Is organic food really any healthier?

Question

Back in September, a family member sent me this email:

"http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/11/opinion/carroll-organic-food/index.html

We're disrupting the ecosystem...aaaahhhhhhh!!!!!! Really?"

Answer

There are two main points to address, first that organic food is not healthier, which is the main point of the article, and then the subsequent argument that organic farming is not better for the environment, which I will address in a second post. 

1. Organic food is not healthier
The author reviews studies that show that organic produce did not have any more nutrients than conventional and that while organic produce did have fewer pesticides, the conventional food usually met the allowed standards for pesticides. Further, the author refers to other studies showing that having lower levels of pesticides does not lead to any obvious health benefit.

First, I find it strange that they looked into the nutritional content, given that I have never once read or heard anyone claim that organic food would have more nutrients than conventional. It does not surprise me in the least that they found no difference. Perhaps next time those same scientists will investigate whether or not eating organic food will cause me to pee rainbows or shit bricks of gold.

Now, as for the claim that pesticides have no deleterious effects on us, I would like to point to two pieces of evidence:

A) There have been numerous cases where the FDA approved limit for pesticides was set for the benefit of the chemical companies, not people.

Take the example of one of my personal heroes, Tyrone Hayes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Hayes). He was working for a chemical company, investigating the effects of an herbicide called atrazine. He unexpectedly found that even at extremely low levels, the chemical caused major deformities in the genitals of amphibians (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/tyrone-hayes/). The chemical company, on the other hand, did not seem surprised by Hayes' results and worked hard to keep him quiet and cover up his results. The chemical company intensively lobbied the EPA and conducted a smear campaign against Hayes. No surprise then that the EPA decided its previously stated levels were still A-okay.

B) The burden of proof regarding the safety of a given chemical is on the people when it should be on the chemical company.

The European Union has a much saner approach to this embodied in the Precautionary Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle). The wikipedia article sums it up quite nicely: "The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action."

For many of us, buying organic food is already an easy alternative to conventional produce, so why take the risk?!

C) Organic food benefits the environment too! It's not all about us!

Okay, I know I said I only had two points to make on this topic. But still, even if I was totally convinced that organic food still had no benefit to me personally, I would still buy it because it is better for the Earth, which brings me to my next blog post:

Is agriculture bad for the Earth? Does organic farming make it better?