The Department of Health and Human Services defers questions about organic foods to the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has no policy on organic products; it says they are the domain of The Department of Agriculture. But its mandate is simply to regulate the use of the certified organic label. The agencies entrusted with safeguarding the food and health pass the potato, a fast-growing body of scientific literature suggests the connection between farm practice and the healthfulness of the foods merit attention. Not to judge the relative benefits of organic product against the conventional food products.
Organic foods do not come out ahead, but they rise to the top often enough to suggest that organic farming can increase the nutrient density of the food that we put in our mouths. Researchers of University of California at Davis found 10 years mean levels of quercetin were 79 percent higher in organic tomatoes than in conventional tomatoes. Quercetin and kaempferol are flavonoids that studies suggest protect against cardiovascular disease, cancer and other ills.
Other Davis study compared organic and conventional kiwis found that all the mineral constituents were more concentrated in the organic kiwi fruits. Also has higher ascorbic acid a precursor of vitamin C and total phenol content, resulting in higher antioxidant activity. Study measured 1.5 times more carotenoids, associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease in a Spanish study. In Swiss researcher Lukas Rist found, mothers consuming at least 90 percent of their dairy and meat from organic sources having 36 percent higher level of rumenic acid in their milk.
Based on a data collected by the Centers for Disease Control, “Thirty percent or more of the U.S. population ingests inadequate levels of magnesium, vitamin C, vitamin E and vitamin A, and all nutrients that we get from plants.” says Brian Hawley a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute. These studies give hope that organic farming can reverse the nutrient decline of fruits and vegetables.
