Skeptic Project

Any good resources out there for debunking this little phenomenon? Namely, I'm looking for points on whether or not non-organic foods has any sort of health risk. More specifically, I got in a debate with one of these folks the other day, and one claim he made was that hormones injected into Cows make there udders swell up with too much milk because they are producing more than they are used to, this in turn can cause sickness in the cow (mastitus?) and so they must then be injected with antibiotics. In turn, the antibiotics enter the milk and we drink it, and that's why organic milk is better.

So, anyone know of any good reference guide out there to address that claim and other general claims by the organic food crowd?

There is some evidence that hormones and antibiotics alter the nutrition level of meat. There is next to no evidence that organic fruits and vegetables have more nutrients or are more healthy. In fact, there are usually more pesticides on organic food because they have to use natural chemicals that are not as powerful as synthetic.

As for sources... I ran a search that I used months ago to find the above information, but I'm not finding the articles. Mostly what comes up in my online database is information about how great organic farming is. I should probably deselect databases that house popular magazines.

The Skeptoid episode about this topic was decent: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4166</p>

The threads at JREF regarding organic food are good, as well. If I can find my old sources, I'll let ya know.

counterproductive fad

Yeah, looking through these skeptoid episodes now, thanks. And aaronmhatch, if you can find some specific threads that would be great too.

"There is some evidence that hormones and antibiotics alter the nutrition level of meat."

In a good way or a bad way?

Luckily, I nor my wife -- nor kids -- are allergic to poison ivy or poison oak, so it hasn't been a priority to clean that stuff out.