Study examines benefits of organic foods

A Stanford University study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine last week showed thateating organic produce and meat reduces a consumer's level of pesticide ingestion and exposure toantibiotic-resistant bacteria. While these statements might seem obvious to anyone paying half-attention, they are an important reinforcement of long-held beliefs by those of us who choose tobetter our bodies by living organically.

Unfortunately, the headline you may have heard about the study sounded more like this: OrganicFood is Not Healthier Than Conventional Produce; Study Sees No Nutritional Edge in OrganicFoods; Still No Evidence that Organic Food is Healthier; and on, and on, and on.

The researchers at Stanford drew three conclusions from the more than 230 field studies and 17human studies they analyzed. The two I already mentioned are fantastic confirmations of what manypeople already suspected about organic meat and produce. The other - that organic foods may not besignificantly more nutritious than conventional foods - is a dangerous misinterpretation ofinformation and worse, a potential ploy to encourage consumers to buy conventionally grownproduce for the sole purpose of marginalizing the organic food industry.

By acknowledging that if you avoid fruits and vegetables grown with pesticides you will have fewersuch toxins in your body, the Stanford study does more than confirm the "significant" nutritiouseffect this action can have on humans. When food is cultivated with pesticides, the chemicals oftenspread beyond the crop, and into the surrounding soil, water, and air. The person eating foodstreated with pesticides is hardly the only one experiencing the associated negative health effects.

For instance, though the United States banned the chemical DDT, an insecticide also used foragricultural purposes, in 1973, its use persisted in "minor" crops, as well as for public health reasonsand export of the material, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Thirty-threeyears after DDT was banned in this country, a 2006 study by the University of California at Berkeleyfound that in utero exposure to DDT was associated with developmental delays in young children.

What's more, a 2010 study in the journal Pediatrics linked exposure to other pesticides, known asorganophosphates, to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children. And a trio of studiespublished in 2011 in Environmental Health Perspectives showed that when children were exposed toorganophosphates in the womb, they had lower IQs by the time they entered school than kids whohad virtually no exposure.

Aside from harming our children, pesticides affect wildlife, particularly the mysteriouslydisappearing bees whose pollinating powers are vital to crop sustainability. This past spring, teamsof researchers in France and Britain suggested that low levels of common pesticides calledneonicotinoids fog the brains of honeybees, and also prevent bumblebees from supplying their hiveswith enough food to produce a new queen. Heard of colony collapse disorder?

Rather than highlight the positive outcomes of the Stanford study, the media went for the jugular,seizing the opportunity to misinform the public with a flashy headline questioning the nutritiousvalue of organic foods, all in the name of selling more papers or increasing website clicks.

By definition, the DNA of genetically modified organisms has been altered in a way that does notoccur naturally, according to the World Health Organization. Food producers cite the advantages ofgenetic modification as increased crop protection, disease resistance, and herbicide tolerance. Idon't know about you, but the idea of putting anything unnaturally altered into my body because itmakes life easier for conventional food producers is not terribly appealing.

I want my fruits and vegetables to come from the land, not from the lab. I want to derive from myorganic fare the many benefits reported in reputable studies done elsewhere, like the one publishedlast year in the academic journal Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences. It revealed that organic fruitsand vegetables contain on average 12 percent more health-promoting compounds thanconventionally grown produce - compounds like secondary metabolites, which are believed toprotect against obesity, cancer, and heart disease.

The myth that organic foods are no better than their conventional counterparts is beyond salacious:it is simply untrue. The Stanford study itself says so, if you choose to read it that way. The wide-ranging negative health effects of pesticide use are blatant, and when you buy organic fruits andvegetables you send a message to conventional food producers that their poisonous methods will notbe tolerated. And the same goes for choosing organic meat: by selecting this antibiotic-free methodof raising cows, chickens, and pigs, you not only repudiate the disgusting conditions in which lessfortunate animals live, but you help prevent the spread of potentially deadly, antibiotic-resistantsuperbugs.

In this way and so many others, you can better the world for yourself, your family, and creatures bigand small, purely by eating organic foods. It actually is that simple.

Deirdre Imus, Founder of the site devoted to environmental health, dienviro.org, is President andFounder of The Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center(TM) at Hackensack  University MedicalCenter and Co-Founder/Co-Director of the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer. She is a NewYork Times best-selling author and a frequent contributor to FoxNewsHealth.com, and Fox BusinessChannel. Check out her website at dienviro.org. 'Like' her Facebook page here.