“Healthier?  Perhaps.  A study by the University of California-Davis in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry in 2003 found that identical varieties of corn, strawberries, and blackberries grown in neighboring plots using different methods (organic versus conventional) showed that organic methods produced significantly higher levels of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and a wide range of polyphenols.

Today, these secondary metabolites known as polyphenols in plants have been touted to play some role in preventing or fighting cancer, may exhibit antimicrobial properties, and may play an important role in human health and nutrition.  So, score a victory for the organic camp.

Why though would organic berries carry more polyphenols?  One theory contends that polyphenols are a plant’s natural defense system against predators.  These plant pesticides may not need to be as strong in chemically fertilized soil, as external pesticides serve as a man-made equivalent.  More convincingly, conventional soil that is chemically treated is simply not as biorich and may not provide the necessary nutrients for plants to synthesize the full range of complex polyphenols.  This lack of polyphenols not only may compromise their health benefits but also deprive the fruits and vegetables of their characteristic robust taste, that is also benefit of richly diverse and abundant polyphenol content.

Polyphenols may explain why highly refined food that contains rich vitamins simply don’t cut it.  You can’t stick vitamins into a Twinkie or into a bottle of Coke and expect a miracle.  You need solid fruits and vegetables in large part because of their polyphenols, and organic versions just might be better for us.

Is organic better for the environment?  Here Pollan extends an unqualified yes.  More specifically:  the absence of pesticides that may trickle through the farmworkers’ bloodstream, the nitrogen and growth hormone spilloff into the water supply, the poisoned soils, the dangerous pathogens arising from indiscriminate antibiotic treated animals, and the absence of subsidy checks to cover all of that. However, the one big thing that still limits an industrial organic meal is the insane amount of fossil fuel required to produce the meal, on order similar if not the same as a conventional industrial meal.  Unfortunately, going back to the pasture may not be feasible today, but we all can try.  I have a garden in the backyard, and whatever I eat from it I think of how glorious and unadulterated that food stream is from the soil to my mouth.”

(Source: lfp-blog.com)