The methology of organic foods collapses
有机食品的神话覆灭
Organic food is no more nutritious than conventionally produced food, say British experts who reviewed 50 years of research on the question.
有机食品并不比传统生产的食品健康一英国专家在回顾50年来关于该话题的酿后得出了此结论。
Organic foods are made according to certain production standards. For the vast majority of human history, agriculture can be described as organic; only during the 20th century was a large supply of new synthetic chemicals introduced to the food supply. This more recent style of production is referred to as “conventional,"though organic production has been the convention for a much greater period of time. Under organic production, the use of conventional non-organic pesticides, insecticides and herbicides is greatly restricted and saved as a last resort. However, contrary to popular belief, certain non-organic fertilizers are still used. If livestock are involved, they must be reared without the routine use of antibiotics and without the use of growth hormones, and generally fed a healthy diet.
有机食品是按照一定生产标准进行生产的。人类历史上绝大多数时间的农业可以说是有机的,只有在20世纪才开始在食品供应上大量引人化学合成品。尽管有机生产作为传统生产方式的时间更长,但是这种生产方式最近才被称为“传统”。在有机生产方式下,传统使用的非有机农药、杀虫剂、除草剂被严格限制,不到非不得已不得使用。不过,与普遍看法相反的是,一些非有机肥料仍在使用。如果涉及牲畜,在饲养时不得使用非常规的抗生素、催长激素,通常用健康配方饲养。
According to the UK’s Food Standards Agency, "Consumers may choose to buy organic fruit, vegetables and meat because they believe them to be more nutritious than other food. However, the balance of current scientific evidence does not support this view.”
英国食品标准局称:“消费者可能会选择购买有机水果、蔬菜和肉类,因为他们认为它们会比其他食物营养。然而,就目前来说,没有科学证据支持这个观点。
“Our review indicates there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced crops and livestock on the basis of nutritional supremacy, said public health nutritionist Alan Dangour of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
伦敦卫生和热带医学院的公共健康营养师艾伦丹格说:“我们的调査研究表明,目前没有证据表明有机农作物和牲口在营养价值上比传统生产的有优势。”
The systematic review of 55 studies was conducted by Dr. Dangour's LSHTM group for the UK Food Standards Agency, and was published on July 30,2009 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
丹格博士所属的伦敦卫生和热带医学院是英国食品标准局的下属机构,它们对55项研究作了系统调査,并于2009年7月30日把结 果刊登在《美国临床营养学》杂志上。
The FSA’s director of consumer choice and dietary health, Gill Fine, said: “This study does not mean that people should not eat organic food. ”
食品标准局的消费者选择和饮食卫生部主任吉尔费恩说这项研究并不意味着人们不应该吃有机食品。”
"What it shows is that there is little, if any, nutritional difference between organic and conventionally produced food and there is no evidence of additional health benefits from eating oiganic food,"
“这表明,有机生产的食品和传统生产的食品在营养上几乎没有区别,也没有证据表明吃有机食品对身体更有益。”
Lydia Buchtmann, from Food Standards Australia New Zealand, said the regulatory body was aware of the research but, like the FSA, took no formal view on whether consumers should eat organic foods or not. “This study shows both are equally nutritious,” she said.
澳大利亚、新西兰食品标准监管机构的丽迪雅巴奇曼说,他们注意到这项研究,但和英国食品标准局一样,他们也没有对消费者是否应该吃有机食品作出正式表态。她说:“这项研究表明,两者在营养价值上是一样的。”
Australian nutritionist Rosemary Stanton was more critical.“The report is just a reiteration of what we’ve been saying for a long time,"she said.
澳大利亚营养学家罗斯玛丽斯坦顿的态度更加不屑。她说这份报告只是重复我们一直以来所说的话。”
She added that the review did not look at other factors affecting nutritional value, such as chemical residues, and also said little about levels of health-promoting plant compounds, such as fiavonoids and sulforaphane, the anti-caneer substance in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and radishes.
她还说,调查没有考虑其他影响营养价值的因素,比如化学残留物;也没有提及对人体健康水平起促进作用的植物化合物,如花椰菜和萝卜这些十字花科蔬菜中所含的类黄酮和萝卜硫素这些抗癌物质。
Dr. Stanton said Dr. Dangour’s group failed to cover the effect of “soil health” on the nutritional status of crops.
斯坦顿博士说丹格博士的机构没有考虑“土壤健康”对作物营养状况的影响。
She pointed to a super-broccoli announced this week by Australian and New Zealand researchers, saying, “It must be grown with lower quantities of fertilizer than conventional broccoli”.
她指出,澳大利亚和新西兰的研究人员本星期宣布的超级花椰菜“种植时所用的化肥肯定比传统花椰菜少"。
Sydney-based dietician Alan Barclay agreed the results were “no surprise to dieticians’,.
在悉尼工作的营养师艾伦巴克莱赞同“没有营养师会惊讶”这个结果。
Meanwhile, a Choice survey has found that butchers selling organic meat were unsure about what the terra “organic” means and who certifies it.
同时,抽査发现卖有机牛肉的肉贩并不确定“有机”的含义是什么,也不知道是谁给的认证。
Only 11,or just over a third, of 29 butchers surveyed in Melbourne and Sydney were able to correctly name the body that certified their organic beef.
在墨尔本和悉尼的调査中,29个肉贩中只有11个人可以说出给他们牛肉做认证的机构的正确名字,也就是说,才刚超过1/3。