Organic foods

OK. Well, anyway, if I want to avoid all of this stuff – additives, pesticides, GM, etc. – I can just eat organic food, right?

Sort of. Organic food is generally free of artificial chemicals but it may still contain natural additives or pesticides.¹⁶ For example, emulsifiers, the preservatives that we were discussing earlier, are often made from soy and are commonly used in organic foods. And, actually, the bacteria that were used to make the GM corn are often used directly as a pesticide on organic farms. They just spray the bacteria directly on to the plants.

Um, OK. So is organic food actually any better than non-organic food?

Probably. Even though organic foods might still contain some additives, they typically contain fewer than non-organic foods.

OK. And since there is a lot that we don’t know about a lot of additives, we’re probably better off eating food that contains fewer of them.

I think so. But this is where a skeptic would say, “But there is no proof that eating organic food is better for you.” And they’d be right, there is no proof.¹⁷

Well, you said that we can never really prove anything when it comes to real-world, long-term effects on human health because we can never do a perfect study. But there might still be strong evidence to support a belief one way or the other.

Oh, right. But, in this case, there is hardly any evidence to consider at all. There just haven’t been many studies comparing animals or people who eat organic food and people who don’t.

So would you recommend organic food?

I would, yes. But not because I can make a definitive case that organic food is healthier.

So why bother?

Well, in the absence of strong evidence one way or another, what do we do?

We make our best guess based on first principles.

Right. So I tend to eat organic food simply because it tends to be less processed than non-organic food.