General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Weed: Legalize and tax it [View all]farminator3000
(2,117 posts)botany of desire is GREAT. he wrote the omnivore's dilemma, too, but B of D is the best to start with, i think. (there's a whole section on weed)
JON BROOKS: So is this meta-study a big deal?
MICHAEL POLLAN: I'm not sure it's a big deal. The media's playing it as if there were something new here, but this is not new research, it's a meta-study [a review of previously conducted research], and I've seen the exact same data analyzed in a very different direction. A lot of it depends on how you manage your assumptions and statistical method.
I think we're kind of erecting a straw man and then knocking it down, the straw man being that the whole point of organic food is that it's more nutritious. The whole point of organic food is that it's more environmentally sustainable. That's the stronger and easier case to make.
It's true the body of research around nutrition is really equivocal, and we need to do more studies on that. But the success of organic doesn't stand or fall on that question. This study disputes how significant the differences in antioxidant and nutrient levels are between organic and conventional food. But that's not central to the discussion of why organic is important, which has a lot more to do with how the soil is managed and the exposure to pesticides, not just in the eater's diet but to the farmworker.
http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2012/09/04/michael-pollan-organic-study/