Is eating organic food worth it?

I have often wondered weather paying that bit more for organic food is worth it.  Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t.  I normally buy organic eggs and meat but with vegatables I am really not very consistent.  I know with organic vegatables you get less pesticides but is it worth it.  I know in the past studies have shown that there was no benefit.

However recently researches in France tracked 68,946 adults and decided to compare cancer rates in people who eat organic food and those who didn’t.  They discovered that eating organic food

  • reduces your risk of cancer by 25%
  • reduces your risk of non-Hodgkins lymphoma by 73%
  • reduces your risk of post-menopausal breast cancer by 21%

Non-Hodgkins lymphoma is a cancer of the infection fighting white blood cells of our immune system.

They also discovered that those eating organic ready meals where also less likely to develop cancer thant those who rarely if ever choose organic.

While the evidence of the reduce risk of cancer is very clear, and some of the numbers are very high,  I did wonder if there were other lifestyle differences between those that eat organic food and those that didn’t which impacted the results.

Reference

Baudry J, Assmann KE, Touvier M, et al. Association of Frequency of Organic Food Consumption With Cancer Risk: Findings From the NutriNet-Santé Prospective Cohort Study. JAMA Intern Med. 2018;178(12):1597–1606.

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