The Truth About Organic Foods

The calculations outlined in the “Acute Toxicity” sidebar contained an error in presenting LD50 doses as body weight, thereby overestimating the equivalent human body weight doses. Below is the corrected text. I apologize for this error and have brought it to your attention as quickly and transparently as possible.

Alex Avery

Corrected text:

There are two types of toxicity: chronic and acute. Chronic toxicity refers to health problems caused by long-term exposures to low doses of a substance. Acute toxicity is the immediate impact of a high dose of a chemical or substance.

One way that acute toxicity is measured is the Lethal Dose 50% (LD50), the dose that kills half of the population of a test organism. The lower the LD50, the more toxic the substance.

Thiabendazole has an oral LD50 (if ingested by mouth) in rats of 3,100 to 3,600 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg). There are 1,000,000 milligrams in a kilogram, so this is a 0.3 to 0.36 percent of body weight dose. In mice, the LD50 is 1,400 to 3,800 mg/kg, or 0.14 to 0.38 percent of body weight. Using the conservative 0.14 percent LD50 from mice, this works out to nearly a quarter pound (0.217 lbs) of pure thiabendazole for a 155 lb human male (equivalent to 100 grams in a 70 kilogram adult). Even if thiabendazole were toxic at half that dose, the 0.4 mg of thiabendazole in the pessimistically contaminated theoretical pound of apples is still less than 0.01 percent of an acutely toxic dose (1/11,250^th). And even at high doses there aren’t any long-term (chronic) toxicity concerns with thiabendazole, such as cancer.

For comparison, the organic insecticide pyrethrum has a mammalian LD50 ranging from 200 to 2,600 mg/kg. The minimum lethal dose in humans (yes, it has killed humans) is 750 mg/kg in children. Thus, organic pyrethrum is over twice as acutely toxic as thiabendazole.

The organic fungicide copper sulfate has a mammalian LD50 of 30 mg/kg, making copper sulfate at least 45 times more acutely toxic than thiabendazole.

Alex and Dennis Avery
August 9, 2007

A new study published in an alternative agriculture journal has gained widespread attention by claiming that organic farming not only could adequately feed the world, it might even yield more food and require less farmland. It is a truly sensational claim.

In science, the more sensational the claim, the more robust the evidence needed to support it. This time, the evidence doesn’t stack up. In fact, the evidence fell so far short that the journal that published the paper also published not one, but two scathing and dismissive “editorial responses” in the same issue. This is anything but a ringing endorsement.

A simple comparison of the authors of the paper and critiques is revealing. The “organic can too feed the world” authors are a collection of urban academics without any agricultural experience. The lead author studies fossil squirrel’s teeth at the University of Michigan’s Museum of Paleontology. The others are with Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment. In contrast, the authors of the two critiques are an agronomist at the University of Nebraska, Kenneth Cassman, and Colorado organic farmer Jim Hendrix.

As Cassman put it, “their analyses do not meet the minimum scientific requirements for comparing food production capacity in different crop production systems.”

First, many of the studies they relied upon to support their claim simply aren’t reliable. One large data set (comprising over half of the “yield ratios” they used to estimate food production in the developing world) are merely guestimates of increased productivity from a questionnaire sent to activists running organic “demonstration” farms. That doesn’t even remotely approach “science,” especially when the returned questionnaires include implausible organic yield increase claims of more than 500 percent. Another large dataset used by the Michigan researchers is so questionable that a paper critical of it published in the journal Field Crops Research was titled “Fantastic yields in the system of rice intensification: fact or fallacy?”

Central to this entire debate is the shortage of organic nitrogen fertilizer, aka manure. Currently, there is only enough animal manure to support one fifth of current global crop production. The only way to get more organically is to devote more land to legume crops or animal pastures that fix more nitrogen – which would require billions of acres of additional farmland the world doesn’t currently have.

The Michigan researchers dismiss this sobering reality by calculating that, theoretically, enough nitrogen can be fixed by growing cover crops during fall/winter and between crops to make up the shortfall. As Dwight Eisenhower once stated, “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from a corn field.”

The final, sadly amusing testimony to the fantasy world occupied by these researchers comes from the conclusion of their policy forum article, where they point to the shining example of Cuba as “one of the most progressive food systems in the world” where organic farming is successfully feeding a country. Ah, yes, the famed Cuban “agricultural enlightenment” brought about by the ending of Soviet industrial fertilizer and pesticide donations.

How has Cuba fared after “going organic?” According to unofficial statistics, Cuba suffers massive food shortages and rations basic food staples. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to these Cuban immigrants interviewed in a December 27, 2006 story on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition:

Joel Lopez, a skinny 19-year-old who arrived on Dec 14, 2006 in Miami through the [immigration lottery], or Bomba as it is called in Cuba. Through a translator: “Everything is so surprising here, the cleanliness of the streets, the food, the shops. Well, there is no comparison. . . . I have been telling [my friends] about a Chinese buffet I went to. I told them about how you can serve yourself again and again!”

Sitting next to him is Louisa Martinez. Her husband was a baker in Cuba. But still for her, it’s the food that is most dazzling. Through a translator: “Oh the food! Here there is a surfeit of food. Over there, there is a LOT of hunger. It’s terrible.”

So who are you going to believe: The urban pencil pushing elites, or the real farmers and real victims of the so-called “progressive food” movement?

Dennis Avery is a fellow at the Hudson Institute. Alex Avery is director of research at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Food Issues and author of the new book The Truth About Organic Foods.

The Augusta Chronicle
Mark Tribby, D.V.M.
August 12, 2007

Excerpt…

I read with disappointment the announcement in The Augusta Chronicle recently by the Kroger Co. that they would no longer sell milk from cows that have been treated with rBST (a.k.a. recombinant bovine somatotropin, or growth hormone sold under the brand name Posilac). The reason stated was that customers of the grocery chain have preferred purchasing milk “free of hormones and antibiotics.”

It is a shame that Kroger has caved in to pressure from the uniformed rather than educating the public on their concerns. rBST has long been manufactured in Augusta by the Monsanto Co., employing more than 200 of our neighbors. It is simply a cost-effective management tool already used on one-third of the entire U.S. dairy herd (an injection into the cow, not the milk) that allows small dairy farmers to compete with the corporate giants in producing milk in an economical manner. Do we want our milk prices to spiral even higher by taking away a safe product that can level the playing field?

THE RBST supplement safely allows underproducing cows to increase the amount of milk produced to levels near naturally high-producing cows -but only if their health, nutrition and care are optimal. It doesn’t work on unhealthy or poorly cared-for cows.

The Food and Drug Administration has studied this drug more than any other animal drug to date. Its findings consistently show that milk from cows treated with rBST is identical with nontreated cows; the natural levels of BST are the same in treated or nontreated cows. Natural BST and rBST have no biological effects in humans, even when injected, much less consumed as a wholesome food, as has been the case for generations.

The FDA and the Georgia Department of Agriculture does not allow any antibiotics to be present in milk, and each tank from the dairy farm is tested for drug residues down to the parts-per-million level before it can be processed and sold. If any such substance is found then the entire bulk tank contents of milk are discarded, farmers are fined, and risk their livelihoods…(The writer is an Augusta veterinarian.)….

Full article at The Augusta Chronicle.

The Augusta Chronicle
Damon Cline
August 12, 2007

Excerpt…

Milk from rBST-treated cows is safe for human consumption and has not been found to be different from milk from non-treated cows.
– U.S. Food and Drug Administration position statement of March 16, 1994

You might have heard about the recent decision by Kroger Co. to stop selling milk produced by dairies that use the hormone rBST on their cows.

Let me rephrase that: You must have heard about the recent decision, because Kroger said it was you, the consumer, who motivated it to become “rBST-free” by February 2008.
What’s that? You’ve never heard of rBST? How about its full name: recombinant bovine somatotropin? Some folks call it rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone). Still not ringing a bell?

Here’s what it is: A man-made copy of a hormone that is naturally produced in a cow’s pituitary gland. The lab-made hormone, like the natural one, stimulates milk production in cattle. It was approved for use by federal regulators in 1994 and is made here in Augusta by Monsanto Co.,* which markets it under the brand name Posilac.

Dairy farmers who purchase the hormone see their milk production increase by about 15 percent. The milk is not different; there is just more of it.

Kroger acknowledged this when it made its announcement Aug. 1, pointing out that “there is no difference” between milk produced at dairies that use rBST and those that don’t. Companies that shun rBST, including Safeway and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, say essentially the same thing.

So why all the fuss? I’m trying to figure that out, but I suspect it has less to do with health and wellness, and more to do with marketing and merchandising.

Food marketers can create new, more expensive product categories if they can convince consumers that “rBST-free” dairy products are somehow better. Fortunately for the grocers, they don’t really have to work too hard – there’s no shortage of all-natural/organic/free-range/cruelty-free organizations out there passing off junk science as fact. According to these groups, rBST is bad for cows and maybe, just maybe (quick, get Michael Moore on the line!) can cause cancer in humans. The common theme is that because rBST is the result of biotechnology and engineering, it has to be bad.

These folks probably don’t like seedless watermelons, either.

Monsanto says the Kroger announcement will have little impact on its Augusta facility, which employs about 120, because in 2009 the company will begin moving production from a supplier in Belgium to the local plant. Common sense dictates that if every grocer stopped buying milk from dairies that use rBST, there no longer would be a market and the Augusta plant probably would shut down.

If that were to happen, and I doubt it would, I would raise my milk glass and give the facility a farewell toast. I won’t care whether the milk in the glass was produced by an rBST dairy or not, because in the end, it’s the same milk….

Full article at The Augusta Chronicle.

Terry Etherton’s Blog (Biotechnology)
By Terry Etherton
July 29th, 2007

Excerpt…

The latest American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Marketbasket Survey was released in July, 2007. The informal survey shows the total cost of 16 basic grocery items in the second quarter of 2007 was $42.95, up about 4 percent or $1.61 from the first quarter of 2007. A total of 82 volunteer shoppers in 32 states participated in the latest survey, conducted during May. Of the 16 items surveyed, 14 increased, one decreased and one stayed the same in average price compared to the 2007 first-quarter survey. Compared to one year ago, the overall cost for the marketbasket items showed an increase of about 8 percent. Regular whole milk showed the largest quarter-to-quarter price increase, up 34 cents to $3.46 per gallon.As retail grocery prices have gradually increased, the share of the average food dollar that America’s farm and ranch families receive continues to decrease. “In the mid-1970s, farmers received about one-third of consumer retail food expenditures on average. That figure has decreased steadily over time and is now just 22 percent according to Agriculture Department statistics,” AFBF Economist Jim Sartwelle said. AFBF, the nation’s largest general farm organization, conducts its informal quarterly marketbasket survey as a tool to reflect retail food price trends. According to USDA statistics, Americans spend just under 10 percent of their disposable income on food annually, the lowest average of any country in the world.

Milk Price Trends

The most recent Marketbasket Survey has begun to track the prices of conventional milk, rbST-free milk, and organic milk. No surprises here - rbST-free and organic cost a whole lot more! More of the old “smoke and mirrors” marketing campaign of charging a whole lot more money for nothing. As readers of my Blog know there are no compositional differences within a fat category among conventional, rbST-free and organic milks.

For the second quarter of 2007, shoppers found the average price for a half-gallon of regular whole milk to be $2.22. The average price for one gallon of regular whole milk was $3.46. Comparing per-quart prices, the retail price for whole milk sold in gallon containers was 28 percent lower compared to half-gallon containers, a typical volume discount long employed by retailers.

The average price for a half-gallon of rBST-free milk was $3.01, 36 percent higher than a half-gallon of regular milk. The average price for a half-gallon of organic milk was $3.65, 64 percent higher than a half-gallon of regular milk.

These data agree with my own observations. I was in Minneapolis, MN the week of July 22, 2007 and did an informal survey of milk prices in several different grocery store chains. Interestingly, the differential between conventional and rbST-free was the same for the different chains - the rbST-free cost $1 a gallon more compared to conventional milk! Wonder how these stores got the same markup? That is fodder for another blog.

(Read more at Terry Etherton’s Blog)