Nutrition notions.

Organic believers have been claiming superior nutrition from the very beginning. Yet decades of research have proven otherwise.

The U.S. Organic Trade Association's Web site includes a "Nutritional Considerations" page that states, "There is mounting evidence that organically grown fruits, vegetables, and grains may offer more of some nutrients."

What is the "mounting evidence"? The first study the OTA cites was written by a graduate student and published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (JACM), hardly a mainstream scientific journal.

After reviewing 41 previously published studies dating back to the 1940s, the author, who runs a "naturopathic" clinic in Washington, D.C., says organic foods have 13 to 30 percent higher levels of vitamin C, iron, magnesium, and phosphorus. Yet most of the studies reviewed cannot be trusted as scientifically reliable.

Twenty three of the 41 "studies" reviewed were published in junk science journals such as Biodynamics, a publication devoted to promoting the extreme theories of mystic organic founder Rudolf Steiner. Five of the "studies" were merely presentations at international organic farming conferences.

The second "study" listed on the OTA's nutrition Web page is also a review of previous studies, commissioned by none other than the Soil Association, the organization that hides its own research that shows no nutritional differences. The author of this review runs an organic food company in Australia and has no formal nutrition training. To come to the weak conclusion that "there is indicative evidence suggesting nutritional differences" he had to reject as invalid 70 of the 99 studies he reviewed. Most of the 70 rejected studies were the reliable sound science ones. Again, garbage in, garbage out.

Editor's note: Third in a series of excerpts from author Alex Avery's book "The Truth About Organic Foods". To order a copy, go to www.AgriMarketing.com.

by Alex Avery, Director of the Center for Global Development, Hudson Institute