What Is Organic Food?
Introduction
Organic production is an overall system of farm management and food production that aims at sustainable agriculture, high-quality products and the use of processes that do not harm neither the environment, nor human, plant or animal health and welfare.
Consumers are anxious about food quality, production techniques and provenance and they trust organic foods more easily. The food-related decision-making process is complex and is influenced by many determinants:
- economic: cost, income, and availability;
- physical: accessibility, education, and skills;
- social: culture, family, and meal patterns;
- psychological: mood, stress, and guilt;
- personal: attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge about food.
A public consultation on organic agriculture highlighted the public’s concerns with environmental and quality issues, and showed a clear demand for strengthened and more uniform organic rules (86%), and improved control systems (58%).
To help consumers make an informed choice, the European Commission, added to existing legislation and set up an extensive framework of rules and requirements on the production, processing, handling and certification of organic foods and introduced a specific EU organic logo (see below).
What is organic food?
Various terms such as ‘bio’, ‘eco’ and ‘organic‘ are used to refer to organic products. The term ‘bio/biological’ prevails in Latin and Germanic languages. English-speaking countries mostly use the term ‘organic’.
More specifically, the term ‘organic‘ refers to an overall system of farm management and food production that aims at sustainable agriculture, high –quality products and the use of processes that do not harm the environment, and human, plant or animal health and welfare.
However, these widely used terms in food marketing have a variety of definitions, most of which are vague and assumed to imply foods that are minimally processed and all of whose ingredients are natural products.
Organically grown foods are indeed not to be confused with foods sold as ‘natural’. In the United States of America (USA) for example, the term ‘organic‘ can be used for certified organic products, while the label ‘all-natural’ is a legally unregulated expression.
What are the benefits of organic food?
While the sustainable nature of organic farming is generally accepted, its health and nutritional benefits are still widely debated. The use of (organic) pesticides and the possible presence of residues in organically grown crops also attract a lot of attention. A difficulty comes from the fact that, when assessing the results of existing studies, at least three different aspects are treated simultaneously:
- The difference in nutritional elements;
- The benefits for human health
- The impact on the environment.
From a strictly nutritional perspective, scientists have found little advantage in organic foods. In 2012, a deep review of 240 studies found that organic foods were not significantly more nutritious than their conventionally grown counterparts. For nutrition experts, the endless debate on the benefits of organic produce is just a distraction from the real issue at hand, which is that a majority of Europeans do not reach the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) on a daily consumption of vegetables and fruit of any type – around 400 g per day – which is a more pressing concern.
From a health perspective, the level of pesticide residues was found to be lower among organic produce and a more recent study from 2014 revealed fewer pesticide residues, and 20% to 40% higher levels of antioxidants in organically grown crops. It is however unclear whether antioxidants can improve human health, and their precise role is still being debated.
From an environmental perspective, practitioners assert that the best reason to buy organic food is for the lower impact and sustainable production values, and that any nutritional benefit should simply be considered a ‘bonus’.
