The science on organic food

[HowToBe]

I didn't manage to find a thread for this topic (apologies if I've missed it), and I figure it might be good to have a thread to collect research (especially studies) relevant to this topic. After all, there are those out there claiming organics aren't any good, so both sides of the issue could be addressed here. Here's one I didn't find mentioned on the forum or SOTT:

http://csanr.wsu.edu/m2m/papers/organic_meta_analysis/bjn_2014_full_paper.pdf
Higher antioxidant and lower cadmium concentrations and lower incidence
of pesticide residues in organically grown crops: a systematic literature
review and meta-analyses
M. Baranski et al.
doi: 10.1017/S0007114514001366
British Journal of Nutrition
(Submitted 11 September 2013 – Final revision received 2 May 2014 – Accepted 6 May 2014)

And here's an article that hits a few different angles of it and references some studies:
http://www.sott.net/article/252840-Why-local-trumps-organic-for-nutrient-content

 

[mcb]

One of the major reasons to go organic is to avoid, as much as is possible, genetically modified foods. GM foods appear to be disease agents in their own right, apart from glyphosate and pesticide residues and nutrient deficiencies.

But don't wait up for "the science" on this to come out. The science has been manipulated as much as the genes themselves. The way the information that I have been hearing is coming out is through doctors and other practitioners that see results when they put their patients on GMO-free diets (organic or not).

I experienced a quite significant improvement in health when I went organic in 2009. I never could understand that until recently -- the nutrient differences were probably not enough to account for it. Without realizing it, however, I had largely eliminated GM foods from my diet, and now I suspect that was the reason for the improvement.

 

[HowToBe]

Fair points, MB. Living organic as much as reasonably possible and working to continue in that direction just makes sense. GMOs, as an untested technology being released with little to no safety testing before being put to use, could turn out to be as bad a mistake as DDT, or worse, and that's ignoring the fact that there must be scientists eager to "advance" this technology to greater extremes as rapidly as possible. Really, since the things reproduce, there "should" have been extensive - and public - discussion and a public decision procedure or something before even attempting to create such technology. But that's just a fantasy of another world.