ORGANIC food really is better for you, says Britain’s Soil Association. It claims to have amassed convincing evidence that organic food contains more trace minerals and vitamin C than conventional food, as well as plant nutrients such as flavonoids, which are thought to protect us against disease.
Britain’s Food Standards Agency remains unconvinced, however. It’s sticking by its conclusion last August that there’s still not enough evidence to decide one way or the other. “It doesn’t make a convincing case that there’s a significant difference between organic and conventional food,” says a spokeswoman. “Taken overall, there’s not enough in the report to make us change our minds.”
But the association, which promotes organic farming, claims its report is the most authoritative yet. The Soil Association reviewed previous research comparing organic and non-organic food, and excluded those studies which it felt had failed to compare the two properly. “If you only look at the valid research, you get a clear picture that organic food is better for you,” says Shane Heaton, the nutritionist who wrote the report.
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Of 99 studies that compared the nutritional content of organic and non-organic foods, only 29 were valid, he says. The rest included food which was not truly organic. In some studies, for example, “organic” crops had been grown in soil which didn’t come up to organic standards.
In half the 14 studies comparing mineral content, Heaton found organic food to have higher levels. Non-organic food came out on top in only one study, with the rest showing no significant difference. “The studies are quite heterogeneous, but the overall trend is that mineral levels were higher in organic food,” says Heaton.
Vitamin C was found to be between 6 to 100 per cent higher in organic produce, and organic food also contained more dry matter. “Conventional food is often swollen with water,” says Heaton. “So four organic carrots would have the same amount of matter as five conventional carrots,” for example. “So there’s literally more food in organic food,” he says.
Organic manure could explain the differences, Heaton says, because it contains more elements than conventional nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium-based fertilisers.
The FSA however, is reiterating its advice that tiny variations in minerals and vitamins in food are of little importance. “What matters is the nutrient content and overall balance of the diet, regardless of whether the components are organic or conventional.” Bruce Ames, a veteran toxicologist at the University of California at Berkeley, is also sceptical. “I don’t find the Soil Association’s arguments at all convincing,” he says. “The report is not critical science and their bias is pervasive.”
