Category archives for Organic/Conventional

The organic halo alters food and exercise choices

Tweet Nutrient-based claims on food labels are shown in some research to promote calorie underestimation.  This is often called the health halo effect; certain buzz words associated with what people consider healthy cause them to overgeneralize other attributes of a food, downplay the number of calories, and not pay as much attention to the nutrition [...]

Organic agriculture pest control through enemy evenness

Tweet Recently I wrote about a study on organic vs synthetic pesticides on sustainability, which suggested that organic pesticides are not always more efficacious against pests nor as selective (not killing natural enemies of pests) than synthetic pesticides. Earlier this month a study was published on a related area: organic farming on natural enemy evenness.  Different farming techniques can [...]

Organic pesticides aren’t necessarily more sustainable than synthetic

Tweet It would seem illogical that organic compounds are all more sustainable than synthetics, or vice versa.  The term “organic” has a health halo, biasing many people toward believing organic growing techniques are best for the environment.  I’ve already covered analyses suggesting that there isn’t enough evidence that suggests organic foods are better for your [...]

Organic vs. conventional food on health: not enough data

Tweet You may recall last year’s review by Dangour and colleagues that concluded, based on 162 studies (55 met the inclusion criteria), that “there is no evidence of a differencein nutrient quality between organically and conventionally producedfoodstuffs.” This brought about much controversy on the web, as well as a rebuttal by Benbrook et al.  Media reporting [...]