A poll out last week from the Organic Trade Association found a sharp decrease in parents who say price is a key factor limiting their organic purchases. “Parents in charge of the household budget recognize the benefits of organic,” said the trade group’s Laura Batcha. “And they’re willing to pay a little more to know that they are giving their families the highest quality and most healthy products being offered in their local store.”
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We can already hear the organic food naysayers: Highest quality? Healthy products? Hogwash, the organic industry just wants you buying more of their products.
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But the truth is choosing organic-certified foods—when you can and can afford to—is one of the best choices you can make for your children. We should know: As a mom of two girls and an author of books about sustainable food (Anna) and as a pediatrician and father of four (Alan), we have a handle on the research and firsthand experience.
We choose organic because we know, for example, that children fed an organic diet have much lower levels of metabolites of high-risk insecticides in their bodies. We also know that choosing organic food reduces the risk of exposure to toxic pesticides in our diet. The President’s Panel on Cancer 2008-2009 report stated: “The entire U.S. population is exposed on a daily basis to numerous agricultural chemicals.” And its authors continued: Many of these chemicals are known or suspected to cause cancer or disrupt our hormones, mimicking testosterone or estrogen. “Nearly 1,400 pesticides… registered by the Environment Protection Agency for agricultural and non-agricultural uses…have been linked to brain/central nervous system, breast, colon, lung, ovarian…as well as Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma,” and more.
The American Academy of Pediatrics also warns about the exposure to pesticides: “Children encounter pesticides daily and have unique susceptibilities to their potential toxicity, chronic health implications from both acute and chronic exposure are emerging,” wrote the group in 2012.
While we can’t limit all of our children’s exposures to toxins in the environment, we do have a say in the food they eat. And one of the best ways to limit their exposure to these chemicals is choosing an organic food diet. Because of the persistence of pesticides in the environment, no food is 100 percent residue free, but Dr. Benbrook of the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University has found that organic food has significantly lower pesticide residues than conventional foods.
Choosing organic meat and dairy for your kids is also the best way to ensure they’re not exposed to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in their food such as the synthetic hormones given to non-organic livestock to speed growth and alter reproductive cycles. And choosing organic meat and dairy means your children are not fed meat that was raised on daily doses of antibiotics to speed growth, leading to dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Your kids will get more of the good stuff, too. A recent study commissioned by the farming cooperative Organic Valley comparing organic and non-organic diary production found a medically significantly higher concentration of omega-3 fatty acids, also known as “heart-healthy”, in organic dairy products. “Organic Valley is proving what our farm families have known for a long time,” said George Siemon, a founding coop member. “Not only is high-quality pasture and forage better for cows, it produces nutritionally superior whole milk.”
Organic food is a healthy choice for all of us, but especially for kids. Infants and children are particularly vulnerable to chemicals in part because their immune systems are still developing and in part because, pound-for-pound, they’re exposed to more chemical residues than adults. Another reason is that children and babies tend to eat a lot more of certain foods than adults, think bananas or apples.
The developing fetus in the womb is perhaps most vulnerable of all: Three studies by scientists at Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Mount Sinai Hospital tracked women exposed to higher amounts of an organophosphate pesticides while pregnant and found that once those children reached elementary school age they “had, on average, I.Q.’s several points lower than those of their peers.”
We also make the choice for organic not just for the health and safety of our own children, but for the health and safety of all children, especially to help protect the children of the people who grow and harvest our food. We know, for instance, that children born to women exposed to pesticides in agricultural fields or communities have lower I.Q.s and other troubling health outcomes.
What about that 2012 Stanford study that allegedly found organic food is no better for you? The meta-study—or study of studies—was reported widely in the media to have found “little evidence of health benefits from organic foods.” While the study found conventional produce is five times more likely than organic to contain pesticide residues, the authors dismissed this conclusion based on evaluating only the total number of pesticide residues on food, not the toxicity of the residues. Critics of the study stressed that this toxicity – a particular residue’s risk to our health – is what matters. According to Dr. Benbrook, using the same data set, but assessing health risks based on the known toxicity of residues reveals “a 94 percent reduction in health risk” from these most concerning pesticides when eating organic foods.
This summer, you can join with families all across the country heading out to their local farmers markets or supermarkets seeking organic food, knowing that when we can and can afford to make the choice, organic is one the best choices we can make for the health of our families.
Anna Lappé is the co-founder of the Small Planet Institute and a national bestselling author, most recently of Diet for a Hot Planet. Dr. Alan Greene is a leading pediatrician and author of Feeding Baby Green, among other books.