Heavy Metals Found in Organic Agriculture; Does that Make Organic Dangerous?
Photograph from iLoveButter on Flickr
Organic agriculture is good for the earth, keeps soil healthy, fosters biodiversity, and recycles organic material without using any of those nasty synthetic chemicals. So if it's good for the earth, then it's good for us, right? Maybe, maybe not.
We know that conventional farming leaves nasty metals like arsenic, lead, cadmium, nickel, mercury and zinc behind, but could these same toxins exist in organic soil?
Yes, says Slate.
Scientists have known since the 1920s that organic fertilizers used by farmers to supplement conventional systems—composted animal manure, rock phosphates, fish emulsions, guano, wood ashes, etc.—further contaminate topsoil with varying concentrations of heavy metals. Organic advocates, who rely exclusively on these fertilizers, remain well aware of the problem today, although they rarely publicize the point.
The verdict is still out on whether organic soil is worse than soil treated with chemicals, but some studies have documented higher levels of metals in organically grown produce, and we know the effects these metals can have on our health: cardiovascular and neurological disorders as well as kidney and liver damage.
So, now we might risk our health by eating organic?
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11 Comments:
I would say that we are at risk by merely existing. Sure nature creates some nasty chemicals, trees naturally produce chlorine, but isn't heavy metal contamination most likely due to other human activities? Organic compost is only as good as the material that goes into it. Wild ocean fish are heavily contaminated with mercury - that does not mean that wild foods are dangerous in and of themselves. Am I wrong? It seems like natural processes persist because life is able to continue generation after generation using them so it seems that the act of material composting could not create more and more heavy metals, otherwise life would have ceased long before humans evolved. Therefore the heavy metals must exist in the soil because they were absorbed from effluents from other human activities. Everything is downstream...
christopher at 9:26PM on 09/10/08
Honestly, I'm not surprised. The unnatural process is the farming to begin with - we mess with the system by putting any fertilizer in the soil that wasn't there to begin with... or even planting (adding plants to an ecosystem that weren't there before).
This is especially true when we use animal byproducts for fertilizer - we're using a substance (manure, guano, etc.) that were waste products for some living being.. and then we concentrate all those cast off substances into one place (where they wouldn't be naturally).
Let's face it - most of things humans do aren't "natural" and have an effect on the environment... the trick is to assume we'll have an effect and figure out how to minimize it.
squawky at 10:33PM on 09/10/08
What Christopher said...it's all s#!t rolling downhill. Chemical fertilizers didn't come into widespread use until the 1940's, and industrial farming grew from that. When those studies were done in the 1920's everything was "organic" in today's terms. The toxins, then as now, come from environmental pollution by industry.
Scariest bit from the article on Slate:
Fantastic.
kurteye at 11:34PM on 09/10/08
soon they will discover that eating anything at all increases the likelihood of cancer and that walking on two feet almost always leads to spine damage. how does that old saying go? ah yes, ignorance is bliss indeed.
vinnyger at 1:10AM on 09/11/08
You can scrutinize every morsel you eat, and still get run over by a produce truck while crossing the street.
dbcurrie at 2:04AM on 09/11/08
Johnny Carson once said... "some day they will find out that the safest thing is a Beer and a Cigarette."
winebill at 7:08AM on 09/11/08
Great, just what the corporate conventional monoculture companies need - more dubious "evidence" that organic food isn't good for you. Surely nobody's going to claim that petroleum-derived fertilizers are better for human health than these natural, albeit polluting in their own way, alternatives??
producestories at 8:47AM on 09/11/08
Everybody reading this is going to die. Eat whatever vegetables taste best to you and STFU.
Doctrine at 9:16AM on 09/11/08
@Producestories AND Doctrine---
seconded.
sailor at 5:50PM on 09/11/08
I do not know who was testing what, but fact is, that there were hundreds of random tests, made by Greenpeace Europe in supermarkets and health food stores and groceries, where they tested what really is in the vegetables sold in the end.
Ands surprise, surprise: only the organic fruits and vegetables were more or less free of any metals or chemical substances - while the "standard" produce contained partially amounts which were directly dangerous to life, especially in young children (so several supermarkets got sued by Greenpeace right after the tests).
The amounts of "dangerous substances" which could be found in organic foods are constantly tested, not only by Greenpeace, but also by the organic monitoring organizations. There is 99% more chance to get sick from "usual" produce than from organic.
I am not rich myself, and I usually buy only animal derived products organic, in small amounts (meat, eggs, cheese). I can understand that some people get mad at the high prices, but spreading false rumors will not help anybody. Due to higher and higher demand some organic produce is sometimes sold already at the same price as the other or just slightly more pricey (apples, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, carrots). And, if you mistrust anybody and everybody, the best choice would be growing you own vegetables, or not?
litsakouzina at 11:03PM on 09/11/08
Oh good grief, what a pile of composted crap that Slate article is. First, the article doesn't even definitively SAY anything - it just makes a number of vague allusions to inconclusive studies peppered with "may" and "could" and "possibly." The first "study" they point to isn't even in a bona fide peer-reviewed science journal, and there for isn't even worth taking with a grain of salt. The second study - the Belgian wheat study - was at least in a science journal, but appeared to be a chemical analysis of commercial wheat rather than a controlled comparative study.
It's articles like this in the mass media that really drive me crazy. It serves no purpose: it's not actually reporting on anything, yet causes consumers to be afraid and spread unsubstantiated gossip.
"Gee I just read an article the other day that said organic food has lots of heavy metals. I don't know what heavy metals are, but I think they are bad so I will not buy these peas which were grown in a sustainable, chemical-free way, and instead opt for these GMO peas from Archer-Daniels Monsantoland because they are better for my family. The internet told me so."
ilovebutter at 12:29AM on 09/12/08