Maybe someone better at computer manipulations than I am could find the article.
Okay, here's what you do. Search npr and look for the article "Why Organic Food May Not Be Healthier For You" by Allison Aubrey and Dan Charles.
Mark, this is your link:
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=160395259&m=160526718
I have a mixed feeling about this report. From one hand, I already expressed my scepticizm regarding "organic" anything (see above). From another hand the way how scientific data was interpreted is controversial for couple of reasons:
- all good nutrients in organic or non-organic food should be the same - it is obvious - organic carrot contains exactly the same carotene as non-organic. Thus, "nutrient value" must be the same, no surprise here.
- standard "nutrient" tests cover only very small portion of what is in the food. For instance, they measure amount of carbohydrates - sure, it would be very similar in organic and non-organic. Non-organic could be even more sweet!
- BUT: there are million other elements in the food, which may be beneficial to us or not, which were not measured for some reason. This is what makes a difference between my tomato from my garden and ANY other tomatoes! This part was completely missed in the study and authors confirm that.
Simple example: technically, the major composition of honey is very similar to high-fructose corn syrup. So, following the logic of the study, there is no nutritional difference between these two. But we all know that honey is way different from the corn syrup, right? So, unfortunately, I have to admit that even Standford sometime produces very shallow science - they checked only big things and ignored small things, which actually do a difference.
The problem is that FDA set very "wide" limits and if you are within these limits - everything is the same. I would not be surprised if they measure the nutritional value of toilet paper and will find that it is withing the limits, AND very dietic - zero calories and a lot of beneficial fibers - go ahead, eat toilet paper instead cucumber (cucumber is just water and fibers).
If somebody interested, there is more balanced presentation of the story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/10/stanford-organic-study-author-limitations_n_1870952.html
Keep in mind, that they are talking only about "nutrition value", which is the same as expected. The presence of antibiotics and pesticides and other stuff was not included in their conclusion. They also did not perform their own research - they just use published data... Totally useless work. I am shocked by such low quality of research under Stanford name.
Sergey