Is Organically Grown Food More Nutritious?
There are many difficulties in assessing the nutritive value of organic vs. conventionally produced foods. The first is that the difference in terms of health effects is not large enough to be readily apparent. In other words, if people stayed well on an organic diet but got violently ill as a result of consuming food grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, then the difference would be perfectly obvious; however, this is not the case, and a more subtle difference, such as an 8% increase in the incidence of allergies, for example, is much more difficult to detect and easier to overlook. A second reason is that it is difficult to conduct and interpret agricultural research investigating nutrient content. Factors such as sunlight, temperature and rainfall, which influence the nutrient content of plants, vary from year to year. Additional changes in the nutrient content of a crop can occur during storage and shipping. For these reasons, it is difficult both to plan effective studie
There are many difficulties in assessing the nutritive value of organic vs. conventionally produced foods. The first is that the difference in terms of health effects is not large enough to be readily apparent. In other words, if people stayed well on an organic diet but got violently ill as a result of consuming food grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, then the difference would be perfectly obvious; however, this is not the case, and a more subtle difference, such as an 8% increase in the incidence of allergies, for example, is much more difficult to detect and easier to overlook. A second reason is that it is difficult to conduct and interpret agricultural research investigating nutrient content. Factors such as sunlight, temperature and rainfall, which influence the nutrient content of plants, vary from year to year. Additional changes in the nutrient content of a crop can occur during storage and shipping. For these reasons, it is difficult both to plan effective studie
