A September 4 continues to draw ire from Colorado鈥檚 organic food industry.
皇冠网址 reported last week on reaction from Boulder Valley鈥檚 robust organic food industry, which ranged from
Published in , the meta-analysis generated headlines with the finding that there were no nutritional differences between conventional and organic foods. Some initial media reports followed the Stanford
Those conclusions generated some discussion among Windsor Dairy clients, according to owners Meg Cattell and Arden Nelson. The husband-and-wife veterinarians Cattell and Nelson have spent more than a decade operating the organic dairy, which offers raw milk to shareowners and other products like grass-fed beef and raw cheese.
Interestingly enough, Cattell and Nelson say the study hasn鈥檛 prompted any direct questioning from their roughly 500 shareowners or new prospective customers.
Cattell wonders who is most troubled by the study.
鈥淚 saw some farmers on our online discussion group say 鈥業 think the farmers are a lot more upset about this than the consumers. [Consumers] basically ignored it because they鈥檝e already reached their conclusions,鈥欌�� she says.
Nevertheless, Cattell and Nelson鈥攚ho have 鈥攁ren鈥檛 content to let the details of the Stanford study be debated inside online chat rooms.
Nelson wrote a 10-page paper devoted to the topic, which starts out by saying:
I believe that the Stanford researchers presented only a portion of the conclusions to the press from their poorly performed meta-analysis paper.
Nelson鈥檚 critique鈥攍ike that of many others鈥攍ooks at facts under emphasized in the study (like organic food having higher levels of Phosphorus), media coverage on the topic (including early reports by NPR) and fuzzy math (a statistical construct used in the paper called the 鈥渞isk difference鈥�).
Risk difference is also something that drew the attention of researcher Chuck Benbrook at the . Benbrook has written a detailed explanation of it and other issues .
While some have spent time crafting a detailed analysis, at least one citizen group has taken to a petition drive. to have the study
One of the Stanford researchers, Dr. Crystal Smith-Spangler, did discuss the limitations of the study in a The web post concludes:
In the face of the various elements of health and safety not addressed by the study, Smith-Spangler still insisted that her team鈥檚 findings were intended to provide the evidence on which consumers could base their decisions. 鈥淥ur goal was to present the evidence and try to help people understand the evidence,鈥� Smith-Spangler said. 鈥淏ut our goal was not to tell people what or what not to do.鈥�
For their part, Windsor Dairy owners Meg Cattell and Arden Nelson say some of the most convincing evidence they鈥檝e come across doesn鈥檛 come from the annals of academia. It鈥檚 the individual health success stories they鈥檝e seen their foods have with clients. Cattell says those effects are particularly noticeable when it comes to kids.
鈥淒octors say this is the smallest file in my office. The PE teacher says these kids are super athletes and they鈥檙e just healthy like farm kids have always been,鈥� she says. 鈥淣ow that鈥檚 become abnormal, and we don鈥檛 want that to be the case.鈥�
