In what was a complete lack of surprise, the biggest study done to date on the benefits of organic produce found that organic food is both more nutritious and much lower in toxic metals than non-organic ‘conventional’ crops.
“Analysing 343 studies into the compositional differences between organic and conventional crops, the team found that a switch to eating organic fruit, vegetable and cereals – and food made from them – would provide additional antioxidants equivalent to eating between 1-2 extra portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
The study, published today in the prestigious British Journal of Nutrition, also shows significantly lower levels of toxic heavy metals in organic crops. Cadmium, which is one of only three metal contaminants along with lead and mercury for which the European Commission has set maximum permitted contamination levels in food, was found to be almost 50% lower in organic crops than conventionally-grown ones.
Newcastle University’s Professor Carlo Leifert, who led the study, says: “This study demonstrates that choosing food produced according to organic standards can lead to increased intake of nutritionally desirable antioxidants and reduced exposure to toxic heavy metals.”
The downside of this is that most people cannot afford the extra expense of organic food. Why does organic food cost so much?
First, it is that the conventional produce is faking it’s prices. The government spends BILLIONS every year in farm subsidies that go to only a handful of millionaire “agribusiness” farmers with huge factory farms growing GMO crops drenched in every pesticide known to mankind. That is why conventional produce remains “cheap”. This cheap produce – especially CORN – is needed so crap like snacks and white bread can stay cheap too. Even meat is less expensive than it REALLY is thanks to cheap corn and more subsidies of factory farms raising food animals.
These “lowered” costs have helped Americans not notice that the amount of food they bought for $30 in 2000 now takes $41.52 to buy.
Organic farms, in contrast, don’t get much in the way of subsidies and the subsidies they do get are iffy. Without Uncle Sam’s generous hand conventional produce would cost as much as organic, and if the government would subsidize ORGANIC crops instead then organic food would be less expensive and thus more readily available to people who need it.
If organic food is better for the citizens of the United States, why do US politicians continue to vote to subsidize agribusinesses rather than small organic farms? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that “Individuals and political action committees associated with the agribusiness sector contributed more than $90 million at the federal level during the 2012 election cycle — the biggest increase ever from one cycle to the next for this sector.”
Ironically, the money the politicians got via lobbyists from agribusinesses came from the US subsidies your taxes paid for.