Indeed. We still don't understand enough about food to say that organic food is not better. If you stopped eating real food and only ate lard, soy protein, cardboard, and a vitamin pill, you would probably not do too well. But that is all we use to understand the nutritional value of food. (Vitamins, minerals, fat, carbohydrates, and protein.)
(Admittedly the American food system is getting close to this. Corn is soooo good for you(r wallet), after all.)
We still don't understand enough about food to say...
Here here! The notion that we pretty much understand what's going on with food, digestion, and metabolism is as widespread as it is harmful. We have only scratched the surface.
I remember seeing a diagram of human metabolism during a talk. It was huge and messy! Spaghetti-coded-Rube-Goldberg-intertwined-messy! And it's only a diagram of what we do understand -- there's even more in there! Biology at the cellular and molecular level was not "designed" to be understood by a human intelligence.
I prefer the taste of conventionally grown produce. It is difficult to measure taste, but I haven't seen any blind taste tests resulting in a clear winner either way.
The only convincing argument I have seen in favor of organic food is the environmental argument. I have to balance that against my belief that for every acre of organic crop grown, somebody somewhere is going to sleep hungry.
I realize, however, that any scientific or quantitative argument for or against organic food is irrelevant. Organic food tells a story that many people want to be a part of, and it will continue to grow in popularity.
any scientific or quantitative argument [...] is irrelevant
A sign of the dark ages, and the death of the enlightenment. No, I don't imagine we'll burn witches at the stake, but my wife and daughter can't eat half their favorite foods when we visit some relatives' homes (for fear of really upsetting people), precisely because of nutritional dogma.
A sign of the dark ages, and the death of the enlightenment
Relax, man! He's just talking about the realities of marketing.
For many, it's not so much Organic/Natural vs. big-bad industry/science. A lot of the organic and/or local stuff is fresher and tastes better. Not all of it will be, though. But if someone can make some money convincing people that it is, then someone will. That's just the market.
Actually, I think people should go by taste. We have only a partial understanding of food and our metabolism, but we've probably evolved very keen ways of determining what food is good for us. The only conscious attention we probably need has to do with moderation. (Otherwise, I'd eat a box of ice cream sandwiches every day!)
All 'Organic' means for produce is no pesticides. Pesticides have little or no effect on flavor, especially if you wash your damn food.
Fresh, ripe, varietal, easily-spoiled produce grown in non-industrial settings at a small scale on non-exhausted land by small groups of opinionated people does taste better.
It used to be that produce sold as 'Organic' was largely correlated with the above, but now 'Organic' is a huge profit center for big agribusiness. Being grown without pesticides doesn't make the standard shitty produce any better tasting, nor is it really much better for the environment. It just has bigger profit margins.
Branding has shown to make things more tasty regardless of the actual food. How do you know you aren't just paying for the luxury of eating a familiar "all natural" brand?
(Admittedly the American food system is getting close to this. Corn is soooo good for you(r wallet), after all.)