Science Vs - Organic Food

Episode Date: August 26, 2016

People are going bonkers for organic, but what are you really getting when you buy them? Better taste? Fewer toxic chemicals? A cleaner environment? Farmers Mark, Andy, and Brian Reeves, nutritional epidemiologist Dr. Kathryn Bradbury, Ass. Prof. Cynthia Curl, and Prof. Navin Ramankutty help us sort it all out. Credits: This episode has been produced by Wendy Zukerman, Heather Rogers, Lynn Levy, Caitlin Kenney, Austin Mitchell, and Kaitlyn Sawrey. Editing by Annie-Rose Strasser and Alex Blumberg. Fact checking by Michelle Harris. Production Assistance by Diane Wu and Shruti Ravindran. Special thanks to Stevie Lane and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Sound design and music production by Matthew Boll, mixing by Martin Peralta, Austin Thompson and Haley Shaw. Music written by Bobby Lord. Selected Resources:Organic vs conventional tomato taste test Johansson et al, “Preference for tomatoes, affected by sensory attributes and information about growth conditions,” Food Quality and Preference, 1999Nutritional analysis of organic vs organic food Smith-Spangler et al, “Are Organic Foods Safer or Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives?: A Systematic Review,” Annals of Internal Medicine, 2012.2012 USDA report on pesticide residues in organic produceLargest (620,000 women) long-term (9 year) study of how eating organic food affects human health -- focusing on cancer Bradbury et al, “Organic food consumption and the incidence of cancer in a large prospective study of women in the United Kingdom”, British Journal of Cancer, 2014Biodiversity is higher on organic farms “Tuck et al, “Land-use intensity and the effects of organic farming on biodiversity: a hierarchical meta-analysis,” The Journal of Applied Ecology, 2014.Nitrogen leaching is higher per unit product on organic farms Tuomisto et al, “Does organic farming reduce environmental impacts? – A meta-analysis of European research”Crop yield on organic farms is on average 75% that of conventional farms Seufert et al, “Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture,” Nature 2012If we want to feed the world without cutting down more forests, we’re going to need more vegetarians Erb et al, “Exploring the biophysical option space for feeding the world without deforestation,” Nature Communications, 2016On combining organic and conventional farming techniques Letourneau et al, “Crop protection in organic agriculture,” Chapter 4 of Organic agriculture: a global perspective, 2006. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This is the show where we pit facts against foodies. On today's show, science versus organic food. Is it really better for you and for the environment? We're going to start today on Reeves Farm. It's a big family-owned farm in upstate New York. Turn left onto Reeves Road. And they grow a whole lot of fruits and veggies. There's peppers, strawberries, zucchinis, squash, tomatoes.

Do you think we'll get to ride in a tractor? Very possible. This is it. Excellent. OK. Ah, a ride in a tractor. It's the small things. So, this farm is run by three brothers, Mark, Andy and Brian, and their family has been cultivating this land for generations. Mark walked me around the farm, showing me the little seedlings on the back of trucks

ready to be planted. He told us what it was like back in the day. We had apple trees along where these barns are. That's where we made our tree houses, you know. And now it's all changed. Mark says that one important thing that's changed around his farm is that several years ago, the Reeves family started growing organic food alongside their conventional crops. And Mark says that going organic has meant doing some things a little bit differently. What is the biggest difference between organic and conventional?

The pain in the ass, that's the biggest difference. Doing it the hard way. Mark says that going organic is doing it the hard way because he's not allowed to use certain synthetic pesticides and fertilisers to grow his organic crop. That's what makes it organic and not conventional. But Mark says that all this extra effort to produce organic food is worth it.

Why? Because the industry is booming. In the US last year, it was estimated that we bought more than $37 billion worth of organic food. What do people tell you about the organic? What do they say? It just feels good, you know?

I just feel that it's better for me. And the one that really drives me up the wall is I think it tastes better. When they say that, they say that. Yeah, the organic tastes better. I say, OK, you better, I say, OK. You know, I just, OK, whatever, you know. That's what you tell them? It doesn't taste any better.

Suffice to say, the Organic Trade Association doesn't use Mark as their spokesperson. But they don't need Mark, because organic has plenty of advocates. People are going absolutely bonkers for organic. And over and over, surveys are finding that people buy organic food for the same couple of reasons. And those are the things we're going to serve up today. First course, does organic taste better? Second course, is organic more nutritious? Does it have more vitamins in it? Third course, is conventional worse for your health

because it has toxic chemicals on it? And for dessert, is organic better for the environment? Now, even our organic farmer, Mark Reeves, finds a lot of this hard to swallow. Do you think people that buy organic food are suckers? Jesus, she's harsh, isn't she? No, they're not suckers. They believe different than me, that's all.

They've got a different point of view. You know, theirs is wrong, but I mean, other than that... So who's right, Mark or his customers? Because when it comes to our food, there's lots of opinions. But then there's science. An important announcement here. Organic food is a big topic. So today we're focusing on fruits and veggies, not meat.

And we're saving genetically modified organisms, which aren't allowed in organic food, for their own episode. Let's start with one of Mark's biggest gripes, that people think organic food tastes better than conventional food. Does it? We know what Mark thinks. Okay, whatever. It doesn't taste any better. But hold on there. Mark hasn't done peer-reviewed studies. Lucky for us, researchers at the University of Uppsala in Sweden have. In a series of experiments, they gave people slices of tomatoes, presenting them as organic or conventional.

And, hey, good news for organic. People were more likely to say that the tomatoes presented as organic were tastier. But oopsala, here's the catch. Some of those tasty, seemingly organic tomatoes were actually conventional. The researchers at oopsala university purposefully misled people. Other studies have similarly found that slapping an organic label over food, even if it's not organic, can make people think it tastes better. Generally speaking, though, research has found that growing a crop organically or conventionally doesn't consistently affect its taste.

But Mark did tell us about something that does consistently affect the taste of fruits. Say, strawberries. I take the Nutella. You know Nutella, I'm sure. I cut the stems off, spear it with a fork, shove it down in a Nutella bottle and swirl it about four times. Conclusion. When you cover something in Nutella, it tastes delicious. Put that hazelnut spread over some pancakes, strawberries. Just delightful. But, yeah, when it comes to taste, whether it's conventional or organic,

it doesn't make a difference. OK, another big reason why people buy organic is because they think it's more nutritious. That is, they think it's packed with more vitamins and minerals than the conventional stuff. But is it? Dr Catherine Bradbury is a nutritional epidemiologist at Oxford University.

If you review all of the studies, there's really not a lot of difference between organic and conventionally grown fruit and vegetables. You know, there's really not a lot of difference between organic and conventionally grown fruit and vegetables. You know, there's no difference in vitamin C content and potassium content and magnesium content overall. Catherine says that while there are many studies looking at whether or not there is more nutrition in organic foods, some studies say yes, others say no. When it comes to science, you have to look at the overall picture. And in 2012, researchers at Stanford did just that.

They looked at scores of studies on the nutritional value of organics, analysing vitamin levels in tomatoes, eggplants, carrots, corn, plums, strawberries, peppers, wheat, kale. Yes! Even kale! And? Quote. Yes, even kale. And, quote, we did not find significant differences in the vitamin content of organic and conventional, end quote.

And any minor differences that were found wouldn't matter for most people. For example, organic produce tended to have more phosphorus in it, but the authors wrote that would only be important to someone facing near-total starvation. So, probably not an issue for most people buying organic? Conclusion. The science is not there to support the claim

that organic means it's more nutritious. It's pretty simple. So, you can tick that off your list of reasons to buy organic. Next on that list, fear that conventional produce is covered in toxins that are going to make you sick. Perhaps when you think of an organic farm, you think of a serene farm with fruits and vegetables left to grow as nature intended, free from dangerous chemicals.

And perhaps you think that because a lot of advertising is telling you that. Like this gem from the advocacy group Only Organic. Toxin pesticides can say goodbye. No more toxins in our lives And some organic farming techniques actually do fit this song and dance. Well, not exactly this song and dance, but the Reeves brothers don't use chemicals in some processes. For example, they say goodbye to weed killer on their organic strawberries.

Andy, Reeves brother number two, told me all about it while he was working the strawberry fields. In a tractor. Andy? Hello? Hello. Ready? Ready.

You want to head on? Yeah, that'd be great. Without Weed Killer on their strawberries, the Reeves brothers use a real old-school approach. We probably will hand-weed the organic strawberries ten times a season. Hand-weed? Hand-weed ten times a season.

Do you do the hand-weeding personally? Are you kidding me? No. Did you ever? I'm 63 years old. It's hard for me to even say the word. The Reeves Farm doesn't hand weed because they think it's the right thing to do. Organic food regulations actually don't allow farmers to use the potent weed killers that they can on their conventional strawberries. But that doesn't mean the Reeves organic crops are chemical-free.

Organic certification does allow farmers to use some synthetic chemicals to kill pests. Because while you can hand weed, you can't hand-pick-out fungi and bacteria from a crop. So even organic crops sometimes need chemicals. Here's Mark, brother number one. So what is this? It says fungicide bactericide. This is copper hydroxide. Copper hydroxide. This is organic? Yes, it is. Mark handed me a heavy paper bag. Like a lot of pesticides, it had the word danger written across it. Caligro.

Keep out of reach of children. Just going to stick my hand in it. It's like really fine powder and it's kind of aquamarine-y. And now my hands are a bit blue. Copper oxide is, if you take a copper pipe and it gets corroded, it turns blue like that. When you're spraying that copper there, you really want to coat every leaf on the plant everywhere if you can. You want that coating all over the plant if you can. And that coating, whether it comes from an organic or a conventional pesticide, can remain on the food you take home from the store, even sometimes after you wash it, in very, very small amounts.

But the important question for us is this. Are the tiny traces of pesticides sometimes found on organic food safer than those on conventional foods? The best study we have on this comes from Catherine Bradbury, you heard from her before, and her colleagues at the University of Oxford. So Catherine followed more than 620,000 women, some who ate organic food,

others who ate conventional food, for nine years. She was looking for which women developed cancers. Here's Catherine. So we wanted to look at whether people who ate organic food were less likely to get cancer, because that's one of the big beliefs out there. And Catherine found that women who said they usually or always ate organic food were less likely

to get non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. That's good news for organic. But here's the catch. The study also found that those who said they ate organic food a lot were more likely to get breast cancer compared to those who said they never organic food a lot were more likely to get breast cancer compared to those who said they never ate organic food at all. So, less likely to get one type of cancer, more likely to get another type of cancer. What do we do with that?

Well, Catherine says these specific correlations could just be chance findings, statistical blips that have nothing to do with diet. Because, you see, Catherine also looked at the overall cancer rate. could just be chance findings, statistical blips that have nothing to do with diet. Because, you see, Catherine also looked at the overall cancer rate. And? It would have been amazing if you saw that, you know, they had a 50% reduced risk of getting cancer overall. And then we saw the overall result and said, OK, yeah, there's nothing there.

That's right. There was no overall difference in the cancer rate between women who ate organic and those who didn't. But Catherine wants more research because even though her study was big and comprehensive, it was still inconclusive. And Catherine's study, published in 2014, is the largest and longest of its kind. We have no other long-term research comparing the health of a lot of people who eat organic versus conventional. And that means we can't say more about whether or not eating small amounts of pesticides on your food

might cause other diseases. Now, there have been studies looking into people who are exposed to high doses of conventional pesticides, like agricultural workers. So, for example, there is some research suggesting that agricultural workers have a high risk of certain kinds of cancers, like non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and breast cancer. There is also some preliminary work into pregnant women

living in agricultural communities and the effect of pesticides on their unborn children. But these studies can't be clearly translated to the average Joe at the supermarket, because that average Joe is eating a steady diet of foods with tiny traces of pesticides, but is never exposed to large amounts of them. Cynthia Curl is an assistant professor in environmental health

at Boise State University in Idaho, and she says that when it comes to pesticides, we know that in high enough doses, they're toxic, otherwise they would be pretty poor pesticides. We really don't know at these low levels whether there are health effects. So if you're down to the levels that we're talking about in conventional food, is it below a threshold where there would be anything to worry about? That's the million-dollar question.

With all this uncertainty, it's understandable why people are clamoring to get Cynthia to give speeches. Oh, yeah, I've had friends ask me to, you know, come talk to their preschools about the dangers of pesticides. I really try not to get into that. What would you tell a preschooler? To eat their fruits and vegetables. That's what I would tell them. I mean, we really have a hard time saying, even from very well-studied single pesticides, what level is safe? What level is unsafe, what do we mean by that. The unknowns on this topic just really outweigh what we know.

I know that's probably not helpful for your podcast. But here's something you should know. When a pesticide scientist goes to the supermarket, does she buy organic? You know, I have a one-year-old and I do because I can. I recognise that it's a luxury. But you did say it because you've got a one-year-old. So there's like a, I guess it's just a risk-benefit analysis and you're like, we don't know, but... Yeah, pretty much.

Cynthia told us that she also buys organic food for other reasons, like the potential health risks to agricultural workers. Conclusion. When it comes to understanding how traces of pesticides on our food affects our overall health, we don't know much. But the one big study we do have is on cancer. And overall, it found no link between eating conventional food and getting cancer. And there is no other strong evidence that buying organic is in any other way better for your health than conventional produce. So that's health, but what about the environment?

A quick break, and when we get back, we're looking at the bigger picture. Is organic farming better for our planet? Hi, and welcome back to Science Versus. So it's time to talk about the planet. Studies find that one of the big motivations for going organic is reducing our impact on the environment. And according to my organic coconut water bottle, organic farming methods means, quote, a better environment for the plants and a cleaner planet for all of us. End quote.

But has my coconut water bottle just gone coconuts? I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts. When we talk about the environment, there are three main things to consider. One, soil health. Two, chemical contamination. And three, land use. Let's start with soil health. In the first half of the show, we covered some of the things

you're not allowed to use on an organic farm, certain pesticides. But you also have to do certain things to get organic certification. These are generally designed to keep the land, and particularly the soil, healthy. One example is that organic farmers have to rotate their crops. That is, you change where you grow plants each season. And when you do that, it means that the soil doesn't get sapped of the same set of nutrients year after year. Organic farmers also use manure instead of synthetic fertilisers, all for soil health. And research shows that these organic practices work.

They trigger processes in the soil that make it more nutrient-rich and thrive with good bacteria, fungi and worms. And this can make some plants more resistant to pests and diseases. The healthy soil and diverse crop also bring more birds and insects to the yard. And the organic farmers are like, it's better than yours. Damn right it's better than yours. Now they can teach you, but they have to charge. One review of 94 studies found that organic farms had on average 30% more biodiversity than conventional farms. Conclusion. Organic farming practices tend to create healthy soil and biodiverse farms, all good for the environment.

But we're about to throw some manure at organics' green image. Next question. Does organic food prevent chemicals contaminating the environment? Conventional farmers often add synthetic fertilisers to help plants grow. And what makes fertilisers work and the plants grow big is this thing called nitrogen. Now, the problem is that when you pour nitrogen on the plants and they don't suck it up,

the excess can run off into lakes, rivers and even the ocean. It can choke off the water's oxygen supply and eventually kill plants and animals. An extreme example of this can be found in the Gulf of Mexico, where nitrogen runoff from farms has drained into the Gulf, creating a 6,500-square-mile dead zone. On the pristine beaches of Mississippi, thousands of dead fish, stingrays, crabs and shrimp have washed ashore this month.

They died from a lack of oxygen in the coastal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. To avoid things like this, organic farming rules don't allow the use of synthetic, highly concentrated nitrogen. But organic farmers still need a fertiliser because plants, organic or conventional, need a boost to get to market. Mark showed me a bag of the organically approved fertiliser, jam-packed with nitrogen. Look at this. Worm power, the engine of nature.

And this is derived from earthworm castings. What's that? Come on, you know English, don't you? What's a casting? What does an earthworm cast off? I had no idea. Castings? What's that? Come on! You know English, don't you? What's a casting? What does an earthworm cast off? I had no idea. We stood there for what felt like a very long time.

It's shell. Yeah, that's right. It's shell. No, it's s***. Oh, it's s***? Yeah. Oh, that's such a lovely euphemism. As well as using worm poo or castings for nitrogen, farmers use cow manure, or at the Reeves property, there's a nearby turkey farm. So we've got access to turkey manure.

Are they organic turkeys? No, but manure, I guess, qualifies, even though the poop didn't come out of an organic crop, I guess. Nobody knows if it doesn't seem to have a problem with that. Gimlet producer Lynne Levy, who joined me at the farm, was pretty philosophical about this point. Organic s***, but not an organic arsehole. Yeah, there you go. You've got to draw your line where you draw your line.

And that's it. At the arsehole. But here's the thing. It may be organic, but that turkey poo and worm casting, it's still full of nitrogen. And if you think it's special just because it's organically approved, you are drawing a line at the arsehole. Because that nitrogen, just like the synthetic stuff,

it can wash into rivers and lakes. If we put 10 tonnes of manure on and we only need five, you're going to get some waste that's going to run off. That's all there is to it. Eventually, the water is going to take it away if you don't use it. So yes, organic farming can leach nitrogen into the environment. So then the next question, if you're worried about the environment, is this. Which type of farming leaches more, conventional or organic? Navin Ramankutty is a professor in global food security at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Yeah, a few studies that have been done off leaching

seem to show that organic actually leaches more. Leaches more? Yeah, and so that's saying something. When you compare conventional and organic produce, say carrot for carrot, one review of 10 papers focusing on farming in Europe found that there was more nitrogen leaching from organic farms versus conventional. Navin pointed out that this is an average and there is a lot of variation in how different farms use nitrogen. Organic has the potential to leach more, partly because with manure, unlike precise lab-made fertilisers, it's difficult to give plants just the right amount of nitrogen that they need, potentially leaving more in the ground and more to leach. And that's because nitrogen in poo

binds tightly to the soil and only releases slowly over time. So unlike with lab-made fertilisers, it's harder to give your crops a big jolt that you know they'll absorb. Instead, you just have to put a lot of manure on the soil and hope the plants take in as much nitrogen as possible. I'm not saying that we do it right all the time, but it's easier to do in conventional agriculture because you can apply it just when the plants need them and they're much more available to plants, the chemical fertilisers,

and so plants can take them up. Conclusion. Even if you're using an organically approved fertiliser, nitrogen runoff can still be a problem. And there's one more environmental question related to organic farming that we have to talk about. Yield. That is, how much organic food can we actually grow and how much space will it take? A review paper published by Navin found that on average, acre for acre, organic farms produce around 25% less food than conventional farms. 25%. And that's because organic farmers can't use the most effective fertilisers, which can mean fewer crops for them and less food for us.

So if we want to grow the same amount of food that we do now and we want to do it organically, we will need a lot more space. And we're already using a lot of our best agricultural land. So where would this new organic land come from? Forests? Native habitats? Land set aside for conservation? Your house? And organic farming suffers from another potential yield problem. Because while some organic practices help plants resist disease, if you can't use the most powerful pesticides to kill some particularly nasty pests, it can wipe out a farmer's crop. Here's the Third Reef's brother, Brian.

Every year I put something organic in the ground, it's riskier than what I put in the ground conventionally. And sooner or later, that risk comes back to bite you. If you had five years of great conventional crops, but you had four years of organic and one year of a disaster, well, you've got to be, you've got to be watch out for that. His older brother, Mark, agreed, telling me about a feisty beetle battle with his organic acorn squash, where the organic pesticides just didn't work. I couldn't kill it. I tried, like, three different organic sprays and they wouldn't touch.

It was a beetle and they wouldn't touch that thing. Do you remember waking up in the morning after you'd tried one chemical and still seeing that frigging beetle there? Oh, yeah. You know, if you see an insect that's kind of drunken-looking, then, you know, well, he might die. It did something to him. Not these guys.

They were fine. I think they liked it. I think that's what you're getting. I think they liked it, you know. More squash for the beetles means less squash for us. Now, this yield problem isn't black and white, so there is some scientific debate here. And some academics say that we would be fine producing 25% less food

if we redesigned the food system to make sure that we wasted less food. Also, important to note, around a third of our croplands are used to feed livestock. So they feed cows and then we eat the cows. And given this, a paper published this year calculated that if the whole world went vegetarian or vegan, we could shift to an entirely organic system without encroaching into new space. Conclusion. Organic farming has, on average, lower yields than conventional farming. And unless we're planning on living in a tofurky alternate reality,

that could be a problem as the population grows. Also, not so fun fact here. At 2050, the population is expected to hit 9 billion and food production, it's predicted, will need to rise by 70%. And organic food alone probably just can't get us there. So when it comes to science versus organic food, does it stack up? When it comes to taste, science says... No. Organic food doesn't taste any better than the conventionally grown stuff. And nutrition, science says...

No. Overall, organic food isn't more nutritious than conventional food. When it comes to the risks from chemicals on our food... Well, there's no conclusive evidence that organic food is safer than conventional food, but there is so little research directly on this that maybe it's just too early to tell. And then there is the effect on the environment.

Some organic practices like rotating crops and planting cover crops are really good for the soil and increase biodiversity on the farm. But restricting the use of synthetic fertilisers means organic farming can leach more nitrogen into the environment. Plus, you need more land to grow organic produce. So, things are looking pretty even for organic versus conventional. But here's something to blow your mind. Too strong?

Nah. Now, while supermarkets and some podcasts pit organic against conventional farming, in reality, it's often not like that. Take the Reeves farm. Mark Reeves may laugh at his organic customers. Okay, whatever. But that's because on his farm, he and his brothers use a lot of organic practices on their organic and conventional crops. The Reeves brothers rotate their crop and don't use too much pesticide on any of their produce, conventional and organic,

even though there are no rules telling them that they have to do that on their conventional crops. Plus, a recent study showed that the Reeves farm isn't exceptional. It is actually common for conventional farmers to adopt some organic practices. So why do the Reeves brothers go through all that trouble? We just know we get a heck of a crop. And in the long term, the soil on their farm is healthier. And it's because Mark does some of this organic stuff on his conventional crops

that he doesn't totally get this allegiance that people have to organic. I don't believe in it because I see what goes on with conventional. On this farm, what happens here, we use so few chemicals here. But as a shopper, it's really hard to know what kind of farm your produce is coming from, so it is understandable why people go for the food with some kind of seal of approval.

Still though, this kind of blended style of farming that Mark is doing, that's exactly what Navin Ramankutty and lots of other scientists think is the future. Using organic practices when they work, but synthetic chemicals when necessary. I think of a farm where, you know, we make use of compost and we make use of manure if we have it. But I will not shy from using a tiny amount of pesticide or a tiny amount of fertilizer when I need to. And Navin calls this a common sense farm. Not traditionally conventional, not strictly organic, but just good science. That's science versus organic

food. Next week is science versus the G-spot. Does it exist? So when you say you examined 400 women, what did you do? Can I have your vagina for a minute? And stick around for the ultimate orgasmic test. Organic test. It's about organic food. Jeez.

This episode has been produced by Heather Rogers, Lynne Levy, Caitlin Kenny, Austin Mitchell and Caitlin Sori. Edited by Annie-R Rose Strasser and Alex Bloomberg. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Production assistance by Diane Wu and Shruti Ravindran. An extra big thanks to Stevie Lane, Joseph Lavelle-Wilson and the Zuckerman family. Thank you for all your help.

Sound design and music production by Matthew Boll, mixed by Martin Peralta and Hayley Shaw. Music written by Bobby Lord. Science Versus is a production of Gimlet Media. So, as a little treat for you all, we happened upon some organic cookies. They are for dogs. Yes. Dogs.

Organic dog cookies. Our co-worker, PJ, works on the podcast, Reply All. He has a new dog. Can you describe what your dog looks like? My dog looks like a Build-A-Bear or an animatronic Disney teddy bear. So we did a taste test. This is not science, by the way. It's just one dog and two cookies, conventional and organic. I'm going to throw him over there. Okay, Ralphie, ready? You're going to get thrown, and then you're going to get cookies. Ready? Go. What's he going for first? What's he going for? He's smelling it. Oh, organic. Organic.

Organic. One for organic. One for organic. Well, that undermined the whole show. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time.