Down and dirty

A debate about soil, organics, and nutrition 24

soilInert medium for turning agrichemichals into food, or a teeming, diverse ecosystem?

“The whole problem of health—in soil, plant, animal, and man—is one great subject.”
—Albert Howard, The Soil and Health

Ezra Klein and I are engaged in a little debate over the value of organic food. I’m honestly a little surprised to be arguing with the Washington Post’s food-policy columnist about the desirability of removing toxic, ecologically damaging chemicals from food production. But no matter.

I got the ball rolling here; and here’s Ezra’s riposte. Narrowly, we’re debating whether organically grown foods offer more nutritional value than ones raised with synthetic chemicals.

I say they almost certainly do; Ezra is skeptical. From reading Ezra’s post and several comments from his readers, I find that people seem downright nonplussed by the idea that soil conditions and growing methods might affect the nutritional content of the resulting food. Their puzzlement in turn puzzles me. If we are what we eat, then so are plants; and plants are mainly eating soil (and the various nutrients and substances contained therein).

It makes me wonder what—or if?—people in our post-agricultural society think about the whole question of soil. Yet methods of soil stewardship are key to this debate. So before I dig into the details with the celebrated policy wonk—which study says what, funded by whom—I want to take a broad look at soil. In the process, I hope to open people’s minds to the idea that soil stewardship could affect food quality.

In his In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan pretty much debunked the tenets of what he called “nutritionism”—the idea that human nutrition could be reduced to a set of macronutrients (vitamin A, the B vitamins, etc.), which could then be isolated and fed to be people to keep them healthy. Scientists have known for a while that a given dose of, say, isolated vitamin A in pill form (or added to bread as fortification)  does not provide anything close to the same benefit as an equal dose in the context of a carrot. You can’t live well on 2,500 calories from sugar water plus oat fiber and a One a Day vitamin. Scientists now know that, but haven’t quite figured out why. Human nutrition turns out to be more mysterious than people in white lab coats have so far been able to decipher.

For about 100 years now, a form of nutritionism has also held sway among soil scientists, too. Where human nutritionists focused on vitamin A, etc., soil scientists seized upon N, P, and K—nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. No one disputes that these are basic building blocks of plant life—without sufficient access to each of them, plants can’t flourish. But just as human nutritionists at one time thought that nutrition could be isolated into macronutrients and delivered to people out of the context of food, so plant scientists decided that N, P, and K were sufficient, in isolated form, for plant life.

This idea marked the rise of what become known as NPK thinking—the nutritionism of soil scientists. By learning to synthesize nitrogen and mine phosphorous and potassium, technologists sparked an agricultural revolution. Farmers could abandon the time-consuming task of recycling nutrients and building soil; instead, they could merely purchase newly available inputs (on the installment plan, of course).  Society had “solved” the whole vexing problem of soil fertility; farmers could now focus on growing food, and lots of it (meaning fewer farmers).

In the NPK-think that still rules conventional agriculture, soil is essentially an inert medium for conveying isolated blasts of synthesized and mined NPK to crops. The effect on soil quality has been dreadful. Writing in The Fatal Harvest Reader (2002), the California farmer Jason McKenney describes the effect:

We now know that massive use of synthetic fertilizers to create artificial fertility has had a cascade of adverse effects on natural soil fertility and the entire soil system. Fertilizer application begins the destruction of soil biodiversity by diminishing the role of nitrogen-fixing bacteria and amplifying the role of everything that feeds on nitrogen. These feeders then speed up the decomposition of organic matter and humus. As organic matter decreases, the physical structure of soil changes. With less pore space and less of their sponge-like qualities, soils are less efficient at storing water and air. More irrigation is needed. Water leeches through soils, draining away nutrients that no longer have an effective susbstrate on which to cling. With less available oxygen the growth of soil microbiology slows, and the intricate ecosystem of biological exchanges breaks down.


I saw it in extreme form on a trip last spring to Immokalee, Florida—source of 90 percent of the winter tomatoes grown in the United States. As I and many others have pointed out, workers are abused there as a matter of course.

But the growing conditions are also quite startling. When you look down in an Immokalee tomato field, what you see is sand—there’s no evident organic matter in the growing medium (the word “soil” doesn’t quite apply here). To prepare for tomato growing, you start by sterilizing the ground with an extremely toxic pesticide—and in the process wipe out any beneficial microbes that might be lingering there. Then you inject the doses of NPK to maximize output, and you’re ready to go. (You may need more insecticide sprayings as the season wears on.)

More than in any other place I’ve seen, plants there live on a diet equivalent to sugar water, oat fiber, and vitamin pills. Can there be any real wonder that the resulting tomatoes are so pathetically lacking in flavor? And do people still doubt that they may be less healthful as well?

Indeed, there’s strong evidence that the nutritional value of industrially grown vegetable crops has declined significantly since 1950.

In contrast to industrial agriculture’s reliance on NPK, organic ag focuses on building soil as a living ecosystem. Even large-scale industrial-organic farms nourish their soil with nitrogen-fixing cover crops and well-composted manure, which along with NPK deliver loads of organic matter and micronutrients. And the nitrogen available from legume cover crops and manure releases slowly, not jolting crops into rapid growth like straight anhydrous ammonia. And whereas the harsh chemicals and poisons of conventional farming squeeze out microbial life in the soil, organic farmers seek to nourish it.

Given all of this, I would be surprised if a tomato grown in Immokalee’s chemical-infused sands delivered as much health-giving properties as one grown in rich, living humus.

All right, so back to the details of the debate.

I pointed to a literature review conducted by the U.S.-based Organic Center, which is funded by Big Organic groups like Horizon and Whole Foods; Ezra pointed to one funded by the U.K. Food Safety Agency, the equivalent of the U.S. FDA. And like that agency, the FSA has not managed to remain free of food-industry influence. For example, its current chief executive is Tim Smith, whose bio reads like this:

Tim Smith is the former Chief Executive of Arla Foods UK plc. The company, which is responsible for a number of major food brands, is now part of Arla Foods amba, Europe’s largest dairy manufacturer. He was appointed Chief Executive of Arla Foods in early 2005.

Tim Smith graduated from Leeds University with a degree in microbiology and zoology. He has spent his entire career in the food business: from 1979 to 1994 he was at Northern Foods, finishing his career there as a Divisional Director. After five years at Sara Lee Corporation, where he was President of UK operations, he joined Express Dairies plc as Executive Director. Express Dairies merged with Arla Foods in October 2003.

Impressive. I don’t think even a U.S. president would appoint a career Big Food exec to the top food-safety post upon his first swing through the revolving door. Even Michael Taylor, the former Monsanto exec (and before that, lawyer) Obama recently handed a top position at FDA, served a few stints in government before the appointment.

At any rate, neither Ezra nor I is leaning on a pristine study untainted by special interest. And in this age of industry dominance of research agendas, there may be no pristine studies. So let’s look at details.

Ezra makes two major points to refute my position: 1) organic food may have more total antioxidants than conventional, but that’s irrelevant, because of the “wealth of studies showing that antioxidants do not appear to reduce the risk of cancer or heart disease or anything else”; and 2) that my contention that the lower nitrogen content of organic foods makes them healthier is based on a “circumstantial argument” about the danger of nitrates “that is plausible, but hasn’t been studied.”

Ezra links to two studies to back up his claim about the irrelevance of antioxidants. The first one is itself irrelevant, because it is measuring the value of antioxidant supplements—ie, isolated antioxidants—and we’re talking about antioxidants in whole foods. I agree that taking, say, beta-caratene pills is probably worthless; I doubt that beta-caratene in, say, the context of a carrot is worthless.

The second study is more interesting. This investigates whether “natural antioxidants, i.e. Vitamin C, Vitamin E and carotenoids” fight certain kinds of heart damage. It concludes:

Animal studies indicate that dietary antioxidants may reduce atherosclerosis progression, and observational data in humans suggest that antioxidant vitamin ingestion is associated with reduced cardiovascular disease, but the results of randomised controlled trials are mainly disappointing.

I assume that by “dietary antioxidants,” the researchers mean nutrients from whole foods and not isolated supplements. So the finding would seem to support Ezra’s claim. But then we get this:

The favourable effects shown by some studies relating antioxidant dietary intake and cardiovascular disease, may have been exerted by other chemicals present in foods. Flavonoids are the ideal candidates, since they are plentiful in foods containing antioxidant vitamins (i.e. fruits and vegetables) and are potent antioxidants. Tea and wine, rich in flavonoids, seem to have beneficial effects on multiple mechanisms involved in atherosclerosis.

So flavonoids may actually help, according to this study. Now, both the FSA and Organic Center studies measured something called “total phenolics,” a category than encompasses flavonoids. The FSA study found no difference; and the Organic Center study showed a more than 20 percent advantage for organic food. Both studies are essentially gathering results from past studies and consolidating their results. As such, they’re looking at much the same data. So why the difference? According to the Organic Center’s critique of the FSA study:

Unlike the London study, The Organic Center review focused on nutrient differences in “matched pairs” of crops grown on nearby farms, on the same type of soil, with the same irrigation systems and harvest timing, and grown from the same plant variety. It also rigorously screened studies for the quality of the analytical methods used to measure nutrient levels, and eliminated from further consideration a much greater percentage of the published literature than the FSA team.

While the FSA team found 80 comparisons of phenolic compounds, the TOC [Organic Center] team focused on the more precise measure of total phenolic acids, or total polyphenols, and found just 25 scientifically valid “matched pairs.” By mixing together in their statistical analysis the results of several specific phenolic acids, the FSA team likely lost statistical precision.

The “matched pairs” thing seems legit. Crops draw nutrients from soils; different soils have different levels and types of nutrients. Different vegetable varieties, too, have different properties—including levels of nutrient uptake.

At the University of California-Davis, scholars at the Long Term Research on Agricultural Systems project have been examining “matched pairs” of organic and conventional crops since 1993. In a 2007 paper, the group compared the nutritional content of organic and conventional tomatoes grown between 1994 and 2004. The result: organic tomatoes showed significantly levels of two flavonoids called quercetin and kaempferol that were on average, respectively, 79 percent and 97 percent higher than conventional. Moreover:

The levels of flavonoids increased over time in samples from organic treatments, whereas the levels of flavonoids did not vary significantly in conventional treatments. This increase corresponds not only with increasing amounts of soil organic matter accumulating in organic plots but also with reduced manure application rates once soils in the organic systems had reached equilibrium levels of organic matter.

Okay, on to the question of nitrogen. As I wrote in the earlier post, both the FSA and Organic Center studies acknowledge that organic foods show lower levels of nitrogen in organic food. I cited that fact as a serious nutritional advantage for organic food, and pointed to a recent study by a Brown researcher linking type-2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease to increased exposure to nitrogen-related compounds.

Ezra dismissed the argument as “circumstantial.”

I should have been more precise. As the Organic Center put it in its rebuttal to the FSA, “Elevated levels of nitrogen in food are regarded by most scientists as a public health hazard because of the potential for cancer-causing nitrosamine compounds to form in the human GI tract.”

And it’s nitrosamine compounds that the Brown study linked to diabetes and Alzheimer’s. The researcher makes a circumstantial link between the explosion in nitrogen fertilizer applications after 1960 and the abrupt rise in Alzeimer’s and diabetes over the same period. But they also demonstrate the ability of nitrosamines to cause significant cellular damage. According to the study’s press release:

Nitrosamines basically become highly reactive at the cellular level, which then alters gene expression and causes DNA damage. The researchers note that the role of nitrosamines has been well-studied, and their role as a carcinogen has been fully documented. The investigators propose that the cellular alterations that occur as a result of nitrosamine exposure are fundamentally similar to those that occur with aging, as well as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Given that information, it seems wise to minimize the level of nitrogen—which can turn to nitrosamines in the digestive process—in food. Moreover, the researchers evidently aren’t finished with the topic. The press release adds, chillingly: “Two subsequent papers have been accepted for publication in the near future that demonstrate experimentally that low levels of nitrosamine exposure cause neurodegeneration, NASH [non-alcoholic steatohepatitis], and diabetes.”

Nor are these the only ways that organics are “better for you.” Here’s an important one: they carry drastically lower pesticide residues. The Chicago Tribune recently obtained USDA data showing that “more than 50 pesticide compounds showed up on domestic and imported peaches headed for U.S. stores.” Moreover:

Five of the compounds exceeded the limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency, and six of the pesticide compounds present are not approved for use on peaches in the United States.

Ezra ended his response like this: “[W]hat we do know is that organic produce is more expensive and harder to find.”

I agree completely; but it seems clear to me that the answer is not to marginalize organics, but rather to stop using government cash and lax antitrust/environmental/labor regulation to prop up a destructive food system. We get the food system that we as a society pay for.

Grist food editor Tom Philpott farms and cooks at Maverick Farms, a sustainable-agriculture nonprofit and small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Follow my Twitter feed; contact me at tphilpott[at]grist[dot]org.

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  1. singlelens Posted 4:43 pm
    13 Aug 2009

    As one of those "people in white lab coats," I've seen plenty of plants live relatively happy lives on nutrient media. (Sometimes even healthier than their soil counterparts that undergo pathogen-related stress) Plants take up nutrients in much less complex forms than we do, so while I agree with your point that healthy soil leads to healthy plants, I don't agree with your "nutritionism" argument, at least in regard to nutrient content in adult plants.And certianly hot-house and hydroponic plants (taking the water-and-vitamins idea to the ultimate extreme) are a commodity. I haven't eaten a hydroponic tomato in a while, but by your logic we'd assume they'd be even more lacking in flavor and nutrients. That would be interesting to compare ... maybe we could write a grant for that study!
    I've read the study you refer to about loss of nutrients over 1950-1999 (Here's the link to the original paper, for anyone who is interested: http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/full/23/6/669). The authors draw a much different conclusion than the point you are trying to make. We've bred plants for higher yield, which often translates to plants that are able to be more efficient, make more out of less. So they take up less nutrients from the soil, not because the soil is lacking, but because they need less to survive. Maybe someday humans will evolve to needing only 500 calories a day instead of 2000 - we'll be feeling fine, but the lions and tigers might find us less nutritious. This paper suggests to me that high yielding varieties grown under organic conditions will likely have lower nutrient content than their low-yielding cousins grown under the same conditions. So then the question also exists for organic growers - are high yielding varieties worth the trade off in nutrient content? Ooh! Another grant proposal in the works!
    Ezra (and I) concede the major points I think you've tried to make over time about organics, "That's not to say organic foods are bad. They may taste better, or be more environmentally friendly." So why the hang up about minor changes nutrient levels? 

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    1. Sean Casten's avatar

      Sean Casten Posted 1:23 pm
      14 Aug 2009

      Singlelens,I had similar thoughts.  Here's a grant study for you to perhaps answer Tom's question.  Some nutrients are produced by the plant, and some are extracted from the soil and cannot be synthesized by the plant.  For certain plants and certain metabolic products, those metabolic pathways are pretty well understood, to the extent that we ought to be able to make some reasonably reliable predictions about how much nutrient X a given plant would produce if we starve/flood the soil for micronutrient Y.  (Yes, this smacks of nutritionism, but stay with me.)If we're talking about nutrients that the plant draws out of the soil and cannot synthesize for itself, then it would seem a pretty straightforward matter to make a case that absent X in the soil (organic or otherwise), it ain't gonna be in the plant.  So unless it's being added to the inorganic soil, it's presence in an organic crop is de facto proof of Tom's point.If, on the other hand, we're talking about nutrients that the plant can synthesize from available nutrients in the soil and we understand those pathways, is it not then simply a matter of measuring the relevant micronutrients added to inorganic soil / present in organic soil, comparing that to the predicted concentration in the plant and then seeing how that prediction squares with reality?  It's an admittedly narrow assessment, but done across a sufficient number of plants/nutrients/metabolic pathways, it would seem that if there is a decided benefit from organic soil, we'd see some consistent level of increase in the organic plants, no? (I realize I'm oversimplifying other factors and competing pathways, but you get the gist of the idea.)

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    2. Oemissions Posted 8:11 pm
      19 Aug 2009

      Well, I say the system of measuring is flawed.Nutrient loss begins as soon as the plant item is picked. The oldtime saying of "put your pot on to boil before you go out to get yer corn" was indicating this nutrient loss. Years ago, Rodale Organics put out charts of nutrient loss and time frame.When the tests were done, how long ago was the harvest done?Also, how do you measure the life force in a vegetable.I pass my hans over produce in a store to see if I get a vibration. If I don't, I know it is dead food and of no value to meet.My body tells me when I have ingested something full of " spirit" , "life". It says "WOW! Thankyou!"How do you measure this? It definitely accompanies taste, somethat bursts in your body and cells respond.Lighting up.This I get from organic food from gardens, freshly picked and grown in fabulous soil and tended with devotion.As I said, there are things that aren't being measured that promote health.

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    3. Oemissions Posted 8:11 pm
      19 Aug 2009

      Well, I say the system of measuring is flawed.Nutrient loss begins as soon as the plant item is picked. The oldtime saying of "put your pot on to boil before you go out to get yer corn" was indicating this nutrient loss. Years ago, Rodale Organics put out charts of nutrient loss and time frame.When the tests were done, how long ago was the harvest done?Also, how do you measure the life force in a vegetable.I pass my hans over produce in a store to see if I get a vibration. If I don't, I know it is dead food and of no value to meet.My body tells me when I have ingested something full of " spirit" , "life". It says "WOW! Thankyou!"How do you measure this? It definitely accompanies taste, somethat bursts in your body and cells respond.Lighting up.This I get from organic food from gardens, freshly picked and grown in fabulous soil and tended with devotion.As I said, there are things that aren't being measured that promote health.

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  2. evil is evil Posted 5:11 pm
    13 Aug 2009

    Look I wll try to keep it simple.  There are NO "organic" foods available in the United States, period.Stopping spraying for weeds or to keep the bugs off or to feed nutrients into the soil is totally poisoning.Not adding chemicals does not, will not and never will rid the soil of the poisons that the plants take up.  It is physically impossible.  I am incredibly chemically sensitive.  I cannot eat any american foods.  I can suffer five days of stomach churning, skin crawling alergies but that is it. I, also, do not trust anyone that will use genetics to change the fundamental form of any plant or animal without 10 years of testing to make sure that there is not a major side effect.   When I was a child we had NO children with what is now labeled ADD, now 7 per cent of the childrens in the US are diagnosed as being genetically deformed with this and other major genetic deformities.I personally live in a third world portion of a second world country.  The food was in an uncontaminated field yesterday, it was in the market this morning and it is in me at lunch and supper.  I have allergic reactions to some imported food, I can't eat bananas, I can't eat apples, beyond that nada.Feel free to poison yourselves and your children.  I just read that the number of people on this earth just passed a guesstimate of 7 billion people. If you contact me through Grist, tell them that I authorized you to contact me via my email address if you or your children have severe undiagnosable allergies.  I will send you a message about where to move to do your best to survive and eat uncontaminated, non genetically modified food.1

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  3. property investment Posted 7:30 am
    14 Aug 2009

    This is a solid argument. After years of pouring chemicals into the ground, how can any American food be classified  as "organic"?But in answer to the question - I believe organic food is healthier and it most certainly tastes better.property investment 

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  4. john-serrao Posted 8:18 am
    14 Aug 2009

    There is an argument to be had for the philpott 'organics have more micronutrients' idea but the studies Ezra is calling for will likely never occur, nor or they possible.  Medical studies aim to reduce variables and test individual genes, nutrients, cellular pathways - whatever it may be.  Scientists have a difficult time proving multiple agents act together in a symphony to create benefits - so you guys are arguing a point that will likely never be solved.The food system argument also needs work.  The marketplace is extremely dynamic and you can get just about any food you want now, grown in any manner.  A massive market for organics, local, sustainable now exists - so its disingenuous to say there is a food system problem.  The real problem is the high prices the better foods command but I fear that has as much to do with bad ag policy as it does consumer behavior.Most people just don't want anything better. 

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    1. JoeyDiana Posted 11:47 am
      14 Aug 2009

      "A massive market for organics, local, sustainable now exists - so its disingenuous to say there is a food system problem. "This is not true everywhere!  Even going to my hometown just 40 minutes East of our lovely and abundant Ithaca NY, means taking our own food if we want to eat well.  Ventures into the local grocery stores reveal the long arm of the industrial ag market, where not a single piece of local, organic food can be found. 

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  5. Tom Twigg's avatar

    Tom Twigg Posted 9:13 am
    14 Aug 2009

    I can't help but wonder if the problem here is that nutrition is the wrong point over which to be debating the benefits of organic agriculture. Conventionally grown food might be at once full of nutrients and tainted with harmful chemicals, much the same way that some kinds of fish are known to be good for us yet we need to limit consumption due to high levels of toxins. (There is an irony here that conventional ag and declining fish health are related).The advantages of organic ag vs. conventional ag can be seen in groundwater quality, soil preservation, smaller carbon footprints, lower cancer rates of farm workers, etc., that is where this discussion needs to be going.

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  6. roncastle Posted 10:17 am
    14 Aug 2009

    I think this is a misdirected argument.  We are approaching the end of the fossil fuel age and using 10 calories of fossil fuels to grow and deliver 1 calorie of food is not sustainable.  Why argue about something that has no long term future?The annual growth in the output of goods and services in recent years has exceeded the total output of the world economy in the year 1900.  The increase in agricultural output is based largely on a one time prolonged consumption of fossil fuels.  The supply is now heading into decline.Fossil fuels are a major contributor to global warming.  Global warming shows all indications of negatively impacting agriculture and rainfall.The earth’s natural capacities to supply fresh water, overpumping of aquifers, production of forest products, and seafood are in decline and headed for collapse.Human population growth continues unabated.As the earth’s natural capacities at the local level are exceeded, the declining economic possibilities create environmental refugees who will overcrowd sustainable areas making them progressively unsustainable. Wars will result.Many countries around the world today are facing these and other negative environmental trends simultaneously, some of which negatively reinforce each other.We will either mobilize together to save our global civilization, or we will all be potential victims of its disintegration.Getting agriculture off the fossil fuel junkie is a place we can start now while we still have the resources to design a sustainable future.

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  7. Purple Asparagus Posted 10:42 am
    14 Aug 2009

    I do not want to address into the comparative values of the studies specifically mentioned in Klein's article as both seem to have a certain bias inherent in them. But even if we take as fact, that an organically-grown cucumber has the same nutritive value as one grown conventionally, is that the end of the health debate? It is if you take a very shortsighted what's-in-it-for-me approach. As many have mentioned already, this does not address the effect of pesticide residue or other impacts that pesticides and synthetic fertilizers have upon our bodies.  It also does not take into account the importance of living on a clean planet with clean water and healthy fish and animals.  Does this not impact health as well? This study seems to a red herring distracting us from the real importance of organics, which is not simply our own personal health in nurtitional values, but the health of our planet and of the future.Finally, Klein does address one societal issue in this comment:  "But I'm much more worried about getting people to eat fruits and
    vegetables in general than I am about getting fruit and vegetable
    eaters to switch to organics."  However, in the work that I do in my Chicago-based non-profit, we find that both adults and children are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables when they taste good. Many people, including myself, turned originally to organics and local foods because of the flavor. Now, I will not claim that any USDA certified organic product will beat non-certified organic products in taste. I buy from several farmers who have not yet become certified, but these individuals have almost entirely  ending their dependence on inputs. However, I have not found a supermarket-sold, conventially-grown tomato that can match the flavor of either a organic tomato, whether it be so by virtue of being big O or little o.  If we're really worred about creating life-long fruit and veggie lovers, greater access needs to be made to great product. This study may not have been intended to be a distraction but will most certainly serve as one, essentially a smoke screen for Big Ag. Anyone who cares about the big picture, the health of our planet and our society, should read it with curiously and then set it aside. Melissa GrahamPresident/FounderPurple Asparaguswww.purpleasparagus.com 

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  8. Tom Philpott's avatar

    Tom Philpott Posted 2:07 pm
    14 Aug 2009

    Thanks for the great comments, everyone. Much to think about. i have to say, without meaning any insult to SingleLens, that he or she confirms a pungent recent remark by Joel Salatin: "The food industry, I’m convinced, actually believes we don’t need soil to live. That we are more clever than that." Btw, I'm not agruing that, say, Immokalee tomato plants don't grow fast and look fine; I'm merely questioning the value of the food/cuiinary value of their fruit.It's true, Sean, that the (rather clear) antioxidant/phytochemical advantage to organic may stem (so to speak) from their having to fight off pests and disease w/o the aid of poisons.

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    1. singlelens Posted 11:00 pm
      14 Aug 2009

      Tom,That's not the point I was trying to make at all. It is fact that an individual plant does not need soil to live - produce that is clonally propagated, such as bananas, must spend part of their life cycle away from the soil and coaxed carefully to reproduce and grow in a petri dish. But I'd agree with Salatin that we as a society need soil to live, there's no way we could all survive on food grown in greenhouses or hydroponic tanks because the cost and space are limiting. And so the soil needs to be healthy for plants to be healthy. And we need plants to stay healthy so that they produce enough for all of us. You and I agree here, yes?There are better arguments you can make than this nutritionism one about the importance of soil. Because plants do take up their nutrients in their most basic forms, then synthesize the more complicated nutrients that humans must take in through food. So direct inputs of NPK do work on a biochemical level, but how the plant grows and diverts its resources over its life cycle will change what the nutrient content is for us and we need to understand how different agricultural practices effect this. Building on the point of antioxidants, we think about them as a "nutrient" for the human body, but for plants, its not nutrition, its a defense mechanism.

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  9. anil's avatar

    anil Posted 9:55 pm
    14 Aug 2009

    I have stopped even thinking about food in terms of nutrition, because as Michael Pollan has brillianly shown in his In Defense of Food, the nutrition science is more a quackery than an objective science. But a simple question: if there is no nutritional difference between organically grown and non-organically grown foods, then how do we explain the huge difference in taste, say, between organic and non-organic carrots. May be taste is different things.

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  10. Des Emery Posted 5:35 pm
    16 Aug 2009

    In the long run, what is important is not really the taste of a tomato (that should be what sells the tomato) but the plant's ability to resist disease. Unfortunately, one shipment of organic tomatoes grown in New England has been proved to be the source of the fungal blight that is now devastating the Eastern Canadian provinces. This blight, the same one that caused the infamous Irish Famine in the middle of the nineteenth century is hitting both tomatoes and potatoes and cannot be controlled.

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    1. Avelhingst Posted 7:10 am
      17 Aug 2009

      Late Blight, Black Rot, Black Blight, Late Black Blight - however you want to call it, the Phytophthora disease that harms tomatoes and potatoes, has a global reach, is highly infectious, and spreads like wildfire.  Blaming source X for spreading late blight is a bit like blaming a certain shipping line for importing mosquitos that carried and spread West Nile Virus - a bit late in the game.  The question we should be asking: "How is it that organic farmers can produce potatoes and tomatoes in areas infested with late blight?" since so many of them do, and do successfully...By the way, here's a quote from the American Journal of Potato Research, dated 1957: "Surveys conducted in the period 1954–1956 yielded 1127 isolates ofP. infestans which may be grouped into 14 races occurring in nine provinces. The greatest number and the most complex races ofP. infestans have been found in Eastern Canada and the least number in this regard in the Prairie Provinces."

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      1. Des Emery Posted 5:41 pm
        17 Aug 2009

        I wasn't trying to lay blame on anyone in my comment.  But the fault does lie in monoculture, organic or not.  Ireland is not a large area but the whole of it was devastated by the potato blight because everyone there grew potatoes and the failure of the crop led to famine and the Irish diaspora. In addition to the research which leads to "new and improved" crops, maybe we should be looking for fungicides and insecticides which kill pests quickly but do not affect human beings afterwards (no residue).When I was a child, one of my farm jobs (in addition to gathering eggs) was walking up and dow the rows of potato plants, and using a little stick to knock potato bugs into a can of kerosene to eliminate them. That's hardly an option now.  Keeping a crop disease isolated is just as important - or perhaps even moreso - than 'organic' taste by itself.  

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  11. Avelhingst Posted 8:15 am
    17 Aug 2009

    I have yet to meet a soil scientist (and yes, I do know a fair number despite their rarity) who espouses this 'nutritionist' philosophy of soil management.  From day one in their training, soil scientists learn that soil is a sort of living organism, a composition of time and climate and minerals and life.  But enought prating about whose scientific specialty is more to blame for some part of the failure of American agriculture to safeguard its assets!Another point: certain plant cultivars, massal selections, or clones are much more suited to organic agriculture than chemag, and vice-versa.  Herein lies the rub - certain parties are interested in proving that organic food is more 'nutritionally healthful' to consumers than chemag produce, but reducing the variables enough takes away from the research that might be done to show the differences in varieties that thrive in the differing environments.  Also, the nutrition debate takes away from the other aspects of organic production models, such as the elimination (as far as possible) of pesticide residues in our food supply.Really, too, we must continue to focus on how best to preserve and increase our soil's ability to produce food.  Ask any decent soil scientist, and they will tell you that the absolute best way to reduce erosion, leaching, run-off, and to increase soil aeration, water retention, nutrient cycling, and the ability of plants to fight infection is to turn to no-till systems (whether it be through chemical fallow, permanent cover, perennial crops); organic if possible.  Perhaps this is diverging from the debate about organic vs. chemag soil weltanschauungen in regards to human nutrition, but getting enough calories at all in the future is worth discussing as well.

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  12. happycamper Posted 8:09 pm
    18 Aug 2009

    I'm always impressed  when reading about REMINERALISATION.  Again,of course, not one mention of the soil building rock powder in the article. The lack of this may be the main reason there is little difference in nutritional content of industrial farmed and organic produce. Except for some added organic material the soils have the same mineral deficiencies thus limiting the optimal nutritional  content. Type in reminerlisation and have a field day.

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  13. ejd Posted 8:12 pm
    21 Aug 2009

    The UK Soil Association has issued a response to the London study:http://www.grist.org/article/2009-08-13-debate-soil-organics-nutrition/In particular, they reference an 18 million euro EU study released in April 2009 that reaches the opposite conclusion-- that organic food IS more nutritious.  That study is somewhere here: http://www.qlif.org/

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  14. TimK Posted 11:38 am
    24 Aug 2009

    By the definition of some, there is no true organic. In the stricktest sense of it all this is true. We live in a toxic soup. I'm in rural Western NY breathing the pollutants from Chicago and Indianapollis (sorry to sigle those two out) as well as industral wastes from China. Our bodies are all at high levels of toxicity. What I tell people is that for those of us close to the critical threshold of helath vs. disease, what you put in your body for food can be the difference. While organic food may not be pure, I can tell you that the organic food that I produce is one heck of a lot closer to pure than some pesticide ladden GMO coming out of a K*&^t box. I further tell people that every step you take towards cleaning up you diet is a good step and one that could save your life. I found this a telling tale of what we have been doing to ourselves over the last century: www.hundredyearlie.com/

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  15. Chert Posted 2:12 pm
    24 Aug 2009

    Tom, Your article is about nutrition content of organic foods and I found a couple of references in Anticancer: A New Way of Life  by David Servan-Schreiber that may be of interest.  The first was a study highlighting why to avoid conventional foods:  The pesticides that end up in our bodies:  Lu, C., K. Toepel, R. Irish, et al., "Organic Diets Significantly Lower Chil: 260-63.The other one more specifically addresses micronutrients: Rayman, M. P., “The Importance of Selenium to Human Health,” The Lancet 356, no 9225 (2000): 233-41.Keep looking for the science, but embrace organics and decreased meat consumption if not for health, nutrition and the enjoyment of tastier food, then do it to reduce the effects of conventional agriculture and farm factories on the environment. Chert

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  16. Des Emery Posted 7:38 pm
    24 Aug 2009

    This entire discussion may soon be irrelevant.  Global Warming is happening, and for every foot of arable land which becomes available in the northern hemisphere, a mile of equatorial territory turns to desert and is lost to cultivation. Most of the rivers of the world are fed by glaciers which are rapidly melting away and not replenishing the fossil aquifers which we are depleting world-wide in order to irrigate food crops which in turn we are growing not as foodstuffs but for biofuel production to replace petroleum. Migration of people seeking relief from intolerable living conditions is invariably moving from south to north.  A glance at the map of the world shows why.  Most of the land mass involved is located in the northern half.  South America and Africa are both narrower in their southern parts and Australia is already mostly arid with no major rivers or lakes.  Availability of food is the driving force behind migration, and the nicety of grain-fed or grass-fed livestock, or the relative nutrional value of organics will not trump the hungry man's imperative to eat whatever is in front of him.Evolution happens to plant species over millions of years of slow changes in adaptation.  AGW is not going to allow us the time to adjust.  We, the northern peoples of the world, are not prepared for the inevitable invasion that is coming sooner than we think.   

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  17. robertjuk Posted 4:53 am
    26 Aug 2009

    Hi Robert from across the pond here. I thought that you might like to know about a great book on exactly this subject. The book is titled "We Want Real Food" by Graham Harvey. I would also highly recommend taking a look at Graham's other book's:The Killing of the CountrysideThe Forgiveness of NatureAn observation I would like to share is this. Just because it's all new and bright and hi tech and scientific doesn't necessarily mean it's better. Be honest with yourself, it's hard to improve on nature.

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