale organic food to the masses, it would come at a huge sacrifice. The Hudson Institute estimates 10 million miles of forest would have to be cut down and used for farming to meet the demand. With the little to no nutritional benefit for us compared to conventional food, this seems to be an extraordinary waste. Fresh and healthy food needs to be supported in a way that can be afforded by both the consumer and the environment. For a family on food subsidies, eating fresh produce is a daunting task. We shouldn’t be making that any harder.
What we eat and where it comes from is very important; whether that food is organic is simply not. The financial juggernaut that is the modern organics industry sells an image and idea based on dishonesty. In order to feed our growing world and fight our obesity crisis we need to make honest healthy food affordable, not an elite badge of wealth.
I'm not naive enough to believe I’ve convinced anyone to drastically change their views in this short article. Five years from now new evidence may reveal itself indicating that I’m dead wrong. Until then, I hope that we can look at the organic issue from both sides. We can then form a more educated belief, based on reason not emotion.
jsadler@thesamohi.com