I imagine many riskfactorphobes are the type of people who eat organic food by the bucket-load. Yes, there are those who believe there’s too much risk involved in eating anything that’s been even slightly contaminated with pesticides or other nasties, and fair play, I can kind of see their point. So a new report published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition isn’t going to be very well received by them at all.
The report claims there’s no strong evidence that eating organic foods is good for your health. There, I’ve said it. Written by a team of researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Health, the report is actually a review of studies that look at whether or not organic foods have health benefits over and above those of non-organic foods. It is, however, the second report on the same subject by the same research team within a year (with largely the same conclusion). I’m sorry, but can’t they find something better to spend their research grants on?
To be fair, the report’s authors do point out in this latest review that they did not look for studies that examined the possible health benefits of eating foods that aren’t treated with pesticides, synthetic fertilisers, antibiotics, hormones and the like. But isn’t that one of the main points of eating organic anyway? That is, if you eat organic for your health. So why aren’t the researchers looking at just that?
Now I don’t know about you, but not everyone I know who is committed organic eater does so because they think they will be so much healthier (okay, some do, I admit). The whole organic movement is, in my mind, a lifestyle thing – people eat organic because they want to be greener, to support local farmers, or whatever. They feed their kids nutritious organic food because they want them to have the best of everything. And okay, organic food is more expensive than non-organic – but so what if some people want to buy expensive food? It’s hardly a crime.
So on this one I’m firmly on the side of the orgaphic-munching riskfactorphobes. Leave them be, I say. They’re not doing anyone any harm.