Why Age?

Organic Old Age?

Are organic foods more nutritious than non-organic? The organic food industry, valued in Australia at over $600 million says they are. If they are right, we anti-agers should be eating exclusively organic because good nutrition is our primary tactic to improve our prospects of a healthy old age.

The organic food industry has been around for about 50 or so years, paralleling the rise of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. It has taken decades but today few among us would doubt the mantra that organic foods are better for you in a purely nutritional sense. Images of contented cows grazing in serene pastures and vegetables growing on rustic farms reinforce the idea.

If you’ve read my earlier posts you’ll see that I’m something of an organics sceptic. My problem has been that there is no one certifying body covering organic food producers: we have to memorise a number of logos and body names. Many foods are simply labelled “organic” without any certification.

Then there’s the cost. If you try to consume the kilo per day of plant foods that healthy eating requires, you are going to have a hefty grocery bill if you go exclusively organic.

Don’t get me wrong, I am no fan of pesticides and herbicides (see “Why Don The Cloak Of Medea?” in earlier posts). Reducing the toll of petrochemicals on our body frees our liver to fulfil its metabolic and other functions unimpaired, and that’s good to help slow ageing.

I just have a problem with people and organisations telling me that organic foods are more nutritious than non-organic. Why? How is it that the level of vitamins, minerals and myriad phytochemicals in foods is reduced by the use of chemical fertilisers? My angst here is that regular foods, particularly plant foods are resultantly seen as nutritionally inferior and not really worth the effort. The vitamin industry trades heavily on this concept, maintaining that modern, industrially-produced food is nutritionally depleted and unable to supply adequate levels of nutrients.

Any conclusion, real or imagined that chips away at the foundation of a plant-food based diet is an obstacle to anti-ageing. Humble plant foods are the historical basis of human health and a vital contemporary tool in our anti-ageing kit.

An independent study funded by the British government‘s Food Standards Agency, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and reported in the Sydney Morning Herald in July 2009 provides some interesting findings.

The study’s leader, nutritionist Alan Dangour was quoted as saying: “there’s no good evidence that consumption of organic food is beneficial to health based on the nutrient content.”

Cue herd of angry organic cows bellowing their protest: “we are contented, just look at these rolling green meadows we amble about in - of course our milk and meat is better for you!”

The study reviewed 50 years of research into nutrient levels in organic and non-organic plant and animal foods and its findings are a resounding negative for organic nutritional superiority. There was some variation in nitrogen (some non-organics higher) and phosphorous (some organics higher) but this was not considered nutritionally significant.

Few of us can afford to eat exclusively organic so the upside is that we have not suffered nutrient-wise by eating a mixture of both types. I think it’s important to support organic foods or they will disappear from shelves but I buy cheaper organics like tinned chickpeas.

Of course organic food tastes better and is better for you and the environment. By getting more satisfaction from eating putatively pesticide-free foods you may derive marginally more benefit from them as you send a resounding message to agri-corporations that you do not want to eat foods with high herbicide/pesticide residues.

However, along with the myth of vitamin-depleted food, the myth of the nutritional superiority of organic food over non-organic can be put to rest, pending further studies.

Buy organic when you can but rest assured your anti-ageing nutrition program will not suffer when you settle for non-organic.