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Lying With Statistics:
CNN Article that Organic Food is Not "more nutritious'

In an undergraduate physics course, I was taught that the easiest way to get "the results you want" is to draw the curve then plot the data. That way, you ignore anything that doesn't fit.

CNN recently had a news story about a report by the University of Copenhagen published in Society of Chemical Industry’s (SCI) Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/08/19/organic.cooking.pv/index.html

Basically, carrots, kale, mature peas, apples and potatoes were raised 3 ways in adjacent fields and then fed to animals over 2 years to see about retention of minerals and trace elements. The three were
   - organic soil, with manure but no pesticide,
   - organic soil with manure and "organic" pesticides,
   - similar soil with mineral fertilizers and pesticides.

Result: no measurable difference.
While the researcher was circumspect in her conclusions, her funding agency was not.

So, what's wrong with this picture?

no report of trace pesticides (ignore the man behind the curtain)
they only measured known "major and trace contents"
if you read Nina Plank's "Real Food" you quickly find that "science" can only talk about what they already know and don't really know all the pieces, much less measure them.
they did quantitative measures not qualitative measures. Many organic molecules have "minor differences" that may be significant.
what else was in the different products that wasn't measured?
Remember: we gave up saturated fats to eat transfats because they were "better" and we have come to find that they are terrible for us!
they drew broad generalities from very limited data
they were supported by someone with an agenda and they conformed to that agenda.
the supporting agency hyped broad conclusions.

Bottom line: here is yet another simplistic research result that causes distrust of "science".

Carpe Diem What you can envision, you can achieve^sm

Lying With Statistics: CNN Article that Organic Food is Not "more nutritious'

Lying With Statistics:
CNN Article that Organic Food is Not "more nutritious'