New York, NY -- September 10, 2009. In late July, a study commissioned by the United Kingdom s Food Standards Authority found that there was no nutritional difference between organic and conventional food. This is consistent with prior studies, but the organic food industry has convinced many people that their products are more nutritious because they contain a little more vitamin C (about 10% on average), a lot less nitrate, and varying percentages of higher antioxidant concentrations. Two not for profit organizations have been in the forefront of attempts to convince the public that food produced by organic methods will protect against cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer s, diabetes, obesity, and any human illness that has the public s attention at the moment.
One of these organizations, the United Kingdom s Soil Association, claims that there is much evidence for increased levels of antioxidants in organic produce but has yet to produce a single peer-reviewed scientific publication to back up this claim despite repeatedly promising to do so.
In the U.S., the Organic Center -- funded by the Organic Trade Organization and by CEOs from the major organic food producers and retailers -- published a report claiming that organic produce was 25% more nutritious than conventional produce but to make the claim had to use publications that were not peer-reviewed, results that were not statistically significant, and results from experiments that did not fairly compare organic with conventional food -- all the while falsely claiming negative health effects from nitrates.
These glaring errors have been exposed by Dr. Joseph D. Rosen, Emeritus Professor of Food Toxicology at Rutgers University School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and an American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) Advisor. In a new piece on ACSH's FactsAndFears blog, The Organic Food Nutrition Wars, he exposes the latest round of organic misrepresentations.