how come this is dated march 2004?

madelyn


Sun, 7 Dec 2003 09:41:10 -0800 "Thomas E. Billings" <[log in to unmask]>
writes:
> here's a recent scientific journal article that may be of interest:
>
> Journal: Food Quality and Preference
> Volume 15, Issue 2 , March 2004, Pages 91-95
>
> Organic food claims cannot be substantiated
> through testing of samples intercepted in the
> marketplace: a horticulturalist's opinion
>
> F. Roger Harker,
>
> Abstract
>
> Some studies comparing organic and non-organic foods continue to
> source products from retailers
> (see review by Bourn & Prescott [Critical Reviews in Food Science
> and Nutrition, 42 (2002)
> 1]). While the reasons for taking this approach are rarely stated,
> it is likely that in part the decision
> reflects the difficulty in obtaining test samples from agricultural
> field trials, and the assumption that
> mixing of products and/or raw materials during processing and
> marketing results in an unbiased and
> randomized distribution of samples on the retail shelf. However,
> decisions on appropriate sites,
> cultivars, and harvest criteria can differ between organic and
> non-organic sectors of agriculture.
> These decisions do not govern the organic status of a commodity, but
> may introduce systematic bias
> in the quality of food intercepted in the marketplace. Furthermore,
> the normal distribution of `quality'
> obtained at harvest is sometimes modified through the imposition of
> `quality standards', which aim to
> provide the consumer with a higher quality product than they might
> otherwise receive. Thus `quality'
> on the retail shelf can reflect industry regulations as much as the
> different production systems. This
> article uses experiences in the apple industry to highlight how
> differences between organic and
> non-organic fruit observed in the marketplace may be confounded by
> factors not prescribed within
> organic production protocols. Claims that an organic product tastes
> `different', is `preferred' and/or
> `more healthy' have the implicit expectation that the improvement is
> due to the way the food has
> been grown. Therefore, robust experimental approaches should source
> product from field trials
> rather than from retailers.
>
>
> (Apologies for the line over-runs -- above is how it appears on the
> journal website.)
>
> Tom Billings
>
>