Study author says organic food headlines not the whole story

Results from a recent Stanford study are spawning headlines saying organic food is not healthier than non-organic food options, but one of the lead researchers in the study says there’s a little more to it. (AP Photo/file)

Results from a recent Stanford study are spawning headlines saying organic food is not healthier than non-organic food options, but one of the lead researchers in the study says there’s a little more to it than that.

The lead author on the Stanford study tells Ross and Burbank the research and results are a little more nuanced than can be expressed in a brief press headline.

“It’s so hard to get a message right,” says Dr. Crystal Smith-Spangler.

The Huffington Post went with “Organic Food Is Not Healthier Than Conventional Produce: Study.”

The Associated Press reports the study “concluded there’s little evidence that going organic is much healthier, citing only a few differences involving pesticides and antibiotics.”

Smith-Spangler says the study found that in organic produce, there was a 30 percent lower risk of contamination with pesticide residue compared with conventional produce.

The study also found that while chances of bacterial contamination in food was the same, when bacteria was found in meats, non-organic meats had a 33 percent higher risk of being resistant to multiple antibiotics.

What the study didn’t cover, however, is what impact these differences have on human health.

Just 17 of the 237 studies the team evaluated compared how people fared eating either diet.

“There just were very few human studies,” says Smith-Spangler.

She says the study wasn’t really looking at what level of pesticides in food is safe or what kind of threat more antibiotic resistant bacteria in food poses.

“It’s hard to know what the clinical implications of those findings are,” says Smith-Spangler. “We would have liked to have seen human studies that would answer that question we just couldn’t find any.”

For people concerned with avoiding pesticides, organic is a better choice, says Spangler. For those that trust food regulations will keep them safe, the study says neither organic or conventional were over the safety limits.

“I think people will have different preferences on risk of contamination with pesticide residue and may make different choices,” says Smith-Spangler, who says a better headline for the study would have been something like, “Your preferences for risk should govern your decision about whether you want to consume organic food.”

She herself eats both organic and non-organic. She thinks smart, rational people may make different choices when faced with the information in the study. The real goal of the study was just to inform people, she says.

“Lots have been written about it,” says Smith-Spangler. “We wanted to kind of synthesize the literature and put it in one place so people can take a look at it.”

By JAMIE GRISWOLD, MyNorthwest.com Editor