Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2019–2025
8:20 · 13M views · Jan 13, 2019
A Kurzgesagt explainer asking whether organic food is really healthier or better for the environment. It defines what organic means and looks at pesticide use, nutrition and environmental impact, with sources.
Cited as a sourced overview of what organic means and how it compares on pesticides and nutrition.
5 comments from Hacker News
Kurzgesagt has a pretty great video[0] about organic food, and goes a little bit into what the definition of "organic" means. Digging through his citations[1] (which is awesome, btw), as far as American legal definitions and pesticides and the whatnot are concerned, the relevant law[2] says that pest and disease problems can be controlled using "non-synthetic controls, such as...repellents", meaning that pesticides can be used, as long as they're also "organic" (which, he notes later in the video, there are slightly less, but still non-zero traces of, and not necessarily safer[3]) That being said, there really shouldn't be a worry about traces of "chemicals" on organic OR non-organic produce, as the FDA has very strict guide lines and testing procedures that produce sellers go through[4] before sending out produce that almost everyone is well under. [0]: this video [1]: [LINK] [2]: [LINK] [3]: [LINK] [4]: [LINK]
Organic food actually doesn't have significantly less pesticides in them. Here is a good video about it: this video
I can do all of this and be hit by a bus tomorrow. I'm not saying don't do it, but there's already so many assumptions made. It's also playing whack-a-mole. For example, organic might not exactly [0] be what you think it is [1]. What's more important is that you actually do eat enough fruits and vegetables. Reverse osmosis membranes are made of plastic [2] and might themselves be introducing tons of microplastics to the water [3]. Our parents got leaded gasoline. We get microplastics. The bandwidth to focus on these kind details usually comes with certain financial security. There's simply too many variables. Your average joe who can't use "Locale" to source their food. (An interesting experiment is to grab the text body of this blog post and ask AI to estimate the author's net worth and yearly salary.) “A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” -- John A Shedd [0] [LINK] [1] this video [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK]
The research is mixed and inconclusive. A 2019 meta-analysis by Kurzgesagt [1] claims that organic food is slightly more nutritious with increased levels of antioxidants. [1] this video In my personal experience, I can taste the frigging poison in non-organic produce, and processed food just makes me more hungry.
Organic food is negligibly different from non-organic food and is generally worse for the environment because of the additional resources required for it. this video