Organic Illusions

We don’t have enough land and we can’t afford the opportunity costs of a return to a romantic version of agriculture. But we can afford a food system that provides lots of choices.

Michael Pollan, 2008: But on the other hand, there is this trend towards organic foods, which restore [sic] a lot of … nutrients partly by nourishing the soil with organic matter and partly by using older varieties that are often more nutritious.

Michael Pollan, 2012: I think we're kind of erecting a straw man and then knocking it down, the straw man being that the whole point of organic food is that it's more nutritious. The whole point of organic food is that it's more environmentally sustainable. That's the stronger and easier case to make.

A recent study by a group of scientists at Stanford University found that the nutritional benefits of organic food have, to say the least, been oversold. Apres moi, les deluge. A furor has erupted.
In our modern-day version of holy wars, we’ve replaced debates about gnosticism and Manichaeism with arguments about the virtues of locally grown versus sustainable versus organic. As with all wars over doctrine, the rhetoric has been fierce.
An online petition organized in opposition to the Stanford study seeks to drum the authors of the study out of the academic community, although one gets the impression that professional defenestration is insufficient. Perhaps people who commit food heresy could be sentenced to spend eternity in a Big Mac–filled purgatory? Stanford University and the authors have been accused of being in bed with food producer Cargill, and all the bishops of the foodie orthodoxy have responded by disagreeing and, in many instances, changing the subject.
The British version of the Food and Drug Administration commissioned a study in 2009 with results strikingly similar to Stanford’s. This is not surprising to most farmers, who have to deal with what is, rather than what someone might wish.

Read more: http://www.american.com/archive/2012/october/organic-illusions