UK Study Misleads Public by Ignoring Documented Health and Environmental Benefits of Organic Food

SVI founder and Renewal2 advisor Gary Hirshberg voices his thoughts on the new study dismissing the health benefits of organics.

UK Study Misleads Public by Ignoring Documented Health and Environmental Benefits of Organic Food
The Huffington Post
by Gary Hirshberg
July 31, 2009

As Stonyfield Farm President and CE-Yo, I believe that a new study dismissing the health benefits of organics does in fact mislead an increasingly savvy public by ignoring documented health and environmental benefits of organic.

The supreme irony is that this study is getting an enormous amount of media attention in part because of heightened consumer awareness of where our food comes from, thanks to the popularity of the documentary "Food, Inc." and the discussion it's triggering across the country. "Food, Inc." lays bare just how bankrupt and dangerous our current food system really is, and what we are allowed to know about it. The result is that consumers are looking more critically than ever at studies like this.

I agree with the Organic Center (TOC), a non-profit industry think tank, that the authors of the United Kingdom's Food Standards Agency (FSA) study used old data and flawed logic in reaching the conclusion that organic food is no healthier than conventional. TOC alleges that the UK study actually downplayed the positive findings which favored organic food and did not measure important nutrients such as antioxidants.

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