I would have thought the ideology of “organic” and “natural” was more about the perceived lack of pesticides than about nutrition or taste.

But it doesn’t change the validity of your comments of “natural” pesticides. I remember first when I read about this some years ago. I apologize for not remembering the specific pesticide (or fungicide), bacteria or target crop. But the case I read about went something like this…

Instead of spreading the pesticide, bacteria that naturally produced it would be spread. The bacteria would generally die after a short period of time in the environment where the intended vegetable was grown, leaving a certain amount of the pesticide present.

The first question raised is: What’s the difference?

If it’s the same pesticide, it’s the same pesticide. How is it necessarily better because of its natural origin?

We’d also have to look at the sourcing of both and compare. What else is present in the “non-natural” sourced pesticide and the “natural” source pesticide?

I’m not a microbiologist, so maybe it’s not uncommon for bacteria to produce only one waste material. I don’t know really… But I know it isn’t guaranteed as I’m aware of bacteria where it doesn’t work like that.

The bacterial output could consist of more than the intended pesticide whereas the non-natural source may be more pure. That other waste could be unhealthy.

Not to mention the dead bacteria themselves would leave traces of other material, again potentially unhealthy.

Some would argue the natural source is less concentrated. That’s fine, perhaps, but raises other questions. Should it be more or less concentrated? There’s no reason the non-organic source couldn’t be less concentrated if that’s indeed better.

But then, with a less concentrated form of the pesticide, are we inadvertently breeding a more resistent strain of the pest that we’re trying to control?

And also, since the bacteria would die shortly afterwards, it was clearly not adapted to that environment. But with repeated use, how long would it be before a small percentage survives? And once it spreads, could we find ourselves in a situation with this bacteria spreading out of control, generating uncontrollable amounts of a pesticide whether we wanted it or not?

The whole situation sounded like a case of “organic by technicality.”

And lacking in foresight, which is often an accusation against the use of non-natural pesticides, GM crops, etc.

It may be incomplete to consider this logic and evidence vs. ideology. For most people, it may not be practical to properly evaluate the evidence. For those people, they have to depend on somebody else to evaluate it for them. And that’s where our system breaks down, either in practice or perception. Who do we trust?

Many people won’t trust the producers, distributors or retailers because they have the profit motive.

It then falls to the government to properly regulate the industry. The perception of politicians in the west is what it is. And these are the people who make the leadership appointments in the agencies that monitor and regulate our foods.

(Bias disclosure: I live in Canada and can only speak of Canadian and American politics.)

And as for those who work directly in research at universities, etc., there’s still the question of the money motive. Not everybody will trust somebody to be unbiased if they’re receiving six, seven or eight figure research grants from a party with a vested interest in the outcome. Combine this with the practice at some schools of salary or a market differential being correlated to research funding received and there’s even a perceived personal financial conflict of interest.

No conspiracy or anything, just simply follow the money. And personally, I don’t disagree with a professor’s salary or market differential being connected to the funding they bring in. Universities do not have the funds necessary to increase salaries across the board to the levels needed to compete with industry, and they don’t have the funds to financially support the kinds of research that needs to be done.

But there is still the perceived conflict of interest.

Then add veggie libel laws, opposition to food labelling, etc. to the situation…

In short, in the absence of a trusted mechanism to safeguard the quality of our food, people are left to decide for themselves. The overly simplistic perception of the “natural” (mis)label is that it’s something tried and true, that worked for our ancestors, whereas everything else is newer and needs to be evaluated but who do we trust to evaluate it?

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/09/cbs_news_resident_anti-vaccine_propagand.php

There have been several good posts on the Hannah Poling case on Science Based Medicine, including this one from Dr Novella:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=174#more-174

Or, for a different point of view on Sharyl Atkisson’s reporting on autism from a couple years ago, check out this one:

http://autism-news-beat.com/archives/71

and this link on Respectful Insolence:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/08/sharyl_attkisson_of_cbs_and_generation_r.php

I think she left us another present recently, but I didn’t find the link to the response article I read.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20015982-10391695.html

It on the surface looks at a case linking autism to vaccines, but in fact it is linking an interaction between vaccines and mitochondrial disease with a resulting case of autism as determined in a court of law.

My question is is there any other evidence ( and how good is it ) between mitochondrial disease and autism or mitochondrial disease and vaccines that produce chronic consequences like autism or other neurological diseases. This is not routinely screened for in infancy. But IF there is evidence for an interaction, then it seems that we should screen infants as we screen for Tay Sachs etc. But I know of no interaction. Do you?

I don’t recall making that conflation, although I do recall reporting that there are social movements that label themselves “beyond organic” or “locavore”, which specifically respond to the charge (repeated by ccbowers) that long-distance travel adds to the carbon footprint of one’s diet.

In other words, at least some eco-foodie types recognize that the “organic” label does not capture the ecological impact of long-distance distribution. That does not necessarily mean that they believe it is the only source of such impacts. But it seems clear that these folks are looking for simple guidelines or rules-of-thumb, which are supposed to work in most (though not necessarily all) cases. Given the complexity of the issue, I think that quest is understandable (i.e. psychologically, for those who are sincerely concerned about such matters).

But, as I alluded above, if I had to choose a simple guideline for myself, it would not be “eat local”, “eat organic”, or even “eat local organic” (which I saw on a car bumper sticker just yesterday); rather, it would be something along the lines of Pollan’s “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Among other things, this guideline does not require me to drive any further than my local supermarket – although it so happens that, in my particular case, the “hippy-dippy” places (e.g. the food co-op and health food store) are actually located closer to my home than the supermarket (not that that’s the only reason to patronize one business over another).

PhD – I never claimed to be an expert. I’m a science blogger – I raise a lot of issues and give my opinion. That should be obvious. But I have read about organics for years before ever blogging about it, because it is a complex and politically charged issue.

Regarding reviews of nutritional quality – I simply disagree with these authors, who seem very biased to me (as evidenced by their conclusions). A PubMed search of published studies and reviews reveals the following conclusions:
- there is insufficient evidence to compare organic and conventional
- there are slight differences in both directions
- there is not enough of a difference to have any health impact

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12907407
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12002790

And the most recent reviews I can find conclude no difference:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19640946

The same is true of food safety – no conclusive evidence:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16403682

I am just interpreting the published evidence. I agree there are political biases – on both sides. Whereas the evidence is paper thin.

Similarly, minimising food miles often can mean that you are better off shopping at a local supermarket than driving to several local producers, or even to a farmers’ market. Your own carbon footprint in needing to own and run a vehicle, for example, can more than offset the miles driven by the supermarket’s delivery vehicles.