RE: Scientific arguments for eating Organic/non-GMO food?
June 5, 2015 at 12:49 pm
(This post was last modified: June 5, 2015 at 12:51 pm by Pyrrho.)
The first thing is to consider what it means to be organic versus conventional. With organic, certain pesticides, herbicides (for getting rid of weeds), and fertilizers are not used (anything not considered "organic"). (1) Many of the pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are very bad for you in sufficient concentrations. (2) They can also be bad for the environment, (3) and for farm workers. So there are three potential avenues to explore, any one of which could be enough to justify it.
Now, with poisons, a tiny amount often has no noticeable impact on your health. The question then becomes, how much matters, and how do we know? Well, tests are done and scientists look for problems. If problems occur statistically significantly more with those exposed to a certain level of the poison than to a control group not so exposed, they decide that that level is bad for you. Of course, others repeat the testing to make sure a mistake was not made the first time. Now, one of the important aspects of this is, there is no test that proves a certain level is safe. They can only show that there is a problem at some level or other, and less could still be dangerous, but could have gone unnoticed in a test, because the test was not large enough, did not last enough years to detect the problems, etc. Over the years, what tends to happen is that they find lower and lower levels of some poisons to be dangerous than they have found in the past.
Now, with conventional produce, there are (at least sometimes) rules about how much poison can be used on them, and how close to harvest time they can be used. The idea being, of course, to keep the amount of poison on the final product to be below any amount that has been found to be dangerous. The thing is, even if the rules were always followed (which is obviously not the case), it could be that the amounts that are currently judged to be acceptable are, in fact, dangerous for longterm health.
With organic, the amount of toxins from pesticides and fertilizers is often less (measured less) than on conventional produce. So, if one wishes to be extra cautious about what one eats, one can select organic and one will be exposed to less poisons. Now, it may be that the levels on conventional produce is fine, in which case one is being more cautious than necessary. But there is no way of knowing that with certainty, and so some people may feel it is worth the extra cost for having less exposure to poisons.
Don't forget, there are also reasons 2 & 3, the environmental impact (which includes runoff into streams and your water supply), and the effects on the workers who would otherwise be exposed to very high levels of poison from pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.
As for GMO, they are variable in what is genetically modified and why, so there is not one thing to say about them all. However, one of the reasons to genetically modify a crop is to make it more resistant to a herbicide or pesticide, so that they can spray more poison on the crops to kill the things they want to kill, without killing the crop. Of course, in doing so, you tend to end up with more poison on the final product that way. And that in turn also affects reasons 2 & 3 above, as there is more impact on the environment (and the runoff going to your drinking water) and more impact on farm workers exposed to even higher levels of poisons.
So, if you are wanting to be cautious about what you eat, avoiding GMO and conventionally grown crops could be a good idea. Of course, it may not make any difference at all for you, depending on exactly what levels of poisons really matter. But you don't know that; you must decide, with limited information, what you will do.
I suppose it is worth mentioning that there are plenty of idiots out there who imagine organic or nonGMO means that it has more nutrients or tastes better or some other such thing, but certainly that will not necessarily be the case with conventional versus organic, and whether it is the case with GMO versus nonGMO would depend on what, exactly, we are talking about, with either one potentially tasting better and either one potentially being better nutritionally.
Now, with poisons, a tiny amount often has no noticeable impact on your health. The question then becomes, how much matters, and how do we know? Well, tests are done and scientists look for problems. If problems occur statistically significantly more with those exposed to a certain level of the poison than to a control group not so exposed, they decide that that level is bad for you. Of course, others repeat the testing to make sure a mistake was not made the first time. Now, one of the important aspects of this is, there is no test that proves a certain level is safe. They can only show that there is a problem at some level or other, and less could still be dangerous, but could have gone unnoticed in a test, because the test was not large enough, did not last enough years to detect the problems, etc. Over the years, what tends to happen is that they find lower and lower levels of some poisons to be dangerous than they have found in the past.
Now, with conventional produce, there are (at least sometimes) rules about how much poison can be used on them, and how close to harvest time they can be used. The idea being, of course, to keep the amount of poison on the final product to be below any amount that has been found to be dangerous. The thing is, even if the rules were always followed (which is obviously not the case), it could be that the amounts that are currently judged to be acceptable are, in fact, dangerous for longterm health.
With organic, the amount of toxins from pesticides and fertilizers is often less (measured less) than on conventional produce. So, if one wishes to be extra cautious about what one eats, one can select organic and one will be exposed to less poisons. Now, it may be that the levels on conventional produce is fine, in which case one is being more cautious than necessary. But there is no way of knowing that with certainty, and so some people may feel it is worth the extra cost for having less exposure to poisons.
Don't forget, there are also reasons 2 & 3, the environmental impact (which includes runoff into streams and your water supply), and the effects on the workers who would otherwise be exposed to very high levels of poison from pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.
As for GMO, they are variable in what is genetically modified and why, so there is not one thing to say about them all. However, one of the reasons to genetically modify a crop is to make it more resistant to a herbicide or pesticide, so that they can spray more poison on the crops to kill the things they want to kill, without killing the crop. Of course, in doing so, you tend to end up with more poison on the final product that way. And that in turn also affects reasons 2 & 3 above, as there is more impact on the environment (and the runoff going to your drinking water) and more impact on farm workers exposed to even higher levels of poisons.
So, if you are wanting to be cautious about what you eat, avoiding GMO and conventionally grown crops could be a good idea. Of course, it may not make any difference at all for you, depending on exactly what levels of poisons really matter. But you don't know that; you must decide, with limited information, what you will do.
I suppose it is worth mentioning that there are plenty of idiots out there who imagine organic or nonGMO means that it has more nutrients or tastes better or some other such thing, but certainly that will not necessarily be the case with conventional versus organic, and whether it is the case with GMO versus nonGMO would depend on what, exactly, we are talking about, with either one potentially tasting better and either one potentially being better nutritionally.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
