Organic Center Responds to FSA Study

In response to the recently released study by the United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency citing no nutritional difference in organic foods, The Organic Center (TOC) of Boulder, Colo., has released a response contending the agency downplayed positive findings.

In FSA’s written report, TOC states, “the London team downplayed positive findings in favor of organic food. In several instances, their analysis showed that organic foods tend to be more nutrient dense than conventional foods. Plus, their study omitted measures of some important nutrients, including total antioxidant capacity. It also lacked quality controls contained in a competing study released in 2008 by The Organic Center (TOC). Last, the FSA-funded team also used data from very old studies assessing nutrient levels in plant varieties that are no longer on the market.”

Authored by Chief Scientist Charles Benbrook, Retired Research Scientist Donald Davis and Washington State University Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture Preston K. Andrews, the TOC response is base on a review of the same literature by a team of scientists convened by the center. The TOC team analyzed published research just on plant-based foods. Results differ significantly from the FSA review and are reported in the study "New Evidence Confirms the Nutritional Superiority of Plant-Based Organic Foods".

The full response is available at the TOC website.