Is Organic Food Worth the Cost? | 5 Minute Video
Are organic foods really healthier than non-organic foods? Are they better for animals? Are they better for the environment? Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, explains.
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Script:
“You are what you eat,” goes the old saying. And everywhere we are urged to eat organic: it’s more nutritious, pesticide-free, and protects animals and the environment. At least, that’s what we are being told – or rather, sold. And thanks to a lot of very effective marketing, many people believe it. That’s why, when researchers at Cornell University gave study participants a choice between two identical items, one labeled “organic” and one “regular,” the participants confidently declared the “organic” choice to be lower in calories and more nutritious. They also said they’d pay 16 to 23 percent more for the organic choice. But these beliefs about organic food have nothing to do with reality.
In 2012, Stanford University’s Center for Health Policy did the most comprehensive comparison and found organic foods are not nutritionally superior to conventional alternatives. And a more recent review of 20 years of research into animal products by Italian researchers confirmed these findings. The authors concluded: “Scientific studies do not show that organic products are more nutritious and safer than conventional foods.”
That’s fine, you might say. You don’t eat organic foods just because of the health benefits, but because you care about the treatment of farm animals and of the environment. Unfortunately, the facts don’t support these beliefs either.
Animals on organic farms are not generally healthier than regular farms. A five-year US study of dairy farms showed that “health outcomes [for animals on organic farms] are similar to conventional dairies.” And the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety reached a similar conclusion. It found “no difference in objective disease occurrence” on organic dairy farms as compared to conventional dairies. And while pigs and poultry on organic farms may enjoy better access to open areas, this freedom, studies show, also increases their exposure to parasites, pathogens and predators.
As for the environment, yes, organic farming will mean that in any one field, a farmer will use less energy and create fewer greenhouse gases. But there’s a problem here. By forgoing fertilizers and pesticides, organic farming is much, much less efficient than standard farming, which means that organic farmers need much more land to grow the same amount of food.
A major study in Europe found that to produce the same gallon of milk organically, you need 59% more land. To produce meat, you need 82% more land. And for crops, it’s more than 200%.
And more land for agriculture means less land for nature. If U.S. agricultural production was entirely organic, it would mean we would need to convert an area bigger than the size of California entirely to farmland. Economically, the lower productivity of organics means we have to commit more resources – land, labor and capital. The total cost to the US economy of going organic would run to about $200 billion annually.
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/organic-food-worth-cost
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Come on! Get the chemicals out of all food let the animals out ! Put our money into our food care about our country and its people!
There’s no doubt that organic tastes better than non organic at least where I’m from. Nutritional content and cancer rates, I don’t know.
When I studied Horticulture, I was shocked by the amount of chemicals used in growing food. The soil is dead, so chemicals are added to add nutrients, kill weeds, help the plant grow. Every step is another reason to add chemicals.
Luckily we now have people understanding that our health comes from our soil, and anyone half interested in their health can learn that healthy soil is key! And any sort of chemicals damages and kills the soil micro biome.
So complain all you like about the cost, but to me, the price is worth it! And if something is just too expensive don’t buy it! Last week my local supermarket was charging $7.90 for one cauliflower! Not organic BTW and no one was screaming at that cost. You either buy it or you don’t.
Try spending less on clothes, cupboards overflowing with shoes, makeup, fashion, designer this and that, and use your money wisely to support your health 😊
I love prageru but I'm disappointed on how they feel about food and GMO. Sure, the people who are pro organic have usually been liberal, and prageru is good at providing the facts that counter the ridiculous liberal policies and desires. But that doesn't mean we have to try to prove them wrong about something as important as organic food. Maybe we need to listen to them and see why people are against harmful chemicals that our body doesn't recognize. Maybe we should realize a lot of studies on food are published by an FDA that wants to keep us sick. Maybe we should look at other countries whose food is more fresh and organic and they don't have all the sicknesses and food sensitivites we do. Let's go back to making food the way God intended for the sake of our health
This is wrong. I strongly disagree with prager u on this. This is so wrong and misleading
This video is harmful, talmudic garbage. Glyphosate (roundup) is sprayed on wheat, oats, and corn to kill the crop, poisoning the very grain you eat at the cell level, just so Monsanto can save money at harvest time. Glyphosate kills the biome in the soil and bacteria in your gut. It causes neurological damage in kids, autoimmune diseases and cancer. I just cured my autoimmune condition by eliminating all glyphosate contaminated products from my diet. I did that by buying organic grain and milk. The only reason it took so long for me to start buying organic was because I believed this video after watching it years ago.
AWESOME video unmasking the HUGE MARKETING PLOY { that rakes in $$$ MILLIONS FROM THE GULLIBLE} that is the fake story about "organic" being safer, more nutritious, and better for the environment !!! Congratulations. 100 thumbs up !!!
You forget that for organic food is for its proponents a religious experience, you can be religious about any thing you do, and get a religious fanatic to change with facts is a hard go.
But….is it healthier for the animal or the consumer??????
As I'm watching this I'm eating 5 home-grown tomates – 100% organic.
First; when it comes to taste, sorry, it's a completely different thing not only from the supermarket ones, but even those sold by local farmers. (I got 12 different Italian varietys) I used nothing else but compost and manure.
Secondly; as for those organic fertilisers, I've always had my doubts and never used them.
And lastly, yes, organic farming requires more land and there is less produce, so commercially speaking it doesn't make much sense.
I wholly disagree on taste though – my tomatoes which I grew from seed disagree with this video too.
If it takes more land to grow organic crops then reason would dictate that it would take more water to irrigate, more labor to plant and care for the plants, as well as more exhaust from the equipment used. How does that save a planet?
The Left: if people can't afford organic bread, then let them eat organic cake!
아휴 그동안 무한신뢰로 유기농을 선택한 내 자신이 😂
We need less people…. The U.S. is too big. We need to lower our numbers by about 2/3
I don't usually go organic but I have been buying organically-grown fresh spinach that is supposed to be ready to eat right out of the container. Well no more. It was probably the source of the e.coli that made me violently ill for several hours and took 10 days to recover from just a couple of months ago.
While I agree with you that the blanket statement that organic is a marketing ploy. Bjorn did make some valid points. I also agree that the topic was too broad. He covered everything under the organic label both plants and animals. But the first point is literally comparing apples to apples and there has been multiple studies saying the organic claim that organic vegetables are more nutritious is false. I do believe this is an organic marketing ploy that has never been backed up satisfactorily. Medical doctors and nutritionists agree that comparing an organic apple with a conventional apple raised under similar conditions and the same variety has no significant difference in nutritive value. Further, they have said, it is more important for better nutrition to eat a variety of foods, especially vegetables and fruits than it is whether it is organic or not. They do say that less pesticides are better, but the American food supply is generally safe and pesticide levels are very low. Organic levels may be lower, but then again, there should not be any at all. And only chemical pesticides are tested. Who is testing organic produce regularly for pesticides used on organic crops? Now, as far as animal products are concerned. The grass finished beef is shown to contain more healthy fat than grain fed animals. Personal reasons for choosing organic over conventional have nothing really to do as to whether organic produce is better. It is just a personal choice and does not really belong in the argument as to whether organic is better than conventional. Organic pesticides are not all targeted. Pyrethrins are short acting but highly toxic to bees and other beneficial insects. He is right that organic is more labor intensive, and there is a carbon footprint because organic farmers may still use powered tools, trucks, farm equipment, so they do not have a negative carbon footprint. He is also right that organic cannot feed the world with the current land available. More land will be needed and since most of the corn, and soy, and a lot of grain is actually being grown not for human consumption, but for animal feed. The only way to reduce the carbon footprint further would be to reduce the amount of land used to produce animals (eat less meat), and convert more land to human food production. Organic fertilizers do help build the soil, but they are inefficient and you need a lot of it and it is not readily available to plants when they need it. You will have to supplement.
I use synthetic fertilizer because it is more efficient in my small garden and I don't want to lug bags of compost and manure every time I work my garden. I don't have enough space to let half of it go fallow, or grow a green manure. Organic fertilizers have more potential for containing pathogens and heavy metals. And not all organic fertilizers are required to be tested regularly. If the source of the composts are contaminated with herbicides or heavy metals, you won't necessarily find out until you have a problem. I also do soil tests and only use the amount of fertilizer I need. It also saves me $ since I need to buy less fertilizer. I also practice no till or minimum tilling, and I used to add 4 inches of compost with each planting cycle, but my soil organic matter is too high, and the phosphorus went up, so I have backed off to 1-1.5 inches of compost instead. I practice IPM and have a good garden patrol. I only use pesticides when I don't have any other choice. My pesticide of choice is water or I will use organic pesticides if they work. Things should not be either or, there are advantages to organic practices but also to using modern fertilizers and modern farming practices to breed better plants and increase yields on the same or less land. I have tried to grow organically. I have encountered poorer yields, more pests and disease issues because I found out the hard way that some organic fertilizers are not complete and that led to weak plants susceptible to pests and disease. When I did get a crop, there wasn't really any difference in taste. Granted anything harvested fresh from the garden, especially a variety grown for taste and not for the market and hasn't been laying around on the market shelf for a week will most certainly taste better. There was a difference in size, yield, and cost. ( Organic fertilizers require 50% more, plus the cost of the supplemental fertilizer, and cost twice as much as conventional fertilizers. I could not find organic seeds for all the plants I grow. Some varieties don't have organic seeds. I grow GMO papayas and by definition they are not organic, but they do not get papaya ringspot virus either.
Non organic food can have nutrients and vitamins. But it can also have hydrogenated oil. High fructose corn syrup, fake coloring, potassium bromate and other carcinogens. Most ingredients the corrupt FDA allows in our food is banned in other countries. The narrator did nothing to address these points. And I usually agree with Prager u and consider myself right of center.
In the age of Atrazine and Glyphosate, this video will lose all the credibility that PragerU once held. Rarely anyone is buying organic because its more nutritious, its the lack of pesticides and herbicides which are killing the biosphere and the people consuming them. Also, recently, it has come out that chickens fed grain/corn mix are becoming virtually castrated, and free range chickens do absolutely fine.
You know why Lymphoma is rampant in the states that farm more, with much higher rates in sugar, corn areas? It doesn't take a genius to figure out. Atrazine is banned in most countries for this reason. The United States could care less because we are borderline special ed, but that doesn't make it right.
They kind of just made up an argument. I eat a lot of organic food but I don’t advocate to change the whole food system to organic nor do I shame my friends who don’t eat organic food or even care what other people do.
Ok I've bought the organic food scam from the start. But my grandparents had a farm. And the factory farm food of today tastes like cardboard by comparison. I, rather my wife to be accurate, grows vegetables and it tastes much better than the store bought equivalent. And you ignore the other chemicals in the food supply like hormones. What about those?
I think the country might be better off if all of today's California were converted to farmland
NO
absolutely disagree. enjoy your glyphosate etc. What a stupid untrue video.
I knew the complaints against Monsanto and Roundup Ready were a hoax. Let's bring back even healthier and more effective pesticides, DDT where are you? Compare "natural" pesticide side effects versus artificial pesticide side effects? That's beyond the agenda of this video!
جيوهوني
Many of my friends grow their food and animals without harmful chemicals and additives. My mother grew our vegetables organically since the 40s, before I was born. Her large garden provided enough to share with others. We were always blessed with everything we needed. My father worked hard and taught us good work ethics. God is so good.
Dollars to donuts I bet the “studies” were funded by Mansanto and company.
There's a big difference between organic and homegrown. We grow our fruit and veg without any pesticides. Our fruit especially, taste amazing. Picked ripe off the tree. There's no substitute
Always with the marketing. Amazing people are willing to pay more to feel better.
https://youtu.be/2Y5bGpWNYKc
Sounds like the Green Energy scam…
This is all for the liberal woke snowflakes and their virtue signaling!!!!
But there is nothing wrong with organic for me
Interesting!
Then where is the false advertisement lawsuit?
Come on Prager, please don't use the argument that animals should be caged to protect them from predators etc.
Probably like a lot of people I can go either way, but I'm also on a budget, so I usually don't buy organic,
thats why going vegan is more effiecant. and morraly superior.
If given the choice between an apple labeled organic and one that wasn't, I'd immediately reach for the one that is NOT labeled organic because I'd assume that the organic one was grown with an insufficient amount of pesticides and that it's more likely to have insect damage.