Organic News
Food Standards?
The recent controversial report from the Food Standards Authority (FSA) in the UK claiming that organic food is nutritionally no different from chemically produced food is a salutary lesson in just what is officially perceived to constitute ‘safe food’. One is reminded of the old cliché about ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’.
The report is a selective review of research literature over the past fifty years, the criteria for which managed to exclude the most convincing recent EU research on the nutritional benefits of organic food. In fact, of 162 relevant studies just 55 were considered suitable using the narrow selection criteria. Despite the studies showing higher levels of some micro nutrients in organic food the study concluded that these were irrelevant.
It would seem that the report has more to do with the politics of food and the power of multi-national food corporations than science. The objectivity of the FSA has been called into question because of its support for GM food production and its anti organic bias. Why it bothered to carry out the study in the first place and then limited it to a narrow focus on nutrient levels is questionable. Nobody is questioning the safety of organic food while, during the week following the organic report, it was announced that half of the fresh fruit and vegetables on sale in the UK was contaminated by toxic pesticides. A quarter of the foods sampled contained more that one pesticide and a cocktail of chemicals were detected on some samples. There is increasing concern about the health effects of a cocktail of low level residues on food but nobody wants to carry out research on this because it will open the Pandora’s Box on what modern food contains.
The average consumer doesn’t need a ‘science’ degree to know that organic food is better than the weekly basket of highly processed, additive enriched, preservative loaded, chemically treated imitation of food that families consume every week. An investigation into why so called ‘safe food’ is causing an epidemic of fatal disease in the population would be a much more beneficial use of the FSA’s resources.
Gillian Westbrook has been appointed to the new position of
General Manager with IOFGA. Coming from a background in the regulatory area...
