Nutrition experts given food for thought

SO Prof Jack Pridham says “any attempt to replace conventional food with organic requires careful investigation” (Letters, June 23).

But organic food is ‘conventional’ food. Humans have eaten organic food for millions of years — they have evolved to do so.

The introduction of pesticides and chemical fertilisers has taken place mainly in the last 50 years.

There are races who have eaten nothing but vegetables (in India) or animal fat (Eskimos) for thousands of years and there are also people who are perfectly healthy despite eating nothing but junk food.

Nutrition is an empirical science based on observation and experimentation, which can no more be understood by dismantling food than a computer could be understood by taking it to bits.

Commonsense tells us that anything that kills insects could be dangerous to humans, and that everyone is different in their nutritional requirements and weaknesses, but academic food experts arrogantly claim a complete understanding of nutrition.

The professor has got it the wrong way round — it is the replacement of organic food by GM food, food dosed with pesticides and food grown with chemical fertilisers that requires careful investigation.

The onus of proof is on the proponents of this new technology.

Michael Job

Rossnagreana

Glengarriff

Co Cork