Is there a benefit to eating organic food?

[FeFiDoh]

No benefit at all, processed food tastes better anyway lol

Whaaaat?

Decent fruit/veg is much nicer than half the stuff you end up buying from supermarkets as is the meat.
Ever grown your own veg? Much nicer.

Tomatoes are picked when green and stored in trucks and filled with a gas can't remember the name to turn them red just so people will eat them.

Food isn't bulked up with 'added water' either.

 

[Mr Jack]

There IS a potential benefit to eating foods grown organically in parts of the country where the soil is richer in trace elements and magnesium.

Plants will not grow properly if they lack sufficient magnesium for their needs, and they will not take up magnesium they do not need. There's an easy way to tell if plants have sufficient magnesium: are their leaves green? If the answer is yes, then they have enough magnesium - it's a key component of chlorophyll.

The UK has a chronic dietary magnesium deficiency because of the relative lack of magnesium in most soils, and the fact that it's not supplied in fertiliser, and there are a few large cohort studies on-going looking at the long term effect of this on people's health.

If the UK diet is indeed short of magnesium, this will not be solved by growing plants in different soils; it will be solved by eating a different kind of food. To get magnesium you need to eat more nuts and beans, not buy different carrots and lettuces.

 

[joxang]

Plants will not grow properly if they lack sufficient magnesium for their needs, and they will not take up magnesium they do not need. There's an easy way to tell if plants have sufficient magnesium: are their leaves green? If the answer is yes, then they have enough magnesium - it's a key component of chlorophyll...If the UK diet is indeed short of magnesium, this will not be solved by growing plants in different soils; it will be solved by eating a different kind of food. To get magnesium you need to eat more nuts and beans, not buy different carrots and lettuces.

The vegetables you eat in the UK have less magnesium in them than in other countries. I don't know much about plants and how they grow, but what I've said is a recognised fact in the medical community.

Result: The diet of the UK population is deficient in magnesium compared to other populations in Europe. The reason is recognised as the lack of magnesium in soil grown vegetables. This is also fact. There is a linkage to cardiovascular risk which is currently being researched, but you're probably right that the best public health initiative would be to tell people in the UK to eat more nuts. However, this doesn't effect the large quantities of other trace elements which are also deficient in British soil, are significant for long term health, and aren't present in nuts.

 

[Glaucus]

Its rubbish, the term isn't strict enough.

What I want is to know the breeds of the food and if they are old fashioned or breed for shelf life, crop, size and shape. Rather than flavour.

If you want to go down the "organic" route go to a farm shop and ask where it's from and what they do. Or use one of the veg/meat/fish box schemes and make sure it fits your aims.

 

[tunstall90]

Purely organic food which is grown without pesticides and chemicals (like on my allotment) may not be that different in 'health' terms between ordinary supermarket vegetables but this method is certainly better for the environment and local eco-system as a whole.

 

[arc@css]

I think you only need to take a look at an organic piece of food and then compare it with another which isn't. The shape, colour, size and invariably the taste are so much better. I'd rather not have over fifty chemicals on my celery sticks thank you. Meat and dairy should be your first priority for organics.

 

[Glaucus]

I think you only need to take a look at an organic piece of food and then compare it with another which isn't. The shape, colour, size and invariably the taste are so much better. I'd rather not have over fifty chemicals on my celery sticks thank you. Meat and dairy should be your first priority for organics.

Thats just rubbish, you can't tell between supermarket produce.
Shape, size, colour has pretty much zero to do with organic.
It's breed, selection and how it's growen.

 

[a1ex2001]

Thats just rubbish, you can't tell between supermarket produce.

I can spot my organic veg but thats becuase it's come from the allotment so i generally slightly mishapen and a bit on the small side it tastes great but that probably some psychological trick because of all the hardwork!

 

[byronc]

i reall cant be asked to have to police every little thing in m y life, did it when i was younger, now im older scrww that

 

[C.R.A.Z.Y]

Farmed Salmon have much higher levels of PCB's than Wild 'Organic' salmon...... FACT

 

[starfighter]

Organic is a load of rubbish. You are paying more for an inferior product.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Organic is a load of rubbish. You are paying more for an inferior product.

lol

 

[Rich_L]

No, in many cases it tastes better though. And also it gives you an idea about the 'real' cost of food vs. the unsustainable mass-produced stuff.