I laugh when people talk about “organic” food…all food is organic…I’ve never seen any edible plastic food. However it seems the hippies aren’t getting anything extra from their “organic” food…except a much lighter wallet:
Stanford University Medical Centre has concluded that there is no clear evidence of any added health benefit to organic food. The researchers sifted through 240 different studies and were unable to identify specific fruits or vegetables for which organic appeared consistently to be the healthier choice. They also found that the risk of E. coli contamination was unrelated to farming methods.
It is the latest salvo fired in a long-running war between the organic food industry, scientists and increasingly confused British shoppers.
The research could not come at a worse time for the organic industry in Britain, which last year witnessed a sales drop of 4 per cent in organic products to £1.67 billion – the third consecutive year when sales have fallen significantly in this country. At one point, annual sales were more than £2.1 billion. The great organic boom of the Nineties and Noughties, which saw organic food transformed from a minority interest espoused by the lentil- munchers of north London into a major industry supplying every supermarket in the country – even McDonald’s – has come to an end.
The recession is largely to blame, as consumers decide that a scoop of organic Sandringham Duchy Original strawberry ice cream is a luxury they can probably afford to skip.
