In an announcement that made parents everywhere scratch their heads in disbelief, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement last month questioning whether organic food was really any better for children than conventional food.
The statement, which was published in the Journal Pediatrics, comes on the heels of a Stanford University study touting similar conclusions.
Dr. Janet Silverstein, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville and co-author of the Academy’s statement, said that the science is lacking as to whether eating pesticide-free food makes people any healthier.
Hold on just one minute!
The American Academy of Pediatrics actually needs “rigorous” scientific data to prove that eating food without poison is better than eating food with poison simply because the poison is “within safety limits”?
Doesn’t this strike you as just a wee bit ridiculous and tantamount to saying that science hasn’t proved that the sun comes up in the morning so we are going to assume it doesn’t until further studies are done?
As my grass-fed dairy farmer is fond of saying, “You just can’t fix stupid”.
For those of you who might have been more than a little confused by this statement, I filmed a brief video to discuss organic versus conventional food as it relates to fresh produce.
I also attempt to clarify the not so obvious point that locally grown fruits and veggies are where it’s at nutritionally speaking even when compared to organics.
Interesting how the American Academy of Pediatrics statement completely omitted this salient point!
The video also discusses how to best clean off pesticide residue from locally grown produce that might have been minimally sprayed or simply not “certified organic”.
What did you think of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ statement? Did you laugh and shake your head as I did? Did you roll your eyes in dismay? Will you change any of your buying habits as a result of it?
References
American Academy of Pediatrics Says Organics No Better
The Hydroponic Invasion of USDA Organic
i don’t need a study to tell me one way or the other. common sense tells me food grown with the use of chemicals is not the healthiest option.
I thought the studies were comparing vitamin and nutrient content between organic and non organic. Which I never new was even a thought…. I aim for organic so my family can get LESS chemicals and so on!
I hear the argument that it’s hard for families to afford REAL food…but I have to say…I am about as POOR as it gets.
I am a single Mom getting no help from the “sperm donor” and I can figure out how to feed my kids REAL food.
I use coupons and sales to save money for the items like organic produce that rarely has coupons.
Sure it would be easier to throw fast food on the table and be done with it but if you just put a LITTLE effort into it and make a few better choices…
you CAN feed your family REAL food on very little money.
I thought it quite ironic that this study was released less than 2 months before Californians were to vote to label GMO’s in our food. Totally intentional if you ask me. I could just hear people saying to themselves, “Certainly if prestigious Stanford University, an unbiased institution of learning found that pesticides were not harmful, then why should I believe all this new hogwash about GMOs being harmful?
I think it would be advisable to list those foods that pesticides, herbicides, fungicides do NOT wash off easily from – like strawberries……
It’s been said, and we all know the truth: politics and money
It does make you wonder? The government just doesn’t want to admit how wrong they have been with gmo crops and pushing an unsustainable way of farming. I do want to point out, that just because a group of people like Conventional Pediatricians believe “one” thing that is wrong doesn’t make them wrong about everything. I am trying to research the vaccine topic myself, but find both sides equally turning a blind eye to certain “problems” in their arguments. I think it might be possible that the idea of vaccines are not 100% bad, but perhaps we just don’t know enough about how the body works yet, or which vaccines we really need. Should we experiment on people? Never- we need to push more studies and make the government work for us. We do have a pretty corrupt system, but does that mean everything in the system is bad? How do we divide truth from fiction, when a lot of people are just pushing their own agenda? I will assume that whoever created vaccines was trying to help humanity not hurt it. Now, that doesn’t mean the whole process hasn’t become high-jacked by the government and drug companies (really trusting neither) it still doesn’t mean that everything they promote is bad. There are good things that come from conventional medicine and the government(willing to admit less good than bad) I feel the people pushing against the conventional forget that there are good things that happen too, and those should be notified and praised.
I think we need to remember that we are human, our understanding is limited, and we are still learning new information. We should help others with the information that we know, but not communicate that we “know” everything. A lot of published literature I read seems more stemmed in theory than fact, and I think we need to be cautious about doing the same thing the “other side” does when it comes to presenting our “case”.
Very, very, very well said. Love it.
Yes local is good and organic is even better.
Local which doesn t use pesticides but is usually not organic because the organic certification cost a lot in Europe.
Now when you wash produce you only remove surface bad stuff but you can t remove the pesticides,fungicides… Which penetrate the skin of the produce. So green leaves are always organic by us.
Joan, million of Americans are clearly idiots (hehe) or maybe its just that America makes it impossible for many families to afford REAL food. They are stuck buying poison and on top being lied to about it. It’s a disgrace…it must be changed.
Hmmmm..should I eat food sprayed with POISON or food NOT sprayed with POISON??
Do they think we are IDIOTS??