Organic no healthier than ‘conventional’ food? Hold on

Ahh, but this study overlooked one big difference — pesticide and herbicide residues.

Update: A Facebook friend of mine commented on this, leading me to further thoughts.

With pesticides being linked to human sperm count decline and hermaphroditization in fish and amphibians, "conventional" Big Ag ain't so healthy, contrary to people who say they will just "wash off" pesticide residue. It's not just the chemicals on the crops, but the ones in the rivers and lakes, in the fish you catch from them, if you do that, the water in your municipal supply, etc.

And, given the amount of chemicals Big Ag uses, and over the full growing timetable, are you even sure you can just "wash them off"?

Beyond that, a similar study conducted by organic growers did find a higher level of antioxidants in organic food.

I'm not denying that "organic" is indeed a marketing tool, but that doesn't mean that there's still not legitimate reasons to eat it.

Couple of final points:
1. This is meta-analysis, not a new study;
2. It's meta-analysis over 50 years, a period in which organic practices, definitions and quality control changed, while the use of pesticides by Big Ag went up and up.
3. Organic does have the side benefit of getting away from moo-crop and mono-variety food.

Some more skepticism from professed skeptics would be nice.