Organic Food: Driven by Fad or Fact?

June 4, 2010 in Academics, Environment

organic-groceryWe’ve all been there: after a long day of work, standing at the grocery store cold, hungry and tired in front of the produce section trying to figure out if it’s worth it to pay the extra $1 per pound for organic apples. Will it really make a difference? Is it money well-spent? Isn’t the whole “organic food movement” a bunch of marketing hype anyway? In this post, I will address some of these questions and present my viewpoint on the subject. So, if you’ve always wondered about organic food and have been too busy to read any of Michael Pollan’s books, read this post for some insight on this present-day important topic…

Intelligence Squared USA few weeks ago, NPR aired an Intelligence Squared U.S. debate about organic food. The motion/ contested claim was: “Organic food is marketing hype.” The way this debate works is this: there are two teams of expert panelists, one team that is ‘for the motion,’ and the other against. Before the debate starts, the debate moderators poll the audience to see how many are for/ against the motion, and how many are undecided. After the debate, they repeat the poll to see if the panelists’ arguments have swayed the audience one way or the other. Based on this poll, the team with the most supporters wins the debate.

Of course, I was furiously taking notes as fast as I could throughout the hour-long debate, only to find out later that the entire transcript is online! :-) Here is the transcript of the debate if you’re interested to read it (I will be summarizing it below), or if you prefer listening to it, here are the audio and video recordings.

Before the debate started, 21% of the audience were for the motion that “organic food is marketing hype”. 45% were against the motion, and 34% were undecided… Now, let’s get into the substance of the discussion:

Highlights from the debate:

Source: Intelligence Squared U.S. Debate. “Organic Food is Marketing Hype.” 13 April 2010.

*Bios of the debaters are available on the website (link above).

Against the motion “Organic food is marketing hype.” For the motion “Organic food is marketing hype.”
Rangan:Exposure to many chemicals:We barely understand what one chemical does at one point in time. We have no idea what the multiple exposures to low-level pesticides, chemicals, drugs, heavy metals do to anybody.Organic labeling has specific standards:Some other rating labels for conventional (non-organic) foods are indeed ‘marketing hype’, such as natural, hypoallergenic, fragrance-free, free-range: there is no verification or standards. But organic food does have a comprehensive set of standards behind them, and it is verified.

Five reasons why organic food is important and not just marketing hype:

  1. Organic animals eat a diet free of poop.
  2. Organic is free of antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance is a huge growing public health problem in this country.
  3. We feed animals toxic heavy metals like arsenic which act as antibiotics. The arsenic goes from their poop to the ground, and into the groundwater, polluting the environment. Organic is free of heavy metals.
  4. Organicdoesn’t allow the use of most synthetic pesticides. One report estimates that about 60 percent of the pesticides that are out there are classified as a definite, probable, or possible carcinogen.
  5. We actually compost human waste in this country and we put it onto conventional crops.  What you put in your toilet can get composted and get put onto the food that we eat, and that’s how it gets fertilized. That is a prohibited method in organic production. Organicmay not use human sludge as compost. Human compost is mixed with all kinds of undesirable materials in the sewage, which in turn goes into the ground as fertilizer in conventional farming.

On the cost of organic food:“Organic food costs more to produce, and there are a couple reasons for that. One is that it’s incredibly physically labor intensive. You’ve got to — as Jeffrey pointed out, you have to pull the weed. You can’t just spray a chemical on it. It’s harder to do. So there is no question that organic food is harder to produce. But the other major factor that has not been mentioned today is the amazing subsidies that all of our taxpayer money goes to support cheap food production to subsidize late crops on corn and soy, and the myriad of ingredients that stem from that that end up in processed foods, hence creating cheat processed foods. Organic doesn’t get subsidies. That’s why between that and what it does, it costs more.”

 Krebs:No proven difference in health benefits:A comparison between conventional and organic food and concluded that there was no difference in the health benefits.Organic food is more expensive:When you go shopping, if you buy organic food, you spend $1.60 for every dollar you would have to spend buying exactly the equivalent food produced conventionally. So, is it worth paying the extra for health benefits? The answer is a plain, straightforward, simple ‘no’.”
Steingarten: Organic is free of hormones: “[conventional farms use] BST, bovine somatotropin, to increase cows’ milk production … We know that cows overproducing get mastitis and then there is pus, if I can use the word pus, in the milk. No one wanted to use the word pus. And maybe pus is not bad for you, but I thought it was…”

“Conventional agriculture is not feeding the world. To say that organic agriculture could never feed the world is sidestepping the fact that conventional agriculture is not feeding the world and it’s dependent upon oil selling at $45 a barrel, it’s dependent upon steady climate, and it’s also dependent upon relatively available water.”

 Hurst: Organic ‘holistic’ farming ideal is impractical: “You may find this bloodthirsty battle using chemical warfare, genetic manipulation distasteful. It’s clear that our opponents here tonight do so. They imagine farming as a holistic walk with nature as we reap her bounty with hardly a mark left on the landscape and a utopia as we discover that connection to soil has been lost because of the application of science to food. According to them we can walk back our dependence on petroleum, lose our addiction to chemicals and laboratories and be one again with nature. Rarely has so much nonsense received so much attention from so many outstanding minds.”

“Organic production requires its own set of environmental trade-offs: Organic food takes more land than conventional farming for the same amount of food. Organic farming leads directly to more, not less, soil erosion because conventional farmers disturb the soil less. Organic rules are arbitrary with some practices clearly forbidden because of political pressure instead of science.”

Organic farming will not solve world hunger: “Organic consumers should know this: their choices have costs, real costs: environmental costs and costs when it comes to world hunger. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, there are a billion hungry people in the world. Every time someone purchases organic food, more water and more land are used to produce that food than to produce the same amount of food on my farm.”
Benbrook: Insecticides are harmful for human health: “But there are several other pesticides, especially insecticides to do pose significant risk. And the fact that we’re all exposed to pesticides, even before we’re born, does play a role in our public health. Do you all know that the average baby born in America has like 200 chemicals in its blood the moment it’s born from the exposures to its mother?”

And with all due respect to John Krebs, the science is strongly lining up behind organic farming – it is more nutrient-dense. There are 70 or 80 studies that have reached that conclusion. To just dismiss them that they’re not there, you know, you can do it.

Conventional farming is costing Americans their health, which costs more money too: So I think organic food and what this whole area represents, it worries the conventional agriculturist to that people are going to start to ask questions about how our food is grown and what’s in it, and how it might be contributing to the fact that we Americans spend more than any nation in the world on healthcare, but our health across a number of measures really doesn’t stack up that well. And I think it’s a lot about what we eat.

 Avery:Conventional farming is the answer to world hunger: “We will need to double world food production again. We will need to triple the yields on the best farmland, because that not only gives the highest yields and the least erosion, it displaces the fewest wildlife species.”

Results of the poll:

71% of those who were “undecided” before the debate ended up opposing the motion “Organic food is marketing hype” after the debate:

Before the debate: After the debate:
21% FOR the motion “Organic food is marketing hype.”45% AGAINST the motion “Organic food is marketing hype.”34% UNDECIDED 21% FOR the motion “Organic food is marketing hype.”69%AGAINST the motion “Organic food is marketing hype.”10% UNDECIDED

My take on the organic food debate:

I make it no secret on this blog that I believe in organic food. If there is a way to protect oneself against the pesticides, chemicals, hormones, and diseases – why not? Okay, so it’s more expensive than most conventional food. But it’s not nearly as expensive as eating out several times a week as is true for most people I know. And it’s definitely not more expensive than paying healthcare bills. It’s money well spent, to protect your health and the earth. And I don’t believe this nonsense about conventional farming being the only answer to world hunger because feeding people more junk is not not the answer. It’s true that conventional farming produces more crop per year than organic farming. But, where do these acres of harvested corn and soy end up? In a lot of cases, they end up in processed foods that destroy our health, as high-fructose corn syrup or some kind of soy byproduct.

I wish I could buy everything organic, but at this point in time, it’s more than we can afford. That is why I buy almost everything organic. Until recently, what I buy organic and what I don’t was mostly a haphazard process, largely based on cost. Thankfully, a recent CNN article points out certain vegetables and fruits that have to be bought organic because they absorb more pesticides (because of their porous skin). The article labels these as the “dirty dozen”: Celery, Peaches, Strawberries, Apples, Domestic blueberries, Nectarines, Sweet bell peppers, Spinach, kale and collard greens, Cherries, Potatoes, Imported grapes, Lettuce. On the other hand, some fruits and vegetables don’t need/absorb as much of the pesticides and are safer to purchase as conventional, namely the “clean fifteen”: Onions, Avocados, Sweet corn, Pineapples, Mango, Sweet peas, Asparagus, Kiwi fruit, Cabbage, Eggplant, Cantaloupe, Watermelon, Grapefruit, Sweet potatoes, Sweet onions. It’s important to keep these lists in mind when trying to make the decision of whether or not to buy organic. If you must choose, choose wisely and based on facts.

Finally, since this debate was about whether organic food is “marketing hype” or not, I want to shift your attention to your television for a minute: when is the last time you saw an advertisement for organic, locally grown produce? Probably never. What about a commercial for “eating fresh” at Subway like this one? This is a mild example of a commercial that actually tries to compare the health benefits of standalone fresh vegetables to those of the white bread sandwich stuffed with processed turkey and day-old cut up vegetables (both conventionally grown and bought in bulk, of course). In this age of extreme marketing for all kinds of medications, fast food, and get-fit-quick machines, we need as much accurate information as possible about the origin of our food and its supposed health benefits. In fact, we are incredibly sheltered from receiving this kind of accurate information in the media, but instead are used to hearing about processed foods based on conventionally farmed ingredients mixed with chemicals. Therefore, it would take a ton of genuine marketing for organic products and food to start spreading any public awareness, and this would only be a few years down the road assuming it starts now. So, no, I don’t think it’s marketing hype. As a matter of fact, I wish it would have nearly as much marketing representation as junk food does on TV and in print.

I wrote an entire paper about organic farming in a graduate cultural studies course titled “Green” Food for Thought: Defetishizing the Fantasy of Organic,” that I have posted on my “Why Organic” page. If you’re curious, definitely check it out!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this recap of the debate and thought through my subsequent comments! :-)  Which side are you on in this debate?

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