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Should vegans eat organic?

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Peri peri sauce ingredients

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Should vegans eat organic? The short answer is no.

Most parts of this article were inspired and use citations from Andrea Love’s article: Organic foods are not healthier…or pesticide free. Andrea has a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Microbiology and Immunology. Follow her and subscribe to her newsletter for fantastic science-backed content.

Why should we discuss more about organic vs non-organic food?

Although this blog is about the food I love cooking, I am also a data scientist, and I find it incredibly annoying that most people feel compelled to buy organic foods, when there is literally no benefit and it has multiple drawbacks.

This blog focuses on vegan recipes, and as such, I see many vegans concerned about buying organic, and thinking it could be better for their health. This can’t be further from the truth.

Allow me to use an analogy: medicines and treatments that come from a modified compound save lives, for example aspirin is a synthetic derivative from natural salicin. Humans modified the natural compound to minimise the side effects. The same happens with modern agriculture, humans found ways to produce more efficiently and we are in an era in which we seem to prioritise the wrong idea that “natural is better”.

Why is this important? because people often think that if they can’t afford the organic version “what’s the point”… and let’s be honest, in this economy, many families struggle to bring nutritious food to the table. In a world where most adults do not meet the daily recommendations of fruits and vegetables, we should work together in ways to make foods more accessible and avoid this ableist and wrong view that organic is better.

Organic foods market has exploded, and I can see why. There are plenty of poorly designed studies perpetuating the idea that they have some benefit. Whilst most studies agree on the fact that there is considerable nutritional advantages, a lot of studies incorrectly cite or include erroneous ideas. If you look at pubmed, one of the first results when you search for “organic food” is this study which says this in the abstract:

“the consumption of organic food does not provide a significant nutritional advantage compared to a conventional diet, regular and frequent consumption of organic products generally reduces the risk of overweight and obesity”

This is later confirmed to be taken from this study. But this study does not claim that. What that study says is:

“Regular consumers of organic products, a sizeable group in our sample, exhibit specific socio-demographic characteristics, and an overall healthy profile which should be accounted for in further studies analyzing organic food intake and health markers.”

So basically, organic food makes us magically do more exercise and eat healthier. Joking! what the study found is that people who can afford organic, are clearly people with overall healthier habits, so their health outcomes largely are attributed to that, rather than the organic food itself.

My other motivation in writing this article is to create a however small dent into the vast majority of poorly-written and inaccurate blog posts about the topic. The first results on Google are full of misinformation, take for example this one where the author even makes claims about “better taste” when we know that is categorically incorrect.

I could go on with many more examples like this, so, it is really hard for the average person to understand why organic food is not better, not healthier and it could have worse outcomes.

Organic produce is not safer, and it also needs pesticides

Crops need pesticides, period. Otherwise we will not be able to feed the planet and food will be extraordinarily expensive. Both organic and non-organic use pesticides. The difference? organic food uses non-modified pesticides.

But we have to think again about the reasons why we modify natural compounds. It is to reduce cost and also to maximise the amount of food created and multiple studies show that glyphosate is safe for human consumption at the levels (part per million) found in your produce. Also, contrary to popular belief, organic foods also use chemicals that were not modified by humans. Most people believe they have get fewer pesticides through eating organic, but what they don’t realise is that sometimes organic foods require higher levels because natural pesticides are not as effective as human-modified substances.

As Andrea mentions on her post, “natural” pesticides could be worst for health outcomes as they are not as tightly regulated as the ones used in non-organic produce, this directly comes from her post:

“However, most natural pesticides haven’t been tested for their toxic potential, as the Reduced Risk Program of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) applies to synthetic pesticides only. Many natural pesticides have been found to pose potential – or serious – health risks, including those used commonly in organic farming. This is also why the EWG conveniently “omits” all of the organic pesticide residues: because they are not monitored or regulated as stringently.”

Another Andrea’s article: “Organic is the wellness industry of Agriculture” gives examples of toxicity for natural pesticides:

“Copper sulfate, one of the most widely used fungicides in organic farming, is toxic at 300 milligrams per kilogram body weight (LD₅₀ = 300 mg/kg). It accumulates in the soil and groundwater and can be toxic to fish, aquatic life, and even humans at high enough doses. On the flip side, mancozeb, a synthetic fungicide used in conventional farming, is twenty-six times less toxic with an LD₅₀ of 8,000 mg/kg, and it rapidly degrades in the environment. Yet mancozeb is demonized solely because it’s synthetic, even though it is objectively safer and more effective.”

One final point on pesticides: the illusion that we have less pesticide residue comes from the fact that we tend to test for conventional pesticides. There is rarely a study showing pesticide residues from organic food. Please don’t fall from using any home test for pesticides and then trying to use it to see if organic food has less pesticides. OF COURSE you will see those test pointing out that organic food seems to have less pesticides, because they only detect conventional pesticides.

Organic produce is not healthier, nor is it more nutritious overall

Most or all of the papers on PubMed agree that there is non-tangible nutritional benefit to organic produce. Some studies might find that there are some differences, for example, organic food might seem to have more antioxidants, but the general observation is: whilst some studies find that a particular organic -read a single, or a few samples- might seem more nutritious than their conventional counterpart, the organic could be inferior to another sample of their conventional counterpart.

A systematic review done in 2024, explains exactly this, and taking directly from its conclusions:

I should caveat the limitations: the idea with systematic reviews is to evaluate studies with very similar approaches to be able to conclude something meaningful. In this case, it was very difficult due to different things studies measure, but the conclusions still remain the consensus of any experts.

Organic farming requires more land and it quite likely produces higher Greenhouse emissions

There are multiple studies looking at environmental impacts of organic vs conventional produce and there is no strong indicator that organic would be better for the environment.

I want to focus on the amount of land because that is something most studies seem to agree on. You simply need more land to produce organic food.

The study: “Comparative analysis of environmental impacts of agricultural production systems, agricultural input efficiency, and food choice” compared various environmental metrics of organic vs conventional and it concluded that organic requires 25% to 110% more land than conventional depending on the crop.

Other aspects are less clear, directly from the study:

So, overall, it seems like greenhouse emissions is the main thing where organic wins and it is not relevant enough to conclude it is actually lower.

I should caveat that, just like with any studies, this one has its own limitations:

Pesticides used in organic farming could target insects that are beneficial for crops

It is also well known that natural pesticides target species that we don’t want to kill. Taken again from Andrea’s article:

“Pyrethrins are derived from chrysanthemum flowers. They act as neurotoxins in all organisms, but are particularly neurotoxic to bees and other insects, many of which are key pollinator species. They can also be neurotoxic to mammals (including humans).”

“Copper sulfate: used as “organic” fungicide. Copper sulfate has significantly higher toxicity than synthetic alternatives. The LD50 (50% lethal dose) of copper sulfate is 300 mg/kg versus the synthetic alternative Mancozeb (4500-11,200 mg/kg) — which means that copper sulfate is at LEAST 15X more toxic, and needs to be used in LARGER quantities compared to synthetic alternatives. Not only is copper sulfate toxic to fish, humans, and other species, but it also persists in groundwater and the environment long-term.”

It does not even taste better (yes, there is a formal study reviewing this)

Believe it or not, multiple studies look at taste differences between organic and conventional produce. Most studies show no difference in taste, for example this one directly from the abstract:

“Overall, organically and conventionally grown vegetables did not show significant differences in consumer liking or consumer-perceived sensory quality.”

Now, I don’t say that you could not notice a difference, but it is very unlikely attributed to organic vs conventional and it may have more to do with the specific food, for example, tomatoes from a one supermarket might not taste as good as another supermarket.

What about the IARC classification of glyphosate?

  1. IARC puts glyphosate in Group 2A “probably carcinogenic to humans”
  2. Same group as red meat or very Hot Beverages
  3. This evaluates hazard, which means that there could exists conditions under which it could cause cancer. The document clearly states this: “showed increased cancer rates in occupational settings” (see page 3). This is important, it implies that this is under occupational settings
  4. The document also recognises that major regulatory agencies “concluded that glyphosate poses no unreasonable risks to humans.“ (page 2). They comment that it could be because IARC reviewed publicly available data and the agencies have access to private toxicologic reports

Point 4 is important. IARC is one data point, but I would weight more heavily the fact that multiple independent regulatory agencies concluded that it does not pose a significant risk to humans. It is important to note that some agencies reviewed occupational risk (people actually spraying it). For example the International Programme on Chemical Safety said this:

“Available data on occupational exposure for workers applying Roundup indicate exposure levels far below the NOAELs from the relevant animal experiments. ”

(Page 17, but marked as 15 on the document).

Conclusion

Please consider eating conventional food and speaking with your friends about this important issue.

I cannot stress how important it is to base our facts on scientists and people with experience, rather than that influencer using a £ 400 pot making home-made tallow Rice Krispies.

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