Is Organic Better? Ask a Fruit Fly

Some organic food myths:<p><pre><code> http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4019 </code></pre> Myth #1: Buying organic food benefits small farmers, and represents a blow to the big food corporations.<p>Myth #2: Organic foods are healthier to eat.<p>Myth #3: Organic growing methods are better for the environment.<p>Re 1) "...organic food is big, big business. The days when the organic produce section of the supermarket represented the product of a small local farmer are long gone. California alone produces over $600 million in organic produce, most of it coming from just five farms, who are also the same producers of most non-organic food in the state...."<p>Re 2) "When you take the exact same strain of a plant and grow it in two different ways, its chemical and genetic makeup remain the same. One may be larger than the other if one growing method was more efficient, but its fundamental makeup and biochemical content is defined by its genes, not by the way it was grown. Consumer Reports found no consistent difference in appearance, flavor, or texture."<p>Re 3) "Organic methods require about twice the acreage to produce the same crop, thus directly resulting in the destruction of undeveloped land."

Not to poop on her accomplishments, but isn't conventionally grown fruit sprayed with pesticides specifically to kill and deter pests like fruit flies?

I read yesterday that GM food is better because it does not need to be covered with pesticides so much. GM plants have built in protection, on purpose, to lower the need for dumping chemicals in the earth.<p>Now they can make GM fruit and vegetables taste great and look great, they don't have to taste like plastic.

My main gripe with organic food is the following: if there is evidence that chemical A or fertilizer B are dangerous for humans and/or the environment, shouldn't we ban them altogether? Why make it a luxury to eat healthy? Why should we allow some affluent vegan live to 110, while girls in inner city districts have their first period 2-3 earlier than 50 years ago because of growth hormones in cheap meat?

Having your paper published in PLOSone at age 14 is pretty impressive. Good on her, and good on Dr. Bauer at SMU who took her into his lab and treated her ideas with respect.

I dont really care about the anti-corporation aspect of it. In the past, I preferred to buy organic foods in the hope that my overall intake of pesticides would decrease. I was recently dismayed to find that organic foods have known to be contaminated with synthetic pesticides - i assume due to proximity to conventional crops. Also, it seems that plenty of pesticides are used in growing organic foods so my original reason for preferring them is gone.

I think it’s a shame that the organic farming is being reduced to the quality of the results. For me, a big part of the deal is producing stuff in a sensible way, preferably without loads of chemicals and without torture. Not everything that’s labeled as organic was produced in a sensible way, not everything organic has to be better than the “conventional” stuff and yes, organic is a huge marketing force right now, which is a pity. But I take the organic approach as a great way to think and talk about the way we produce our food, and that’s the main advantage of organic food for me.

Did she match the fruit for price? Organic food tends to be high end and I can well believe it would be grown more carefully than the mass-market product independently of the organic aspect.

Is it possible to tell if something's organic by looking at it?

Result of study: "Pesticdes harm the health of insects".

Better for what? Or better for whom? Human beings have been doing the thing that all heterotrophs do for a long time: eating other things in their environment. Uniquely among living things, as it appears so far, human beings have been systematically trying to understand their environment so that they enjoy more safe, tasty things to eat. In my lifetime, this human enterprise (manifested as empirical trying things out, that is tinkering, and usually given the label "science") has massively increased human well-being all around the world.<p>Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing" by James Vaupel,<p><a href="http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2...</a><p>originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject. Vaupel is one of the leading scholars on the demography of aging and how to adjust for time trends in life expectancy. His striking finding is "Humans are living longer than ever before. In fact, newborn children in high-income countries can expect to live to more than 100 years. Starting in the mid-1800s, human longevity has increased dramatically and life expectancy is increasing by an average of six hours a day."<p><a href="http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity....</a><p>A comparison of period life expectancy tables and cohort life expectancy tables for men and women in Britain<p><a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lifetables/period-and-cohort-life-expectancy-tables/2010-based/p-and-c-le.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lifetables/period-and-cohort-l...</a><p>helps make the picture more clear. ("Period life expectancy" is what is usually reported for a whole country. But cohort life expectancy provides a better estimate of future lifespans of young people today,<p><a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1963392_1963367,00.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1...</a><p>and is still steadily on the rise around the world.) Life expectancy at age 40, at age 60, and at even higher ages is still rising throughout the developed countries of the world.<p><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-why-we-die-global-life-expectancy" rel="nofollow">http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-w...</a><p>Bearing in mind the distinction between period life expectancy and cohort life expectancy, a person at any given age can look up period life tables to see what can be correctly described as a MINIMUM life expectancy at that person's current age.<p><a href="http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html</a><p><a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html</a><p>(The links shown are for United States data, but data like these are available for most developed countries.)

Poison is not good for you????? I am glad that years of research was spent to suggest this......

In other news, someone proves that earworms, ladybirds and mites fare better on a diet of organic non-GM corn than on conventionally grown and sprayed pest resistant corn.