February 8, 2017 – TO report prepared for the European Parliament, co-authored by the Harvard Chan School Philippe Grandjean, associate professor of environmental health, describes the health benefits of eating organic food and practicing organic farming.
Why did the European Parliament commission this report and what was its most important conclusion?
The European Parliament is concerned about food safety and human health. They asked a group of experts from various countries to review the potential health benefits of organic food and organic farming. Our report reviews the existing scientific evidence on the impact of organic foods on human health, including in vitro and animal studies, epidemiological studies, and analysis of food crops.
The most important information in this report refers to pesticides in food. In conventional food, there are pesticide residues that remain on the food even after it is washed. Organic food is produced with practically no pesticides.
Authorities in both the European Union and the United States insist that current limits on the amount of pesticides in conventional products are adequate to ensure that they are perfectly safe. But those limits are based on animal studies, which look at the effect of one pesticide at a time. The human brain is much more complex than the rat brain, and our brain development is much more vulnerable because there are many processes that have to happen at the right time and in the right sequence; you can’t go back and do them. on.
Three long-term birth cohort studies in the US suggest that pesticides are damaging children’s brains. In these studies, researchers found that women’s exposure to pesticides during pregnancy, measured through urine samples, was associated with negative impacts on their children’s IQ and neurobehavioral development, as well as ADHD. [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] diagnostics. Additionally, one of the studies looked at structural brain growth using magnetic resonance imaging and found that gray matter was thinner in children the higher their mothers’ exposure to organophosphates, which are widely used in pesticides. I think that’s pretty scary.
Although the scientific evidence on the impact of pesticides on the developing brain is incomplete, pregnant and lactating women, and women planning to become pregnant, may wish to eat organic food as a precautionary measure due to the important consequences and possibly irreversible to children’s health. If there are times when organic food is not available, one option is to buy foods that need to be peeled (potatoes or pineapple for baking, for example), but steer clear of products like leafy greens. A good resource for learning about the pesticide content of various foods is the Environmental Working Group, which maintains lists of products with the highest levels of pesticides, as well as those with the lowest levels. There is also a website from the US Environmental Protection Agency that lists ways to reduce exposure to pesticides in food.
What were other key messages from the report?
We know that the over-frequent use of antibiotics in farm animals is a contributing factor to the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, a major threat to public health because this resistance can spread from animals to humans. On organic farms, the preventive use of antibiotics is restricted and animals have more space to roam in natural conditions, reducing the risk of infections. These techniques have been found to improve animal health, prevent disease, and minimize antibiotic resistance.
There are also other, albeit minor, benefits of organic foods, such as higher content of some nutrients and less cadmium, but they are not important enough to guide food choices.
How could the European Parliament boost support for organic food and farming? If so, could it bring about similar changes in the US?
Our report listed several policy options that the European Parliament could consider to support and expand organic food production. For example, politicians could reduce or eliminate taxes on organic food. They could reduce taxes on organic farmers. We also suggest supporting more research to learn more about the benefits of organic food.
If the European Parliament takes action, I hope that it can influence practices in the US as well. There is a lot of food exchange between the European Union and the US. Clearly, if the EU is going to favor organic products more in the In the future, that will open an opportunity for US organic food producers. And vice versa: if EU farmers offer more organic products, that could be attractive to American consumers. And perhaps the joint effect of that could be that organic farming, in both Europe and the US, would become more sustainable both economically and environmentally.
– Karen feldscher
Learn more
Organic food: panacea for health? (The lancet)
Read a slightly shortened version of the report on organic food to the EU Parliament published on October 27, 2017 in the magazine Biomed Central: “Human Health Implications of Organic Food and Organic Agriculture: A Comprehensive Review”
* Editor’s note: This story was updated on February 12, 2017.