Eating Organic: A public health necessity?

1. Eating Organic:
A public health
necessity?
Yana Puckett, MD

2. Introduction
○ Regulations
○ Politics
○ Cost-effectiveness: Safe at any Price?
○ Health benefits?
○ Pesticides
○ Organic: Hype?
○ Genetically Modified
○ Labels
○ Future of Organic?

3. What is organic?
○ According to the United States Environmental
Protection Agency:
○ “"Organically grown" food is food grown and processed using no
synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. Pesticides derived from natural
sources (e.g., biological pesticides) may also be used in producing
organically grown food. Increasingly, some consumers are purchasing
organically grown and processed foods as a way to reduce their exposure
to synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.”

5. A Profitable Business

6. Regulation of Organic
○ To be certified as 100% organic
○ Land usage
○ Management practices
○ Crop rotation practices
○ Pest control policies
○ Livestock origin, feed, healthcare, and living conditions
○ Prevent commingling of product

7. Certified Organic

9. Cost Effectiveness
○ Must pay certification costs up to $2000 annually
○ Cost between 50-100% more than traditional farm products
○ EWG determined produce worth vs those not worth
spending the extra money on.
○ 2012 – $35 billion industry
○ Stanford study
○ Mandatory labeling

10. Health Benefits of Organic Foods
○ More nutritional value
○ Claim: Pesticides may limit nutrition
absorption properties of produce
○ Benefits of no pesticides

11. What are phenols?
○ Cancer chemopreventive – flavonoids!
○ Capture free radicals before DNA damage
can occur.
○ Free-radical theory of aging

13. Data from “New evidence confirms the nutritional superiority of plant-based organic foods,” by Charles Benbrook, et. al.
The Organic Center, March 2008.

14. Factors that Affect Nutritional
Content
○ Vitamins and phytochemicals
○ Weather (affecting crops year-to-year)
○ Specific environmental conditions from one
farm to the next(microclimates)
○ Soil condition
○ Length of time the specific plots of land had
been worked using organic methods

15. Soil Quality and Style of Farming
○ ~Six recent studies of nutrient content of
organic tomatoes, only one showed no
significant differences between organic and
conventional farms (3).

16. Weather
○ Burbank tomato study.
○ Quercetin?
○ Kaempferol?

18. Pesticides
○ World pesticide use exceeded 5.0 billion lbs in
both 2000 and 2001. (5).
○ Both the amount of pesticide residue on
foodstuff and the amount released into the
atmosphere are factors that should be
considered when purchase organically raised
food.

19. Pesticides
○ Organic foods were much less likely than non-
organic produce (by a factor of 10) to have
two or more residues. (1)
○ Only 2.6% of organic foods had detectable
multiple residues compared to 26% of
conventionally grown foods. (6)

20. Pesticides
○ Organically raised foods had one-third the
amount of chemical residues found in
conventionally raised foods (1).
○ Compared to produce grown with integrated
pest management techniques, the organic
produce had one-half the amount of residue
(1),

22. Pesticide Residues
○ Highest percentages of insecticide residue findings(6):
-celery (96%)
-pears (95%)
-apples (94%)
-peaches (93%)
-strawberries (91%)
-oranges (85%)
-spinach (84%)
-potatoes (81%)
-grapes (78%)
-cucumbers (74%)

25. Organic Farming
○ Cruelty Free farming
○ Organic chicken
○ The Happy Egg company
○ http://youtu.be/AHsvetb6nXU
○ http://youtu.be/tloxthQu7vQ

26. Natural Phenomenon
○ Terms like “all natural,” “non-toxic,” “earth-
friendly,” or containing “natural botanicals,”
but the ingredients list chemical after
chemical.
○ No regulating agency to verify whether any of
the claims are true.
○ Marketing claims can be misleading.

27. Labeling: Beware!

29. Genetically Modified, Foods
○ Antibiotic and virus resistance
○ Herbicide resistance
○ Scientific studies: no greater adverse health risk
than conventional food (8-10).
○ Long term studies needed.
○ Regulation is questioned.

30. Future of Organic Food
○ Community gardens
○ Healthy Living City Designs: Space for
community gardens and farmer’s markets,
especially low income areas.
○ Vertical farming

31. Community Gardens

32. Vertical Farming

33. Vertical Farming
○ Glass space, vertical + artificial lighting.
○ Ken Yeang and Dickson D. Despommier
○ Feeding the world in the 21st century
○ Eliminate world hunger

34. Proponents for Vertical Farming
○ Preparation for future
○ Crop production year round
○ Protection of crops from pests and weather
○ Animal extinction stopped
○ Methane energy production
○ Organic crops! Easier regulation! Impact
human health.

35. Criticism of Vertical Farming
○ Questionable profitability
○ Greenhouse gases
○ Water source depleted

36. Conclusion
○ Growing business, surpassed $13.8 billion in
2005 (Organic Trade Assn. 2006).
○ Health benefits exist
○ If you can afford, buy! If not, no big deal!
○ Vertical farming

37. References
○ 1 Baker BP, Benbrook CM, Groth E 3rd,Lutz Benbrook K. Pesticide residues in conventional, integrated pest
management (IPM)-grown and organic foods: insights from three US data sets. Food Addit Contam 2002;19:427-
446.
○ 2 Chassy AW, Bui L, Renaud EN, et al. Three-year comparison of the content of antioxidant microconstituents and
several quality characteristics in organic and conventionally managed tomatoes and bell peppers. J Agric Food Chem
2006;54:8244-8252.
○ 3 Juroszek P, Lumpkin HM, Yang RY, et al. Fruit quality and bioactive compounds with antioxidant activity of
tomatoes grown on-farm: comparison of organic and conventional management systems. J Agric Food Chem
2009;57:1188-1194.
○ 4 Mitchell AE, Hong YJ, Hoh E, et al. Ten-year comparison of the influence of organic and conventional crop
management practices on the content of flavonoids in tomatoes. J Agric Food Chem 2007;55:6154-6159.
○ 5 Pesticides industry sales and usage. 2000 and 2001 market estimates.
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/pestsales/01pestsales/market_estimates2001.pdf [Accessed October 23, 2014]
○ 6 U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Pesticide residue monitoring program 2000.
http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/Pesticides/ucm125171.htm [Accessed October 23, 2014]
○ 7 American Medical Association (2012). Report 2 of the Council on Science and Public Health: Labeling of
Bioengineered Foods
○ 8 United States Institute of Medicine and National Research Council (2004). Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods:
Approaches to Assessing Unintended Health Effects. National Academies Press. Free full-text. National Academies
Press. See pp11ff on need for better standards and tools to evaluate GM food.
○ 9 Key S, Ma JK, Drake PM (June 2008). "Genetically modified plants and human health". J R Soc Med 101 (6): 290–
8. doi:10.1258/jrsm.2008.070372. PMC 2408621. PMID 18515776.