Time magazine this week ran a high-profile feature on the booming global organic market, with a particular focus on the health benefits of choosing organic.
While organic claims a whole range of benefits – from high animal welfare to increased biodiversity, low pesticide exposure to higher vitamin levels – when it comes to health benefits, says Time, there are four areas that offer the strongest scientific evidence.
Time identifies as: Fewer pesticides and heavy metals (organic outlaws all synthetic pesticides and allows only limited use of natural pesticides); More healthy fats (research has shown that organic milk contains around 50% more healthy omega-3 fatty acids); No antibiotics or synthetic hormones (while conventional livestock production employs routine use of antibiotics, organic systems only allow them in very specific cases); More antioxidants, in some cases (certain varieties of vegetables have been shown to contain up to 20% higher antioxidant than their conventional equivalents).
Main image: Cover from a 2016 Time feature on organic food