EmailDear EarthTalk: There’s been a lot of coverage on the topic of organic
foods and how they aren’t actually any healthier than conventional
foods. Is this true? — Gina Thompson, Salem, OR.
There is no doubt that organic foods are healthier—for our bodies
individually as well as for the environment—than their conventionally
produced counterparts. The question is how much healthier and does the
difference warrant spending more on your grocery bill.
Conventional food is produced using synthetic chemical inputs such as
fertilizers, pesticides, hormones and antibiotics to repel pests,
boost growth and improve the yield of marketable product. It stands to
reason that trace amounts of these chemicals are likely to get
ingested into our bodies.
Before such chemicals became widely available, most food was produced
organically. Recent awareness about the dangers of synthetic chemicals
and antibiotic resistance has triggered a renewed interest in organic
food. As a result organic farms constitute the fastest growing sector
of the U.S. agriculture industry. Given that these farms are smaller
and have more of a niche clientele, they must charge more for organic
products. These costs get passed on to consumers willing to spend
extra to be healthy.
But after surveying over 200 other studies comparing organic and
conventional foods and in some cases their effects on the body,
Stanford medical researchers found that, while eating organic produce
can lower exposure to pesticides, the amount measured from
conventionally grown produce was also well within safety limits. They
also found that organic foods were not particularly more nutritious
than non-organic foods. The findings were published in the Annals of
Internal Medicine in September 2012.
The one area where the team found a divergence was regarding
antibiotic-resistant germs in meats. While the chances of bacterial
contamination are the same for organic and non-organic meats, germs in
conventionally raised chicken and pork had a 33 percent higher risk of
being resistant to multiple antibiotics. Many farmers and ranchers
rely on antibiotics to fatten up their animals and keep them healthy
until slaughter, but converting to more organic meat could help stem
the oncoming tide of antibiotic resistance that threatens to make many
of our medicines obsolete.
Of course, consumers may opt for organic foods despite the lack of
much difference in nutritional content or chemical residues. According
to the Mayo Clinic, a non-profit medical care and research institution
and a leading voice on public health and health maintenance, some
people simply prefer the taste of organic food. Others like organic
food because it doesn’t typically contain preservatives, artificial
sweeteners, coloring and flavorings. Meanwhile, others take a
longer-term view and go organic for the sake of the environment, as
organic agriculture reduces pollution and conserves water and soil
quality.
If you’re trying to be both healthy and frugal, selectively buying
organic is one option. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) publishes
its Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce each year to let consumers
know which produce have the most pesticide residues and are the most
important to buy organic. EWG’s 2012 “dirty dozen” non-organic foods
to avoid were apples, celery, sweet bell peppers, peaches,
strawberries, imported nectarines, grapes, spinach, lettuce,
cucumbers, blueberries and potatoes.
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Dear EarthTalk: I understand that the “environmental justice” movement
defends poor, non-white communities that too often serve as sites for
polluting industries such as sewage treatment plants, factories and
landfills. Have there been any notable victories? — P. Silver,
Peekskill, NY
The environmental justice movement was born in September 1982 when a
group of poor residents of rural Warren County, North Carolina laid
down in front of trucks transporting waste containing toxic PCBs to a
nearby landfill. Those primarily African American activists eventually
lost their battle to keep toxic waste out of the area, but their
actions eventually led to an executive order by President Clinton in
1996 that institutionalized the U.S. government’s duty to identify and
address “disproportionately high adverse health or environmental
effects of its policies or programs on low-income people and people of
color.” It also mandated that the federal government look for ways to
prevent discrimination by race, color or national origin in any
federally funded programs dealing with health or the environment.
In the time since, many other low income or minority groups —Latinos,
Asians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans and others —have learned
to raise their voices and stand up against the discriminatory locating
of hazardous waste landfills and transfer stations, polluting
factories and utilities, and other triggers for bad air quality and
compromised waterways and soils across the U.S. and beyond.
Some of the better known environmental justice groups came to be out
of specific struggles in their own local neighborhoods. Concerned
Citizens of South Central LA (Los Angeles) was created to fight the
now infamous LANCER incinerator in the late 1980s, and today provides
leadership on environmental and other social justice issues throughout
southern California. Likewise, Mothers of East LA, originally formed
to stop the siting of a prison in an East Los Angeles community, has
become a strong voice against incinerators and other waste processing
and landfill facilities interested in moving to the area.
Elsewhere, West Harlem Environmental Action formed in 1998 to fight
(unsuccessfully) the building of the North River Sewage Treatment
Plant in West Harlem in New York City. Despite that defeat, the group
is now a leader on environmental justice issues around New York State.
And the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice began with humble
activist roots but is now in high demand helping rural communities in
Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” protect themselves from further degradation
and harm at the hands of oil refineries and other heavy industry
located there.
Several national organizations now devote significant resources to
these issues. The Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ),
which emerged out of the 1970s Love Canal controversy when the U.S.
government relocated 800 families from their polluted Niagara Falls,
New York neighborhood, today functions as an activist clearinghouse
for related issues. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has
devoted significant resources to environmental justice efforts,
including helping to identify cancer clusters in poor communities near
heavy industry. Many Sierra Club local chapters battle environmental
discrimination in their neighborhoods. And the federal government
today provides millions of dollars to environmental justice projects
through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other agencies.
