Organic vs. Conventional Foods

This was a very interesting read from Scientific American (link).

We should continue to analyze pesticides, but we should not scare people away from eating fruit and vegetables because of the slight risk associated with them. They provide too many health benefits for people to be avoiding them. The levels of pesticides in conventional crops have not proven to be detrimental to health. Some level of pesticides may actually 'gear up' our immune system and provide a health benefit. Organic crops have less synthetic pesticides, but apparently many organic crops use organic pesticides (I had not heard of this before). In which case, I want these organic pesticides to be under the same level of scrutiny as synthetic pesticides.

My one concern may be shortsightedness on part of toxicologists. Do pesticides (organic or synthetic) have a long term affect? It seems the studies sited in this article find no correlations, but I find it hard to believe that such large epidemiological studies exist (I could be completely wrong though and have not done the research).

So I guess my advice is:

1. Eat as much fruit and vegetables as you can
2. Don't worry about pesticides
3. Buy what you can afford. I don't think anyone can claim at this point whether conventional or organic crops are more beneficial from a health standpoint (environmental considerations may give organics an edge?)