The Truth About Organic Foods
Product Description
The Truth About Organic Foods by Alex Avery,Director of Research and Education, Hudson Institute. Are organic foods really worth their high prices? Are they as healthy as you think? This is the first-of-its kind book dispels the many myths that marketers of organic foods have been circulating in a scientific-based, and at times, humorous approach. Consumers, retailers, food companies, and farmers will find this book highly enlighting and helpful when they are faced … More >>
The Avery’s have been waging their personal jihad against Organics for more than a decade. The fact is, conventional Ag groups that supported them in the past are now converting some of their operations to Organic, so this book is some sort of last gasp effort to save face.
The book is full of the typical half truths and outright lies that we have seen Alex produce in the past. His scientific evidence is best described at truthiness.
Net net bottom line, Organics continues to grow in double digits supported now by Wal-Mart, Safeway and most Fortune 100 food companies. Countries around the world have organic standards conforming with international Codex regulations and are promoting Organics as a way to keep chemicals out of the environment. Major land grant universities are now offering advanced degrees in Organics, where 10 years ago their Ph.D.’s stated outright that it was impossible to grow commercial volumes of Organic foods.
Sad and Pathetic is how best to describe this book, since the conservative Heritage Foundation the main supporter.
1Rating: 1 / 5
It is filled with quotes taken completely out of context, major conclusions drawn from absolutely no research….just some other article, and things that just don’t make any sense. It’s absolutely amazing he would make this publicly available. I’m embarrassed for him.
2Rating: 1 / 5
Ok, so if you have been wanting someone to come along and validate your beliefs that organic foods aren’t worth the price, this is the book for you. It presents research that “proves” organics aren’t safer or more nutritious than conventionally-grown foods. Of course, the pro-organic folks can provide you with an equally voluminous AND valid set of research that demonstrates the opposite – organics are both safer and more nutritious. You can always find research to support your position no matter what your stance happens to be on a given topic. When you encounter studies or polls you do not agree with, you discount them. When you find supportive info, you laud it. That appears to be the strategy used by this author, this book, and the Hudson Institute (conservative think tank).
The reality (and fact) is that we don’t completely know the whole “truth” about organics in terms of safety or nutrition. You can decide for yourself whether the gamble of consuming pesticides and GMOs are worth it. Beyond that, a lot of people choose organics (not to mention locally-grown foods) simply because the entire process of growing and distributing them is more earth-friendly, often with more ethical treatment of workers, and organic food growers also provide some means by which the big food companies cannot completely monopolize the food industry.
I think that it is always better to view both/all sides of an issue and then make the decision that fits best with your personal ideology, values, principles, ethics, etc. This book touts itself as “the Truth” and yet it is glaringly one-sided in its scope. To me that is not only false advertising, it is simultaneously arrogant and cowardly.
3Rating: 1 / 5
Let me start with some perspective: Avery is director of research and education at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Food Issues, according to the web site financed by corporate contributors including Eli Lilly and Company, Monsanto, DuPont, Dow-Elanco, Sandoz, Ciba-Geigy (Now Syngenta), ConAgra, Cargill. The same institute also offers “Unstoppable Global Warming”, a book explaining why global warming has nothing to do with human activity.
4Any book claiming “the truth” makes me somewhat suspicious. If that truth is that organic food and farming are pure hype with no redeeming factors whatsoever, then it smells of imbalance at best, a diatribe more likely.
Avery’s collection of opinions and research results seems quite well-founded and provides real information. The claim that there are no serious research results confirming better nutritional value of organic food is disputable, but may be not too far from the truth – if chemical analysis is the only criterion of quality. But why wallow in the occult approach by Rudolf Steiner in the 1920′s, when there are plenty more current ecologically oriented proponents around? Why pick the most ideologically driven representatives of today’s proponents? And the crowning feat: Organic food production is environmentally destructive because if everyone did it, we would have to cut all forests and degrade wildlife habitat in order to feed everyone. While it is true that organic yields generally are lower, with this logic we should close our colleges, because if everyone went to college, who would work the fast food jobs?
No doubt the organic movement always had its share of ideology and hype. But without the challenge of organic “extremists”, we probably would have sprayed persistent pesticides much longer, would not yet have made Integrated Pest Management a staple of modern plant production, and global agri-suppliers like the ones listed above, would have an even tighter grip on the world’s farmers and consumers. None of this is even touched in the book. Instead, the author complains that organic proponents hinder progress in genetically altered crops. While we cannot and should not stop progress, maybe some checks on the giddy pace of new bio-technology applications will prevent us from doing things we regret. Remember DDT?
Avery assures us that if pesticide residues stay within government limits, we don’t have to worry about anything. How could I ever be so naïve to think that cancer, increasing allergies etc. might have anything to do with the cocktail of low level residues we live with….
Rating: 2 / 5
It’s unpleasant when scientific facts get in the way of one’s idealogy. The scientific fact is that organic food is no more safer and no more nutritious than non organic food. And organic food costs consumers significantly more, without any additional benefits. And it is a fact that organic food yields per acre are significantly lower than non organic food, requiring more land – more water – more labor and more scarce resources. The organic vision is an unrealistic myth, where the reality is actually the opposite of what is portrayed to uninformed consumers. Mr. Avery’s book is fact based, scientifically supported, and a wakeup call for consumers who are being fed rubish by Organic companies trying to profit from fear mongering.
5Rating: 5 / 5