Fit Ottawa

There is a big consumer trend towards buying organic products whenever possible. Organic foods are safer, tastier, and more nutritious than the old non-organic stuff, right? Well, it turns out that the answer is not so clear. In the land of nutrition and food science it never really is!

Organic Fruits and Vegetables
It’s common sense that organically grown fruits and vegetables should be safer than those that have been treated with pesticides. Common sense, yes, but there is no scientific evidence to back it up. The pesticides approved for use by non-organic farmers have been studied for years and are known to be safe (as safe as poisons can be). Food on our grocery store shelves is considered to have a safe amount of pesticide residues. Again, “safe” means “not causing measurable harm.” On the other hand, recent studies have shown that organic produce has a higher risk of bacterial contamination, especially by E. coli, either from improperly aged and processed animal manure or from a contaminated water supply. Note that Bryson Farms, our biggest local organic farm, avoids bacterial problems by using well water for irrigation instead of river water.

There is no agreement amongst experts that organic foods are tastier than their non-organic counterparts. There’s no reason they should be. Plants grow by processing specific minerals and chemicals from the soil, regardless of whether they come from organic or non-organic sources. The amount of flavour in produce is far more closely related to its freshness and ripeness at time of harvest than it is to how it was fertilized.

There is also nothing to back up the claim that organic food is more nutritious. The vitamins and minerals we need are equally present in both organic and non-organic produce.

OK, so organic produce isn’t necessarily safer, tastier, or more nutritious than the regular stuff… so why should we pay extra for it?

For me, the most appealing aspect of organic produce is simply that organic farmers seem to care more. They are forced to care more, since organic farming requires more expert knowledge and has a higher risk of crop failure than conventional farming. I also don’t ignore the good old common sense notion that less pesticides can’t be a bad thing, even if they are “safe” pesticides!

Organic farming tends to be more ecologically desirable than conventional farming because it introduces fewer unwanted chemicals into the environment. However, it does require more land to grow crops due to its reliance on crop rotation instead of fertilizers to maintain soil nutrients. More land use means more destruction of wildlife habitats! (Sorry, I absolutely had to bring this up because I delight in pointing out the unexpected. )

My recommendations (in order of decreasing priority) are to buy locally, buy what is in season, and buy organic. Ideally you find a source that has all three characteristics, but for maximum nutrition and flavour you really only need the first two. (Side note: Most of our grocery store fruits and vegetables are ripened artificially using ethylene gas long after they have been picked. There is an interesting article here about how to tell if grocery store fruits are truly ripe.)

Organic Dairy and Meats
This is where things get really interesting! The more I read about the topic, the less convinced I am that certified-organic meat and animal products are desirable. Quite understandably, it turns out that to be certified organic, animals must be raised in a controlled environment to ensure they are not exposed to non-organic products. These controlled environments are typically barns, often with extremely cramped and inhumane conditions such as those found in factory farms.

You’ve probably noticed labels like organic, free-run, and free-range on egg and poultry packaging. Let me try to shed some light on each of these terms:

Organic
This one is no suprise — it simply means that the chickens have been given organic feed and have not been given antibiotics or growth hormones. They might be living in cramped and inhumane conditions or they might not…

Free-run
These chickens are given some room to run and roost, meaning they are in bigger cages than their factory farm counterparts. There’s no guarantee against overcrowding, and they are probably eating non-organic feed. They definitely get more exercise and probably suffer less psychological damage than those in factory farms.

Free-range
These chickens are the happiest of them all. They are allowed outside and can forage for natural foods in the dirt and grass. Free-range chickens are the most humanely treated of all chickens. They get exercise, eat natural foods, and enjoy a social environment that is pretty close to what they would have outside of captivity. These birds are fit! However, since they forage in the unknown outdoors, it’s difficult (but not impossible) for them to be certified organic.

So when it comes to poultry, I would choose free range over organic anyday. The best of course, is when a farmer raises free-range birds organically. I haven’t yet found a local commercial source for “certified organic free-range” poultry. These folks seem pretty good, but they don’t slaughter their free-range chickens for meat, preferring to use them only for egg production.

One of our local butchers that offers organic poultry, Saslove’s, does not sell the free-range chickens offered (at a lower price than organic) by their supplier. Check it out for yourself… here are the happy free-range chickens and here are the organic chickens. The use of phrases like “access to natural sunlight” kind of creep me out, but they’re still better off than the factory farm chickens.

Beef, lamb, and other animals raised for meat are almost as confusing as poultry. For these, we have the ubiquitous organic as well as the closely-related grass-fed and naturally raised.

Grass-fed
This means that the animals are eating a diet that closely resembles what they would eat outside of captivity. There are many health, ecological, and humanitarian benefits to feeding grass to grass-eating animals. Yes, it sounds kind of obvious, but very few people seem to care. As with the free-range chickens, it’s exceedingly difficult to guarantee that all the grass that the animals are eating is organic. Therefore grass-fed is rarely certified organic.

Naturally raised
This typically means “grass-fed and as organically raised as possible” although, as far as I know, there is no certification for this label. Again, these are the farmers that really seem to care about their product and how they raise it.

After looking at all the info, I would tend to lean towards choosing “naturally raised” meat over “certified organic.” Maybe even grass-fed over organic — mostly because I figure the animals lived happier lives.

From a humanitarian perspective, I would just as soon stop eating meat (and I would do so very quickly if I had to slaughter my own animals). However, it tastes pretty darn good, so I choose to live as a hypocritical meat eater. However, if I’m going to eat the flesh of an animal, I prefer if that animal is as healthy and happy as possible. It is uncomfortable for us to think of an animal raised for food as having emotions, and maybe this is exactly why consumers tend to place more emphasis on organic instead of free-range or naturally raised.

I hope this article has shed some light on the various organic-type terms you find on food labels. I learned a lot while researching this, and if it benefits anybody else then a couple hours of reading and typing while my kids take a nap is all made worthwhile!

All nutritional topics are debatable, so if you have any comments or counterexamples, please do follow up!

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 29th, 2005 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Food, Nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.