by Jayson Lusk
When we spend a few extra bucks for the shirt adorned with a horse or alligator, most of us know what we’re getting. We’re paying a few extra bucks to be stylish, to fit in, to follow a trend. Deep down, if we’re honest with ourselves, we know the cheaper, logo-free shirts aren’t really much different from their stylish cousins. The trouble with organics is that people believe the hype. By all means, if you want to buy organic to be stylish or look good to your neighbors, then go for it—it might be a small price to pay to fit in, depending on your income. But let’s stop with the false advertising.
Turn on almost any daytime talk show or watch any celebrity chef, and you’ll hear the same drivel. On Oprah’s show, we hear “Organic farming protects the planet, so it’s a win-win. It’s healthier for us, and it’s healthier for the planet.”5 In Whole Living magazine, the editors tell us they think organic strawberries and carrots taste sweeter, and we are encouraged to “Buy organic whenever you can.”6
I’m truly sympathetic to those who want to buy healthier food or who are trying to protect their families from the negative side effects of pesticides. I have a family, too. But don’t we also want to make sure our money is well spent? After all, the kids have to go to college; we have the bills for art lessons and sports; safer automobiles and car seats are expensive, too. Money spent ratcheting up our shopping bill for organic food is money not spent on other things we also value for our families. One can literally spend thousands of extra dollars a year buying organic rather than conventional.7 That’s thousands of dollars not given to a charity supporting the homeless, saved for retirement, or available for Junior’s summer camp. We all want our children to grow up healthy, but we have to marry our concerns with the evidence on whether the actions we’re taking have any impact.
One of the problems with organic is that few shoppers know what it really means, and they project onto the nebulous word all their hopes and dreams of eating in a safe, healthy, environmentally friendly manner. Organic is like the word natural. Whatever you may think natural means, the USDA primarily defines it as “minimally processed.” Under this legal definition, almost any beefsteak, pork chop, or chicken breast can be labeled “natural.” Likewise, the USDA precisely defines the word organic. Farmers can use the label if they grow crops and livestock according to the list of criteria established by the government. In essence, organic crops are grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, and farmers must adhere to certain tillage and cultivation practices. Producers of organic animal products must feed livestock organic grain, allow them outdoor access, and refrain from administering them added growth hormones or antibiotics.
“Organic” means food produced according to a set of rules. But in no way do the rules guarantee that organic is safer, tastier, healthier, sustainable, or more environmentally friendly. It is, in fact, so hard to tell organic and conventional apart that a dozen Italian companies were recently caught selling 700,000 tons of counterfeit organics all over Europe.8 The organic label doesn’t mean the food came from small farms, is without pesticides, or wasn’t processed by a large agribusiness. Indeed, the supposed job-destroying, community-crushing villain Walmart has cashed in on the craze and is now the largest seller of organic food in America.9 It is time to set the facts straight on organics.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: there is absolutely no consistent scientific evidence that organic food is any tastier than nonorganic food. I know, I know. You can tell that organic food tastes better than that sleazy conventional stuff. I can’t go around conducting blind taste tests with every organic food zealot I meet. But if you happen to find yourself in that crowd, I challenge you to find a friend (a neutral one without skin in the game) to set up a blind taste test to see if you really can tell the difference across several products. I’d bet good money you can’t consistently pick the organic. Carefully controlled scientific study after study, published in peer-reviewed journals, show that most people, most of the time, just can’t tell the difference.10
Sure, some foods labeled organic taste better than conventional foods, but it isn’t the organic aspect that’s causing the taste difference. Fresher fruits and veggies will almost always taste better than non-fresh—organic or not. Some crop varieties are tastier than others regardless of whether they’re grown conventional or organic. Different amounts of rainfall, wind, and any number of complicating factors can affect the taste of food. But don’t be fooled into believing that organic per se has any consistently measurable effect on the taste of food.
Let me tell you another shocking truth: many people believe organic tastes better than conventional because our expectations are often more powerful than our taste buds. Research has shown that people will say the same bottle of wine tastes better if it has a higher price tag.11 Brain scan studies show that most people can’t tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi in a blind taste test, but when told they’re drinking Coke, their brains suddenly get fired up.12 Consumers similarly tend to think organic will taste better than it actually does. They say the organic option tastes better—but only after they’ve learned it is organic.13 So, yes, organic food might really taste better to you. But it’s your brain telling your tongue what to think, not the other way around.
While we’re on the topic, there are a lot of things associated with organic that do affect the taste of food, and sometimes for the worse. There is the myth about organic milk being naturally safer than regular milk because it has a longer expiration date. Organic milk often has a longer shelf life not because it is organic but because it has been subjected to ultra-high-temperature pasteurization.14 Dairies use the technology because organic milk often has to travel farther and sit on the shelf longer due to the lower volume of the product purchased due to its higher prices. But most people don’t like the taste of milk that’s been ultra-high-temperature pasteurized, which is why conventional dairies in the United States don’t use the process. I spent much of the last year in France, and most of the milk there was sold right off the unrefrigerated shelf—next to the laundry detergent. Why? Because it is ultra-high-temperature pasteurized. And you want to know something? It tastes terrible.15
Let’s get to a more serious matter. Is it healthier to eat organic food than nonorganic? Some studies claim organics are more nutritional; others show the opposite. In cases like this it is useful to look at large-scale literature reviews such as the one commissioned by the British Food Standards Agency and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which found, after sorting through thousands of studies, that “there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs.”16 Not surprisingly, the organic industry has contested these findings—but what would you expect from a group with such a vested interest in the outcome? The fact that one or two studies (out of more than a hundred studying the issue) can be turned up showing a higher level of one nutrient (out of a dozen nutrients tested) in organic than conventional only serves to show that any “true” relationship between nutritional content and organic that might exist is exceedingly small and probably within the margin of error scientists are able to consistently detect. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement for the supposed added healthfulness of organic.
There is one troubling facet to the dubious “organic is healthier” claim touted by the food police. Because of the exalted status ascribed to organic, the research shows that people are readily fooled into thinking organic foods are much healthier than they actually are. Even when organic and conventional foods are labeled with the same caloric content, people believe the organics are somehow magically lower in calories. And if tasked to lose weight, apparently people believe it is more acceptable to give up exercise if they simply eat organic rather than conventional. These sorts of findings led one team of psychologists to conclude that organic is “biasing everyday judgments about diet and exercise.”17 No wonder the following exchange was overheard in the checkout lane of a natural foods store:
“Mom, look! Organic gummy bears!”
“Yes, I see. No more sweets.”
“Mom, but they’re organic.”18
But surely organics are safer because they don’t contain pesticides, right? The case is less obvious than it first appears. First, it is a complete misconception that the cultivation of organic food does not involve pesticides. Organic farmers are free to use “natural,” or nonsynthetic, pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer. The trouble is that many of these “natural” pesticides are just as toxic and carcinogenic as their synthetic counterparts. For example, various “natural” yet toxic copper compounds are routinely used as fungicides, and “natural” sulfur is routinely used as a pesticide in organic agriculture. Moreover, many people fail to realize that plants naturally make their own pesticides. These self-made pesticides protect the plant but are dangerous to us. In fact, 99.9 percent of the pesticides we consume are natural, while only 0.01 percent are synthetic. Many of these naturally grown pesticides are even deadlier than the synthetic ones we humans have devised.19
In general (but not always), organic agriculture tends to use a lower total volume of added pesticides and herbicides than conventional agriculture, but there is really no way to tell for sure whether that organic apple you’re paying a premium for has more or fewer chemicals than the much cheaper alternative. One summary in the Journal of Food Science stated, “It is premature to conclude that either food system [organic or conventional] is superior to the other with respect to safety or nutritional composition. Pesticide residues, naturally occurring toxins, nitrates, and polyphenolic compounds exert their health risks or benefits on a dose-related basis, and data do not yet exist to ascertain whether the differences in the levels of such chemicals between organic foods and conventional foods are of biological significance.”20
As far as the synthetic pesticides on conventional fruits and veggies go, the government already places limits on the amount and type of residues allowed, and it uses a variety of scientific litmus tests to determine residue levels that are deemed safe. Moreover, simply washing fruits and vegetables can remove at least some of the pesticide residue. In the end, there is some legitimacy to the pesticide-reduction claims of organic, but the facts about the safety benefits are more equivocal than most realize.
So, you might be able to reduce risks from pesticides by eating organics, but how risky are these chemicals anyway? Synthetic pesticides in food are a relatively small risk in the grand scheme of things. To put it in perspective, consider the fact that many foods we routinely eat contain large amounts of natural compounds that are far more toxic than the pesticides that farmers spray on them. It has been estimated that “three daily cups of coffee or one gram of basil a day is more than 60 times as risky as the most toxic pesticide at current levels of intake.”21 All foods have naturally existing chemicals, and the research shows that the natural substances in foods such as coffee, basil, lettuce, mushrooms, orange juice, and many others are more carcinogenic than the typical amount of synthetic pesticide residue remaining from farmers’ attempts to ward off bugs.
If your choice is between eating conventional fruits and veggies sprayed with pesticides or eating none at all (perhaps because organic is too expensive), you are much better off eating the produce grown with synthetic pesticides. That ought to tell you something about the magnitude of the risk in question. To illustrate, some studies have estimated that using pesticides in food production causes about twenty deaths per year in the United States. Twenty deaths are a tragedy. What about twenty-six thousand deaths? That spectacularly larger tragedy is the projected effect of a ban on pesticides, which would drive up prices of fruits and vegetables (and thus drive down their consumption and increase cancer rates).22 Eating fruits and vegetables is much healthier than eating pesticides is risky.
A complete phaseout of pesticides is projected to cost U.S. consumers and agricultural producers at least $20 billion per year. If we spent $20 billion saving twenty lives by eliminating pesticides, this means $20 billion less to spend on other things—such as tests for radon, which are projected to save about fifteen thousand lives for less than $20 billion. If the choice is to spend $20 billion saving twenty lives or spend the same amount saving fifteen thousand lives, I know how I will vote. In short, pesticide use in food is a legitimate worry, but let’s make sure our worries are properly prioritized.
There is more to food safety than synthetic pesticide use. Said one former FDA official, “Here is a misperception, I think with many people, that organic equals safer, and it’s just not. It’s dangerous, actually, because it creates a false sense of security.”23 The danger to which the official was referring was the presence of E. coli in organic spinach, which sickened about 275 people and caused 3 deaths back in 2006. In 2011, organic sprouts killed almost 40 Europeans and sickened at least 3,800 more. That same year, First Class Foods recalled 34,373 pounds of organic beef. These are just a few examples of organic food safety recalls.24
There are aspects of organic production that might make organic food more susceptible to bacterial contamination than conventionally grown food. Unable to use synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, organic growers often use animal manure, which, if not properly composted and managed, can contaminate fruits and vegetables with E. coli. One prominent study showed that the percentage of positive samples of E. coli was more than six times higher in organic than nonorganic produce (though prevalence rates for organic and nonorganic were similar). Some organic produce on farms with poor manure-management practices had a prevalence of E. coli nineteen times greater than that on other farms. The study’s authors concluded, “The results of the present study do not support allegations that organic produce poses a substantially greater risk of pathogen contamination than does conventional produce. However, the observation that the prevalence of E. coli was significantly higher in organic produce supports the idea that organic produce is more susceptible to fecal contamination.”25 The jury is still out on the extent to which organics are generally more (or perhaps less) susceptible to bacterial contamination. However, the available evidence suggests that organic foods appear no less likely to be contaminated by E. coli or Salmonella than conventional foods.
As I see it, the noteworthy benefit of organic relates to environmental outcomes, but here, too, the purported advantages, while real, are overhyped. Organic producers often use no-till production systems (in which farmers do not plow the ground as often) and use cover crops that reduce the need for irrigation and help prevent soil runoff. No-till production is a real environmental benefit, but that’s why many nonorganic producers already use it. For example, nationwide, more than 35 percent of U.S. cropland is no-till.26 One recent survey in Oklahoma showed that only 38 percent of wheat acreage is farmed using conventional tillage practices. The remaining 62 percent is farmed using some form of minimal-till or no-till production.27 So, a key environmental benefit of organics, reduced or no tillage, is one that many nonorganic producers are already enjoying. The point: you don’t have to double your shopping bill to get the benefits of reduced land tillage.
One key problem with organics is that their yields are lower. A paper published in the prestigious journal Science, for example, reported 20 percent lower crop yields on organic farms.28 A USDA study showed that organic dairies produce 30 percent less milk per cow than nonorganic dairies.29 Data from a large-scale survey by the USDA imply that yields were 35 percent lower for fruits, nuts, and berries; 30 percent lower for field crops; and 38 percent lower for vegetables on organic farms as compared with nonorganic farms.30
Many organic advocates like to dispute the yield-reducing effect of organic. However, if organics could actually increase yield and reduce input use, as organic advocates like to claim, what farmer in his right mind wouldn’t switch? Better yields, higher prices, lower input costs: organics should be a no-brainer. Yet less than 1 percent of all U.S. cropland is organic.31 Either farmers are really stupid or the purported yield benefi
ts are a myth. The truth is that organics yield significantly lower amounts of the food people want to eat per acre planted. Thus, to produce the same amount of food we currently enjoy, organic would require much more land. Switching to organic would likely mean bringing into production land that now sits idle. That hardly sounds like an environmental benefit to me.
The shouting match between organic proponents and detractors is a bit nauseating: show me your published study and I’ll show you mine. So, let’s put all the scientific studies aside and look at an incontrovertible fact facing us in the grocery store: organics sell at 40 percent to 100 percent to even 200 percent premiums to nonorganics. Economics teaches us that price differences are important though sometimes imperfect signals regarding resource use. The price we pay for food in the grocery store must reflect the costs that went into producing that food: from land rent to the value of the farmer’s labor to the prices of seed and fertilizer. Higher prices for organic means that, somewhere along the line, organics used more land, more labor, more seed, more fertilizer, or more of any of the other inputs required to produce food. The prices of all these inputs were each determined by their scarcity relative to people’s desires to use them for other purposes unrelated to food production. So, when we see that organic is higher priced, it signals to us that organics are using many more of the resources society finds valuable than are nonorganics. Using up more resources is exactly the opposite of “sustainable.”