Speaking of Tom Philpott, he takes issue today with my contention that studies don't show that organic fruits and vegetables are measurably more nutritious than agriculture grown through conventional means. The most recent data on this come from a massive literature review commissioned by Britain's Food Safety Agency (their version of our FDA, essentially) and conducted by Britain's London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. They concluded that a "systematic review of literature over 50 years finds no evidence for superior nutritional content of organic produce."

Philpott has a couple of problems with this. He notes that the Organic Center -- an outlet funded by organic food companies -- has published studies coming to a different result. He also notes that they published a critique of the British survey. Among their criticisms was that "the [British] team did not include total antioxidant capacity among the nutrients studied," which makes me pretty suspicious, given the wealth of studies showing that antioxidants do not appear to reduce the risk of cancer or heart disease or anything else.... more By Ezra Klein