Very recently, the prestigious London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine released a press statement claiming that organic food has no notable nutritional benefits when compared to conventionally grown food. This was answered by a swift counter-claim from the Soil Association that claimed that indeed, organically grown crops do have a higher level of nutrients.
Well, it makes a good headline, and I guess it's no bad thing that we have a good, hard look at what goes onto our plates and into our mouths. So debating the organics issue is a good thing. But is the nutritional content of organic foods the whole story? How many people are paying the premium price for organic food in order to have more nutrients? Unless I'm a lone nutcase, I thought one of the real benefits of buying, growing and eating organic food was because organic food doesn't have large amounts of pesticides chucked all over it.
Forget the nutrient levels - this depends on a number of factors, including the soil the vegetables are grown in, the variety of plant and how fresh the food is. What I'm interested in is the toxin levels. I don't really like eating pesticides. And surely I'm not alone.
And, going back to the original research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (which was a literature review, incidentally, not new research actually testing the peas, carrots and apples in question), the review didn't find NO difference in the nutrient levels between organics and non-organics; they found a SMALL difference, and organically grown food does have a higher nutritional value. The Soil Association folks produced the statistics, using the same papers and research that the LSHTM did. Organically grown produce has:
53.6% more beta-carotene (this is considered a small difference????)
38.4% more flavonoids
13.2% more phenolic compounds
12.7% more protein.
And that's just a few of the figures. OK, the LSHTM did say that only a few studies had been done, so the results weren't conclusive.
The verdict? Should you pay more for organic vegetables? Well, the argument about pesticide levels doesn't even seem to be addressed in this study, and that's something of a clincher for me. However, it's still true that any vegetables are better than no vegetables - a conventionally grown carrot has more nutritional value than a pack of crisps - and the fresher you eat things, the more vitamins they have. Personally speaking, I'll be getting out there into my garden with a spade and some compost. Growing your own vegetables means that you have full control about what sprays (if any) go into your garden. Organic growing is cheaper at the home garden scale - much cheaper than "conventional" methods, as you're not forking out for fancy chemicals. And you can't get any vegetables fresher than what comes out of your own garden - straight from the garden to the kitchen, with only a bit of washing and chopping before you can eat it (OK, maybe some cooking in the case of potatoes).