Quantity counts more than quality
Your organic meal will probably look and taste better, too, but does it really pack a bigger nutritional punch?
The debate has rocked back and forth for years but now, for the first time, a comprehensive scientific analysis suggests the answer to that divisive question is a resounding yes.
Eating organic fruit and vegetables is the same as adding an extra one or two portions to your recommended five a day, a team of international researchers at Newcastle University has found.
Organic food, researchers said, contains more health-giving antioxidant compounds and fewer toxic chemicals than regular food which, in turn, can significantly improve its nutritional benefit.
It doesn’t sound like a controversial — or even a new — finding. Conventional wisdom would be the first to act as cheerleader for organic fruit, vegetables, and cereals.
But it’s not as simple as that.
The last wide-ranging investigation into organic versus regular food drew on 223 studies and concluded there was very little difference. That was as recent as 2012.
And even if this new study does show differences, are they nutritionally relevant?
Tom Sanders, a professor of nutrition at King’s College London, has said he is not convinced and claimed the researchers had “oversexed” the report.
No doubt the debate will rumble on but the real issue, according to Orla Walsh of the Dublin Nutrition Centre, is not whether fruit and vegetables are organic, but whether people are eating enough of them.
“In Ireland, the Government recommends we get at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, but we are not coming close to that — it would be more like two or three portions a day,” she says.
If people are advised to switch to organic — which is invariably more expensive — it is also likely that they will eat even less fruit and veg, the dietician warns.
And like Prof Sanders, she points out that assessing the nutritional content of produce is extremely complex: it can depend on the quality of the soil, the weather at the time it was grown, whether it was grown on a hill or on a north-facing plot, to mention a few of the variables.
It makes more sense then to focus on the quantity of fruit and veg rather than whether it is organic or not, she says.
And it makes sense to favour vegetables over fruit, she says quoting the results of a study conducted by Dublin Nutrition Centre in conjunction with Bord Bia in 2013.
Healthy Ageing, the Seniors Market compared diets in Ireland, Japan, Sweden and the UK and found that the Japanese’s vegetable-rich diet had significant health benefits.
Vegetables are full of vitamins, minerals, and potassium (dubbed “the enemy of salt”) which helps to control blood pressure.
Vegetables are also rich in phyto-compounds. Orla Walsh explains: “That’s a fancy word for the plant nutrients that help prevent conditions and diseases. They are what give vegetables their smell, taste, and colour so it makes sense to eat an array of different coloured vegetables to make sure you are getting lots of different nutrients.”
So, don’t just eat your greens, chase the rainbow.
