Going Organic: What's the payoff?
April 2013
Charles Benbrook is a research professor at Washington State University's Ctr for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources in Pullman. He has served as executive director of the Board on Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences and as chief science consultant for The Organic Center, a research and educational organization. Benbrook spoke to Nutrition Action's David Schardt by phone from Troy, Oregon.
Sales of organic foods are growing by 10 to 20% each year in the United States. More than 10% of fruits and vegetables sold are now organic. By any measure, organic foods are starting to enter the mainstream American diet. And with good reason. Organic produce often has higher levels of potentially healthy compounds. And organic farms may fare better in droughts, don't use synthetic fertilizers that contaminate groundwater, (& Dead Zone Gulf of Mexico) & are more hospitable to critical pollinators like bees and butterflies.
What's more, "the data show that you reduce your exposure to pesticide residues when you buy organic foods," says organics expert Charles Benbrook.
NUTRIENTS
Q: Do organic foods have higher levels of nutrients and phytochemicals?
A: Yes. In about 60% of the studies, organic food is higher in some nutrients than conventionally produced food. About 30 to 35% of the time, there's no statistical difference, and in 5 to 10% of the studies, the nutrient levels are higher in the conventional food. That's based on studies that compare the same varieties of fruits and vegetables grown in similar locations, which is the ideal way to do these comparisons.
In a recent Stanford University review—which claimed that organic produce isn't more nutritious than conventional—only half the studies were done that way.
Q: How much higher are the levels in organic foods?
A: Generally about 5 to 15%, but they can be 30 or even 100% higher. In a two-year study of tomatoes purchased in Barcelona markets published this spring, organic tomatoes had twice the level of some polyphenols as conventionally grown tomatoes.1 Polyphenols are antioxidants and may be one of the main reasons fruits and vegetables are healthy for us.
Q: Why do organically grown plants have more beneficial compounds?
A: The two key factors are the stronger natural defenses of organic plants and a dilution effect in conventional plants.
Plants in an organic field have to fend off a range of insects, so their natural defense mechanisms are turned on earlier and more fully manifest themselves. As a result, they have higher concentrations of defensive compounds that may keep us healthier.
Q: And the dilution effect?
A: If you keep putting on more and more nitrogen fertilizer the way conventional farms do, you drive yields up and produce bigger plants. But this dilutes the plants' levels of vitamins, minerals, and polyphenols.
For example, in the fall you see beautiful, huge apples in stores that are incredibly juicy and very sweet. Those apples were grown in conventional orchards where farmers have pushed up yields and pushed up sugar concentrations by using a lot of nitrogen and irrigation water.
The trees have to do something with the extra nutrients, and the easiest thing is to convert them into sugars. These apples are juicy and sweet, yes, but the concentration of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients in them goes down. That's a classic example of the dilution effect.
Q: Does that affect shelf life?
A: Yes. Take apples. Organic apples store longer, and this has been shown all over the world. It's because they’ve got a higher concentration of antibacterial phenolic acids right under their skin, which helps to retard the growth of molds and bacteria that lead to spoilage.
Conventionally grown apples have diluted levels of these natural antibacterial antioxidants. Plus their extra nitrogen and sugar is exactly what spoilage bacteria and molds need to grow.
Q: What about contaminants that cause food poisoning?
A: Both organic and conventional foods can be a source of food poisoning outbreaks. However, in an organic system, there's a much higher level of microbial biodiversity, so there are more naturally beneficial microbes in the system and soil.
Studies show that when you introduce pathogens into an organic system, they often don't survive very long because the biologically rich community of organisms that's naturally there either competes effectively with them or uses them for lunch.
Q: And in conventional plants?
A: Pesticide use in conventional agriculture tends to reduce microbial biodiversity, both in the soil and on the surfaces of the plant. So when a pathogen does take hold, there's more of an ecological vacuum there, and the pathogen populations can grow.
Most bacteria need nitrogen, and a ready source of nitrogen can fuel spikes in their levels. So in conventional systems that have an excess of nitrogen, there's extra "gas" that can drive up pathogen levels.
PESTICIDES
Q: Are organic foods pesticide-free?
A: No. Although organic foods are grown without the use of synthetic pesticides, they can pick up traces blown in the air from conventional farms or from water or packing materials in processing plants.
Q: Are pesticide levels on organic produce much lower than on conventional?
A: Yes, but if you measure the difference only in terms of the number of residues found, it's not nearly as dramatic as when you take into account the levels of the pesticides found and how toxic they are.
We developed and computed a Dietary Risk Index, or DRI, for the residues found in conventional versus organic strawberries, apples, grapes, blueberries, nectarines, pears, and peaches grown in the U.S. The conventional fruit's DRI averaged 24, while the organic fruit's DRI was only 3. That's impressive.
Since most consumers first seek out organic food to reduce pesticide risks, this shows that people get what they pay for.
Q: Is imported produce riskier?
A: Yes. One of the big changes in pesticide risk over the past decade is that the difference between domestic and imported produce has grown. When Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act [FQPA] in 1996, which reformed pesticide use, about three-quarters of the dietary risk from pesticides in the food supply was from fruits and vegetables grown in the United States and one-quarter was from imports.
Now probably 80 percent of the risk is from imports and only about 20 percent is from domestically grown food. Today, the highest-risk fresh fruits and vegetables almost across the board are imported. Consumers are exposed to these mostly from December through April.
Q: Why the change?
A: The Environmental Protection Agency implemented the FQPA mostly by restricting the use of pesticides in the United States. It reduced the numbers and rates of pesticide applications and lengthened the interval between the last application and the harvesting of food.
These changes lowered the dietary risk of domestically produced food, but they had no impact on imports.
Q: How significant are the differences?
A: Some are dramatic. The last time the government analyzed domestic and imported peaches for pesticides was in 2008. If you calculate the DRIs for each sample it tested, 98 of the 100 most risky peach samples were imported from Chile, one was from Argentina, and the other was from the United States. Of the 100 peaches with the lowest DRIs, 99 were grown in the U.S.
So if I were a domestic peach grower and saw peaches high on a dirty dozen list, I would be pretty upset. The EPA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Congress need to start driving down the high-risk residues in imported fruits and vegetables, to at least match the reductions achieved by U.S. growers.
Q: How harmful are the traces of pesticides that are on conventional foods?
A: The evidence now is compelling that low-level exposure to organophosphate insecticides from food and the environment has been contributing to a suite of neurological and developmental problems, such as lost IQ points. These problems can be hard to measure in an individual, but are profound for society as a whole.
Q: How extensive has the impact been?
A: David Bellinger of the Harvard Medical School published an important analysis this spring looking at the risk factors that contribute to lower IQs in children.2 He drew on high-quality studies that looked at medical conditions like preterm birth and pediatric bipolar disorders and at the environmental contaminants lead, mercury, and organophosphate insecticides.
From these studies, he estimated that prenatal exposures to organophosphate insecticides were probably causing a greater loss of IQ points among some U.S. children aged five and younger than anything other than preterm births and lead exposure.
While the risk to a given child is small, the exposure is so widespread that the risk to the population is substantial.
Q: The harm is primarily to children?
A: Pound for pound, children are exposed to more pesticides than adults. And their developing bodies are more sensitive to the adverse effects of pesticides.
That's why pesticide regulation must focus on protecting the developing fetus and protecting children, especially during the first two years of life, but also through adolescence. The brain continues to grow and the nervous system continues to develop throughout the teenage years.
Q: What's the evidence of harm?
A: It's challenging to get proof of harm to children or adults. The most compelling evidence is for chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate insecticide. It's almost certainly the riskiest pesticide to humans that's still widely used on food crops.
In two studies published last year, researchers followed 400 children born around the year 2000 to women living in New York City's low-income neighborhoods.3,4 Some of them lived in public housing projects where exterminators used chlorpyrifos to kill insects in the buildings.
When the women gave birth, the researchers collected umbilical-cord blood or urine to measure how much insecticide the fetuses were exposed to in the womb. They’ve been tracking the children for 10 years now.
Q: What impact did chlorpyrifos have?
A: The kids from mothers with the highest levels of chlorpyrifos or other organophosphates during pregnancy were at greater risk for multiple developmental deficits, including slightly lower IQs when they were six to nine years old.
In a similar study of California farmworkers' families, children of mothers with the highest levels of organophosphates during pregnancy had IQs that were 7 points lower than children of mothers with the lowest levels.5
Q: How is that related to food?
A: A quarter of women of reproductive age in the United States in 2000 had average levels of organophosphates in their bodies comparable to the levels found in the high-exposure group of women in the California farmworker study.6
Since then, the EPA has banned nearly all home uses of chlorpyrifos, and has severely restricted most other uses of organophosphates in homes, other buildings, and urban environments. It now permits their use primarily in agriculture. So most of a woman's exposure now comes from food.
It makes sense when you realize that a person eating 3 or 4 servings of vegetables a day is probably exposed to 3 or 5 or 6 organophosphates on a daily basis. It's easy to understand how pregnant women could have these in their bodies. And very low levels may be harming their children.
Q: Hasn't organophosphate exposure decreased since 2000?
A: The EPA has driven down pesticide levels in domestically grown produce, but much less so in imports. We'll have to wait for the next government survey of our health status and levels of contaminants like chlorpyrifos to determine whether there has been a meaningful decline in residue levels in women.
Q: And eating organic foods would lessen the exposure?
A: Yes. When researchers at Emory University in Atlanta gave children organic fruits and vegetables to eat instead of conventional ones, chlorpyrifos fell to almost undetectable levels in their urine in just five days.7
Many experts are both puzzled and disappointed that the EPA has not acted to end all the uses of chlorpyrifos that lead to residues in food or beverages, given our deepening understanding of the many ways that chlorpyrifos exposures can disrupt normal fetal development, leading to cognitive deficits that could have serious lifelong repercussions.
Q: What about adults?
A: Residues in food rarely are high enough to pose acute risks to healthy adults. The concern for adults is with long-term degenerative diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and dementia.
Much of the evidence of harm comes from studies on animals or on farmworkers, their families, and others who face the greatest exposures and the greatest risk. But these studies raise concerns about the rest of us, who are exposed to lower levels.
The evidence was strong enough for the President's Cancer Panel to recommend in 2010 that consumers choose, to the extent possible, food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers.8
Q: Are people who eat more fruits and vegetables healthier even if they don't eat organic produce?
A: Yes. That's why the single most important diet change you can make is to eat more fruits and vegetables and less bad fat, added sugar, and highly processed foods. The second most important thing is to seek out organic fruits and vegetables.
Q: How hard would it be to lower the pesticide risks in food?
A: The EPA could reduce by one-half or more the dietary risk in the U.S. food supply by selectively targeting just a few pesticides applied to no more than a dozen crops. Of the 200 pesticides found on our food, just six account for 66 percent of the total risk. One of them is chlorpyrifos.
Monsanto, Monsatan Same Difference!!!
When you take a moment to reflect on the history of product development at Monsanto, what do you find? Here are twelve products that Monsanto has brought to market. See if you can spot the pattern…
#1 – Saccharin
Did you know Monsanto got started because of an artificial sweetener? John Francisco Queeny founded Monsanto Chemical Works in St. Louis, Missouri with the goal of producing saccharin[1] for Coca-Cola. In stark contrast to its sweet beginnings, studies performed during the early 1970s[2],* including a study by the National Cancer Institute in 1980[3], showed that saccharin caused cancer in test rats[4] and mice.
After mounting pressure from consumers, the Calorie Control Council[5], and manufacturers of artificial sweeteners and diet sodas, along with additional studies[6] (several conducted by the sugar and sweetener industry) that reported flaws in the 1970s studies, saccharin was delisted from the NIH’s Carcinogen List. A variety of letters from scientists advised against delisting[7]; the official document includes the following wording[8] to this day: “although it is impossible to absolutely conclude that it poses no threat to human health, sodium saccharin is not reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen under conditions of general usage as an artificial sweetener.” (*Read the Chemical Heritage Foundation’s History of Saccharin[9] here.)
#2 – PCBs
During the early 1920s, Monsanto began expanding their chemical production into polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to produce coolant fluids for electrical transformers, capacitors, and electric motors. Fifty years later, toxicity tests[10] began reporting serious health effects[11] from PCBs in laboratory rats exposed to the chemical.
After another decade of studies, the truth could no longer be contained: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a report[12] citing PCBs as the cause of cancer in animals, with additional evidence that they can cause cancer in humans. Additional peer-reviewed health studies showed a causal link between exposure to PCBs and non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, a frequently fatal form of cancer.
In 1979, the United States Congress recognized PCBs as a significant environmental toxin and persistent organic pollutant, and banned its production in the U.S. By then Monsanto already had manufacturing plants abroad, so they weren’t entirely stopped until the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants banned PCBs globally in 2001.
And that’s when Monsanto’s duplicity was uncovered: internal company memos[13] from 1956 surfaced, proving that Monsanto had known about dangers of PCBs from early on.
In 2003, Monsanto paid out over $600 million to residents of Anniston, Alabama, who experienced severe health problems including liver disease, neurological disorders and cancer[14] after being exposed to PCBs — more than double the payoff that was awarded in the case against Pacific Gas & Electric made famous by the movie “Erin Brockovich.”
And yet the damage persists: nearly 30 years after PCBs have been banned from the U.S., they are still showing up in the blood of pregnant women, as reported in a 2011 study[15] by the University of California San Francisco.
#3 – Polystyrene
In 1941, Monsanto began focusing on plastics and synthetic polystyrene, which is still widely used in food packaging and ranked 5th in the EPA’s 1980s listing of chemicals[16] whose production generates the most total hazardous waste.
#4 – Atom bomb and nuclear weapons
Shortly after acquiring Thomas and Hochwalt Laboratories, Monsanto turned this division into their Central Research Department[17]. Between 1943 to 1945, this department coordinated key production efforts of the Manhattan Project[18]—including plutonium purification and production and, as part of the Manhattan Project’s Dayton Project[19], techniques to refine chemicals used as triggers for atomic weapons (an era of U.S. history that sadly included the deadliest industrial accident[20]).
#5 – DDT
In 1944, Monsanto became one of the first manufacturers of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria-transmitting mosquitoes. Despite decades of Monsanto propaganda insisting that DDT was safe, the true effects of DDT’s toxicity were at last confirmed through outside research and in 1972, DDT was banned throughout the U.S.
#6 – Dioxin
In 1945, Monsanto began promoting the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture with the manufacture of the herbicide 2,4,5-T (one of the precursors to Agent Orange), containing dioxin. Dioxins are a group of chemically-related compounds that since become known as one of the “Dirty Dozen[21]” — persistent environmental pollutants that accumulate in the food chain, mainly in the fatty tissue of animals. In the decades since it was first developed, Monsanto has been accused of covering up or failing to report dioxin contamination in a wide range of its products.
#7 – Agent Orange ------ A VILE & Disgusting National Disgrace
During the early 1960s, Monsanto was one of the two primary manufacturers of Agent Orange, an herbicide / defoliant used for chemical warfare during the Vietnam War. Except Monsanto’s formula had dioxin levels many times higher than the Agent Orange produced by Dow Chemicals, the other manufacturer (which is why Monsanto was the key defendant in the lawsuit brought by Vietnam War veterans in the United States).
(Pictured at left, Anh and Trang Nhan, with their father, when they first arrived at the Hoi An Orphanage; below are the same brothers shortly before Trang’s death. Source: Kianh Foundation Newsletter, Dec. 2011[22])
As a result of the use of Agent Orange, Vietnam estimates that over 400,000 people were killed or maimed, 500,000 children were born with birth defects, and up to 1 million people were disabled or suffered from health problems—not to mention the far-reaching impact it had on the health of over 3 million American troops and their offspring.
Internal Monsanto memos show that Monsanto knew of the problems of dioxin contamination of Agent Orange when it sold it to the U.S. government for use in Vietnam. Despite the widespread health impact, Monsanto and Dow were allowed to appeal for and receive financial protection from the U.S. government against veterans seeking compensation for their exposure to Agent Orange.
In 2012, a long 50 years after Agent Orange was deployed, the clean-up effort has finally begun[23]. Yet the legacy of Agent Orange, and successive generations of body deformities[24], will remain in orphanages[25] throughout VietNam for decades to come.
(Think that can’t happen here? Two crops were recently genetically engineered[26] to withstand a weedkiller made with one of the major components of Agent Orange, 2,4-D[27], in order to combat “super weeds” that evolved due to the excessive use of RoundUp.)
8 – Petroleum-Based Fertilizer
In 1955, Monsanto began manufacturing petroleum-based fertilizer after purchasing a major oil refinery. Petroleum-based fertilizers can kill beneficial soil micro-organisms[28], sterilizing the soil and creating a dependence, like an addiction, to the synthetic replacements. Not the best addiction to have, considering the rising cost and dwindling supply of oil…
#9 – RoundUp
During the early 1970s, Monsanto founded their Agricultural Chemicals division with a focus on herbicides, and one herbicide in particular: RoundUp (glyphosate). Because of its ability to eradicate weeds literally overnight, RoundUp was quickly adopted by farmers. Its use increased even more when Monsanto introduced “RoundUp Ready” (glyphosate-resistant) crops, enabling farmers to saturate the entire field with weedkiller without killing the crops.
While glyphosate has been approved by regulatory bodies worldwide and is widely used, concerns about its effects on humans and the environment persist. RoundUp has been found in samples of groundwater[29], as well as soil[30], and even in streams and air[31] throughout the Midwest U.S., and increasingly in food. It has been linked to butterfly[32] mortality, and the proliferation of superweeds[33]. Studies in rats have shown consistently negative health impacts ranging from tumors, altered organ function, and infertility, to cancer and premature death. Reference the above “GMO Risks[34]” page which includes countless references to support these statements.
#10 – Aspartame (NutraSweet / Equal) 
An accidental discovery during research on gastrointestinal hormones resulted in a uniquely sweet chemical: aspartame. During the clinical trials conducted on 7 infant monkeys as part of aspartame’s application for FDA approval, 1 monkey died and 5 other monkeys had grand mal seizures—yet somehow aspartame was still approved by the FDA in 1974. In 1985, Monsanto acquired the company responsible for aspartame’s manufacture (G.D. Searle) and began marketing the product as NutraSweet. Twenty years later, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report listing 94 health issues[35] caused by aspartame.
#11 – Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH)
This genetically modified hormone was developed by Monsanto to be injected into dairy cows to produce more milk. Cows subjected to rBGH suffer excruciating pain due to swollen udders and mastitis[36], and the pus[37] from the resulting infection enters the milk supply[38] requiring the use of additional antibiotics. rBGH milk has been linked to breast cancer[39], colon cancer[40], and prostate cancer[41] in humans.
#12 – Genetically Modified Crops / GMOs 
In the early 1990s, Monsanto began gene-splicing corn, cotton, soy, and canola with DNA from a foreign source to achieve one of two traits: an internally-generated pesticide, or an internal resistance to Monsanto’s weedkiller RoundUp. Despite decades of promises that genetically engineered crops would feed the world with more nutrients, drought resistance, or yield, the majority of Monsanto’s profits[42] are from seeds that are engineered to tolerate Monsanto’s RoundUp—an ever-rising, dual income stream as weeds continue to evolve resistance to RoundUp[43].
Most sobering however, is that the world is once again buying into Monsanto’s “safe” claims.
Just like the early days of PCBs, DDT, Agent Orange, Monsanto has successfully fooled the general public and regulatory agencies into believing that RoundUp, and the genetically modified crops that help sell RoundUp, are “safe.”
Except Monsanto has learned a thing or two in the past 100+ years of defending its dirty products: these days, when a new study proving the negative health or environmental impacts of GMOs emerges, Monsanto attacks the study and its scientist(s) by flooding the media with counter claims from “independent” organizations, scientists, industry associations, blogs, sponsored social media, and articles by “private” public relations firms—frequently founded, funded and maintained by Monsanto.
Unfortunately, few of us take the time to trace the members, founders, and relationships of these seemingly valid sources back to their little Monsanto secret.
Fooling the FDA[44] required a slightly different approach: click on the below chart compiled by Millions Against Monsanto[45] to see how many former Monsanto VPs and legal counsel are now holding positions with the FDA. And don’t forget Clarence Thomas, former Monsanto attorney who is now a Supreme Court Justice, ruling in favor of Monsanto in every case brought before him.
A Baker’s Dozen: #13 – Terminator Seeds
In the late 1990s, Monsanto developed the technology to produce sterile grains unable to germinate. These “Terminator Seeds[46]” would force farmers to buy new seeds from Monsanto year after year, rather than save and reuse the seeds from their harvest as they’ve been doing throughout centuries. Fortunately this technology never came to market. Instead, Monsanto chose to require farmers to sign a contract agreeing that they will not save or sell seeds from year to year, which forces them to buy new seeds and preempts the need for a “terminator gene.” Lucky for us… since the terminator seeds were capable of cross-pollination and could have contaminated local non-sterile crops.
What’s the Result of our Disgusting Monsanto Legacy?
Between 75% to 80% of the processed food[47] you consume every day has GMOs inside, and residues of Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide outside. But it’s not just processed food—fresh fruit and vegetables are next: genetically engineered sweet corn[48] is already being sold at your local grocer, with apples and a host of other “natural” produce currently in field trials.
How is it that Monsanto is allowed to manipulate our food after such a dark product history? How is it they are allowed to cause such detrimental impact to our environment and our health?
According to the Organic Consumers Association[49], “There is a direct correlation between our genetically engineered food supply and the $2 trillion the U.S. spends annually on medical care, namely an epidemic of diet-related chronic diseases.
Instead of healthy fruits, vegetables, grains, and grass-fed animal products, U.S. factory farms and food processors produce a glut of genetically engineered junk foods that generate heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer—backed by farm subsidies[50]—while organic farmers receive no such subsidies.
Monsanto’s history reflects a consistent pattern of toxic chemicals, lawsuits, and manipulated science. Is this the kind of company we want controlling our world’s food supply?
P.S. Monsanto’s not alone. Other companies in the “Big Six” include Pioneer Hi-Bred International[51] (a subsidiary of DuPont), Syngenta AG[52], Dow Agrosciences[53] (a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, BASF[54] (which is primarily a chemical company that is rapidly expanding their biotechnology division, and Bayer Cropscience[55] (a subsidiary of Bayer)
