Country life
Follow your prejudices
Leanda de Lisle
Asurvey in this month's Health Which? found that most people who buy organic food do so for health reasons. The Con- sumers Association believes 'they are prob- ably right to do so' and there are 'good reasons to go organic'. Probably right? In other words, Health Which? has no proof that organic food is better for you. Further- more, the Consumers Association knows of no good reason to go organic.
If you are a hypochondriac, the sugges- tion that one sprout might be better for you than another is an intriguing one. Are you being poisoned by the ordinary vegeta- bles in your shopping basket? Will organic double cream help you to live 1,000 years? These are the questions Health Which? fails to answer. What it does do is list the bene- fits that organic customers believe they are paying extra for. It then addresses the facts and finally reaches its conclusions. These are based on a mixture of fact and belief, with a few dark hints and some unpleasant innuendo thrown in. As advice it amounts to little more than 'follow your prejudices'. But, first, what are those prejudices? According to the Health Which? survey, the majority of people buying organic food for health reasons do so because 'it isn't treat- ed with pesticides'. In reality it is. Indeed, some organic sprays, like copper sulphate, have poorer environmental profiles than modern conventional ones. How, then, does Health Which? deal with this myth? Well, it doesn't exactly knock it on the head. It simply says that organic food 'can- not be guaranteed to be pesticide free'. Customers are then reassured that, in any 'Old Macdonald had a farm. . . gift shop, tea-room, children's play area . . case, 'organic food will almost certainly contain much lower levels of pesticide residues than non-organic foods'.
Their evidence for this comes from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's Working Party on Pesticide Residues. It runs a rolling surveillance pro- gramme on residues in organic and non- organic produce and has, we are informed, 'found no detectable levels of pesticide in any organic produce save carrots — and that at a very low level'. This was presented as one of the Consumer Association's 'good reasons to go organic'. However, there are a couple of problems with it. The first is that Health Which? quotes Professor Ian Shaw, chair of the WPPR, saying their results 'demonstrate clearly that residues in food are not a cause for concern'. If the pesticide residues on conventional produce are safe, why pay extra to avoid them?
The second problem is that the WPPR were testing only for conventional spray residues. I found this out because I asked — and I asked because it happens that two different sources have recently told me that they know of tests that found high levels of copper sulphate in organic potatoes. There is probably nothing to worry about. The director of the Elm Farm Research Centre (founded to research and develop organic farming systems) assures me there is no reason for anyone to look for copper sul- phate residues in potatoes. However, it is something hypochondriacs might like to chew on until the next Health Which? issue comes out.
Meanwhile, what of the other 'good rea- sons' to go organic? Nearly half of those buying organic food for health reasons believe it contains more vitamins and min- erals than non-organic food, while 29 per cent believe it tastes better. As Health Which? points out, there is no clear evi- dence to support these views. But it lists reasons why they might be true, anyway, without bothering to present the contrary point of view. A further 9 per cent bought organic food because they were worried about genetic modification and 6 per cent because they were worried about BSE. Heath Which? reassured them that organic food was unlikely to contain traces of GM or be contaminated by BSE. But was this, then, a genuinely 'good reason' to go organic? Not really.
If you wish to avoid GM and BSE, Sains- bury's own label produce offers the same guarantees as organic food does, but at a cheaper price. This is an important consid- eration when the least healthy and those who have the worst diet are the poor. It is absurd to bang on about the mythical prop- erties of premium-priced produce when they would definitely improve their health by eating more ordinary fruit and vegeta- bles. What Health Which? should have told us is, conventional produce is probably as good for you as organic and you can buy more of it for your money. These are good reasons not to go organic.
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