For many of us, the choice between organic and conventional food has become nearly impossible to avoid. You’re confronted with it in the produce aisle, the meat counter, the dairy section, even the “junk” food shelves. And for the health conscious, this raises a serious concern: by choosing organic, are you making a meaningful investment in your long-term health—or, are you significantly increasing your risk of future health consequences if you don’t?
That concern is not trivial. Embedded within it are some of the most important questions about the modern food system, the technologies and tradeoffs that have defined it, and how they impact human health: synthetic pesticides, genetically modified crops, antibiotic use in animal agriculture, and high-yield agricultural systems that some argue have reduced the nutrient density of plant foods. These are precisely the concerns the organic label addresses. It provides an alternative: a way to minimize your exposure to many of the modern food system’s most controversial practices and, in principle, reduce your risk of exposure-related health consequences.
And that is where our investigation begins. We examine the health-based claims for eating organic: whether synthetic pesticide exposure, genetic engineering, and residual antibiotic exposure from conventionally farmed foods are harmful to human health; whether organic foods meaningfully reduce those exposures; and, most importantly, whether those differences translate into better health for the person eating them.
