Should you buy organic?

Organic nightshade berries!

I have a lot of organic products in my house. I drink organic soy milk. I have some organic beef that's thawing in my fridge right now for tomorrow's burritos. I'm sure that some of the veggies in my freezer are organic as well. Why do I buy organic?

Because it's healthier and GMOs are going to kill us. Also, something about Monsanto and chemtrails.

Because I happen to like how some of those products taste, and in some instances, there wasn't really much choice when I was at the store. I like to go to Costco, and they're really big on the organic foods and "No GMO" labeling. That beef was slightly more expensive than the non-organic stuff, but I like the fact that they avoid antibiotics, and the way it's packaged is really convenient. With the other kind, I'd have to use several freezer bags after breaking it up into meal-sized portions.

I'll admit it though - I pretty much avoid the organic section at the produce section of my local grocery store. I have no problem buying the non-organic bananas, strawberries, lettuce, etc. I have no problem with them for a couple of reasons, the first being that the organic stuff tends to cost a lot more. The second is that there simply is no reason to believe that organic food is healthier for you.

What? How can I possibly say that? Everybody knows that organic food is healthier! Haven't we been told this many times before?

Indeed, we have been told. And who's telling us? The organic food industry, which rakes in over 30 billion dollars in the United States alone. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that organic companies are bad simply because they're making money. I just wish that people would treat them with the same skepticism that they treat the rest of the food industry (which deserves plenty of skepticism).

Who else is telling us? Bloggers with no scientific qualifications. This, of course, includes me. However, here's the difference between me and the Food Babe - I don't want you to believe me. I would hope that people who know me and/or have read my other blog posts would at least give me the benefit of the doubt and trust that I probably have good reason for my opinions on this. However, I think that your best bet would be to look at what the actual science says on this issue. Also, I'm not trying to sell you anything. (Although I'm waiting for a really big "shill" check from Monsanto to be be delivered in the mail.)

From my understanding, there is no evidence that organic food is any healthier than conventional food. Yeah, you'll find some stuff out there that will tell you otherwise. In fact, I was about to cancel this very post when I did some reading and came across what looked like a study that proved me wrong. However, with a little more digging, it fell apart. (It was on the Huffington Post, which props up pseudoscience from the likes of Deepak Chopra, so I suppose that I shouldn't have been too surprised.) I'm willing to be proven wrong, but I will have a lot of skepticism if somebody sends me a source from somebody who's selling organic products and/or isn't actually representing a scientific organization.

A lot of people will tell you that the use of pesticides is a concern. Well, I hate to break it to you, but organic farming uses pesticides as well. How do you think they keep the bugs from eating into their products? Harsh language? It's not that I think that you should be worried about the pesticides in organic farming, but to think that it's somehow safer than the pesticides used in conventional farming is false. Organics use natural pesticides, whereas conventional uses synthetics. "Ah! That's the thing! Natural is better! Right?" If you think that, then I would suggest that you're making the naturalistic fallacy. There are plenty of natural things that will kill you faster than any synthetic product.

I also don't understand how organic farming is necessarily better for the environment. I understand that some of the techniques are better for the soil, but almost by definition organic farming is less efficient than conventional farming. Why is it better for the environment to use more land?

So, to answer the question that my blog title asks: Should you buy organic? Sure. Why not? But don't buy it because you're scared to do otherwise.

Now, go read an article from Christie Wilcox, who has a PhD in cell and molecular biology and writes for Scientific American's blog. In other words, she probably knows what she's talking about better than random bloggers like me.