Organic debate: the argument against

When you buy 'organic' you're buying a label and paying through the nose for it. You do realise that, don't you? Buying organic has become a fashion if not a fad, as it's supposed to be healthier, greener and generally better for you. However, that argument is proving to be a load of compost! 

Many people believe organic food to be purer, more nutritious and generally better for your health and the earth. A lot of people think pesticides and fertilisers are not used on crops or in animal feed with organic food. They are. Supposedly 'nicer' pesticides and 'better' fertiliser but they're still used and who's to say what's 'nicer' or whether it has a 'better' effect on us than the non-organic ones? In fact, some of them, like copper sulphates used as an organic fungicide, are far more toxic to the land than the bio-degradable fungicides used in non-organic farming. And of course, if it's in the land it could eventually be in our drinking water! Thank God for filtration!

[quote]More and more testing has been done over the past few years to investigate the claims of organic produce. The BBC reported last year that the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine had looked at all the evidence on nutrition and health benefits from the past 50 years and found only minute differences in the nutritional qualities of the food - and those could be put down to the fertilisers used. Even the Foods Standards Authority says that there is little, if any, nutritional difference between organic and conventionally produced food, and that there is no evidence of additional health benefits from eating organic food.

It has also been reported that there could be greater dangers eating organic meat and poultry too. Also, because it's claimed farmers don't give antibiotics or worming doses to their animals, organic animals tend to have worse general health and tend to be a lot lighter in weight than non-organic ones. And, did you know - not many people know this - organically raised cows create more greenhouse gasses than conventionally reared ones? What benefit is that to the environment and our ever-depleting ozone layer?

Let's face it, as long as we humans want to have tasty food, in the quantity we require, at the price we're prepared to pay, chemicals - natural or man-made - will have to be used to feed the earth and our animals. If that's the case, there's no such thing as 'organic' in the way the media like to use the term so let's stop kidding ourselves and salving our consciences.  Organic food is not better for us, does not improve the land or save the planet - it just costs the earth! 

Do you agree with Carol? Leave your comments below

Now read the argument for eating organic

You might also like...

More organic products and ideas

See a week of magazine recipes

Try our recipe finder

Try more magazine recipes