I hate bad science. It’s hard to do good science, but science is only effective when it is good science. This isn’t a rant about the bad science of genetically engineered foods (which certainly deserves a post of its own) but about a recent study published by Stanford scientists about organic food. You’ve probably read about it in the news, but if you haven’t you can do so here. The main point of the study was to test organic foods to see if they were more nutritious and safer to eat than non-organic foods. They found that organic foods were not more nutritious than non-organic foods and not any safer regarding E. coli contamination. Lower levels of chemical pesticides were found.
Why is this bad science? One of the points made to my cohort of graduate students was that getting results, even statistically significant results, is irrelevant if the questions being asked aren’t relevant. A corollary was that you need the right measures to test the questions you are asking. In this case, asking about nutrients is irrelevant because the organic standards aren’t about nutrition. They are standards for producing food without using artificial pesticides and herbicides. So, studying the nutritional value of organic foods is simply the wrong question. The correct question is whether organic foods have lower level of chemical pesticides and herbicides on them. This question was asked, and the researchers found that organic foods did have lower levels of these chemicals. But, this was not the emphasis of the study. Instead, they focused on nutrients and on E. coli levels. The latter was one of their metrics of healthy food, and they found no significant difference in organic vs. non-organic foods. Such results make for great headlines and lots of food industry punditry, but they are irrelevant and therefore bad science.
For further information and commentary on this topic, read this post by Marion Nestle (always a good source of scientific information on food issues), and a fuller commentary with multiple viewpoints here. Of the six commentators at the second link, I think Marion Nestle is the most succinct and accurate, based on what I know about organic foods from my many years following food issues.
Urban Agroecology 
September 20, 2012 at 5:28 pm
When you don’t really want to know the answer, or you want to misdirect, you’re not going to ask the right questions. My hope is that organic awareness will follow the same path as recycling. We have a long way to go in recycling but thirty years ago I had to drive across the city to the recycling center. Now I have waste industry collection bins and I can co-mingle. I never thought it would happen. Positive change often happens slowly, one person at a time. But it is often one person who changes history.
September 21, 2012 at 10:08 am
I think you nailed it, Sandra. I don’t know what their funding sources are, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see they get some money from Big Ag. I’ve spent years following genetically engineered food issues and it’s difficult to find anyone who isn’t on the Monsanto or similar payroll. Academia is no longer the independent, critical voice it once was, now that corporate money dominates.
May 7, 2013 at 2:07 pm
I am really surprised by your reasoning that this is bad science. This is a very important issue and is asserted by Organic Food proponents all the time that it is more nutritious. And it’s as if you think that they don’t dare to ask the “right” questions as if it were some kind of conspiracy. Furthermore it sounds like you think that there are not already hundreds of these studies made every year? Have you even bothered to check? Feel free to say no and I’ll provide.
May 8, 2013 at 1:09 pm
Morten–
Hi, thanks for commenting on the post. Regardless of what organic proponents–or opponents–say about the nutritional qualities of organic food, I stand by my original comments. Organic foods are defined by a production standard, not a nutrition standard. So, they may or may not be more nutritious. The study was asking a question that doesn’t relate to the organic standard itself. It’s a bit like having a production standard for a factory, say to reduce air pollution, then to measure whether the factory product is safer for consumers than the same product produced without the air pollution standards.
There may be a few people who make claims that organic foods are more nutritious, but that is rare in my experience. If they are making such claims, then they need some science to back up those claims for them to be credible. I’ll certainly grant that such claims are not always based on any good science. If this study was trying to test those occasional claims, then it makes some sense. But, it certainly didn’t deserve the widespread press coverage it received, since it wasn’t focusing on the key question for organic production: Are pesticide residues on food and in the farm environment lower for organically produced foods than non-organically produced foods?
Most of the claims I’ve seen about food being healthier based on a production method are comparing industrial to non-industrial methods, which may or may not be organic. Another claim sometimes made is that locally produced foods are more nutritious than foods transported hundreds or thousands of miles. In fact, that is a claim I’ve made here in this blog. My claim is not based on any scientific studies, simply common sense. Locally produced foods are riper when picked and are eaten sooner than foods transported for long distances. Thus, they are both more ripe and less deteriorated when eaten. I assume that means they are more nutritious. If you have any evidence showing that is not the case, then I’d like to see it.
Thanks again for your comment.
Bob
May 8, 2013 at 2:28 pm
Hey,
what a great answer, thank you. I fully agree that it has nothing to do with the organic production standard. That this makes it bad science, I will not agree with, but it certainly didn’t warrant a huge news coverage. And to me your argument about locally produced food seems sound enough, but I bet one could find researches on this if it was important. But there are tons of reasons to support local farmers even if it was not true. We get a weekly crate of vegetables from a local farmer and I am not very concerned whether or not this is more nutritious. Then again, living in Vienna, I don’t think most food travels very far to get here. It’s much worse in my home country, Norway. We get a lot of varying quality up there.
Aaah, I didn’t realize what kind of blog this was until now. I assumed it was one of the many sites dedicated to promoting organic food. Urban gardening! Me and my girlfriend does guerrilla gardening here in Vienna. It’s very nice, though she is the enthusiast. 😉
Though I have to confess, I have been living under a rock when it comes to organic food and all relating issues. But recently I decided to start a rather large project to write about the science of organic food (and related), but seeing as I don’t know a lot about it, I have been trying very hard the last few weeks to educate myself and researching the reality behind all the claims I hear (such as organic food tasting better). Apparently I have been hanging out with the wrong crowd, because a lot of information I get from people turns out to be plain misinformation once I try to find research to back it up. And in this jungle of information, it can be very challenging to dig out the facts.
I poked around your website a bit, and you seem to have a really balanced view on organic food and GMO related subjects. Would you be able to point me in the right direction of where I could find good info about these subjects? Because I am getting tired of wading through this propaganda machine to find any real info. Or if you could write up what your views of the benefits and disadvantages with organic farming?
When it comes to industrial farming, I haven’t found a lot of benefits to organic farming. I’ve found some things such as organic production standards for animals is generally better for their well being. But it also seems to me that a lot of the production rules are really arbitrary. They are not made to make the best food, make best use of the land, to be less toxic for the environment or things like that. The rules are more or less that it should be natural, as if that is automatically better\healthier etc, and that really baffles me.
Perhaps you could shed some light on these things with your thoughts, if you have any?
Sorry for the wall of text, but thanks again for your answer, and I’m looking forward to your reply.
May 21, 2013 at 12:16 pm
Morten–
Sorry for my delay in responding. Your reply got buried and…well, it got buried.
It sounds like you’re just getting started in studying food issues. You’ll have to learn your way around to the sources you learn are well-considered and based on something more than opinion. I don’t spend much, if any, time on the ‘net doing that, so can’t help you with that. One place to start about food issues would be with the writings of Michael Pollan. He’s writing for an American audience, but much of what he says would also apply to European agriculture. (Let me apologize for my earlier reply’s assumption that you were in the States. I don’t know how the organic standard might differ in Europe, so you should qualify my comments about organic being a production standard until you confirm that for yourself.)
In any case, Pollan’s books provide great background on different issues and forms of agriculture. They’re very readable and based on solid research into issues and practices, which is why he’s become America’s best-read author on food issues.
I don’t spend much time on the organic issue, so can’t help you much there. I accept that it is a production standard and that it is a good thing in my mind, because it reduces the amount of toxins put into the environment. This is good for both farm workers and for other critters, especially fish and other life in waterways, where some of the toxins end up. Most of my criticism is of industrial agriculture. We, as a (U.S.) culture, have over highlighted the sole benefit of industrial production–massive production–while ignoring the many costs it has imposed on society: massive energy consumption, massive use of chemical toxins, destruction of biological and human communities in agricultural areas, wasteful use of taxpayer monies that subsidize water, transportation, energy and large-over-small farms.
Hope some of this helps.
Best wishes,
Bob
ps–My objections to GE crops are a little bit from the scientific angle–we simply put these crops into the environment and our bodies without any independent testing of their effects–so with adequate testing I might be a GE crop supporter. My primary objections come from the economic and legal angles. There are unresolved issues regarding legal liability for contamination of non-GE seed stocks by GE seed, as well as questions about the “rightness” of granting intellectual property protections (ie, patents) for living organisms vs. processes that create those organisms.