Organic Food, is it REALLY any better? (with Dr. Adrian Chavez)

Do you ever wonder if organic food is really worth the extra cost? Well, today I'm joined by Dr. Adrian Chavez, and we chat about what exactly sets organic produce apart, especially when it comes to things like pesticides and nutritional value.

Adrian is ready to debunk some common misconceptions and shed light on the actual impact of pesticides on our bodies. We explore what the persuasive power of organic food marketing is. Is it influencing our choices more than we realize? Plus, we take a closer look at the contentious "Dirty Dozen" list. Is it a helpful guide or a source of unnecessary worry?

Stay tuned as we encourage you to keep an open mind and ask the hard questions. After all, the most empowered consumer is an informed one!

TOPICS COVERED 👇
Misconceptions about Organic Foods (00:01:26)
Definition of Organic (00:02:36)
Pesticides and Health Concerns (00:03:00
Nutrient Content of Organic Foods (00:07:54)
Cost and Accessibility of Organic Foods (00:13:12)
Pesticide Residue (00:16:05)
Regulation of Organic Pesticides (00:21:23)
Neurotoxic and Hormone Disruption (00:22:35)
Financial Considerations of Organic Produce (00:23:44)
Organic Farming Practices (00:24:30)
Long-Term Studies on Organic Food (00:27:25)
Regulation Differences in Europe and America (00:30:15)
Dirty Dozen List (00:37:30)
Organic vs Conventionally Grown Produce(00:42:52)
Sustainable Habits (00:46:10)

Dr. Adrian Chavez Links:
Instagram
Website
The Nutrition Science Podcast
➝Adrian's Organic vs Grass Fed vs Free Range episode

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Transcript

Michelle (00:00:01) - Welcome back to the Nourish and Free Podcast, the show to help you become healthy and nourished while being free from food rules and food stress and disordered eating. I'm your host, Michelle Yates, a registered dietitian, and today I'm joined by Doctor Adrian Chavez to talk through all things organic foods. Doctor Chavez holds a PhD in nutrition and health promotion from Arizona State University, and a bachelor's and master's degree in exercise science as well. After graduating with his PhD, he's worked with hundreds of clients, one on one and through group programs, and has also developed self-taught nutrition courses and done research consulting for startup companies, and delivered lectures to various organizations as well. So be super knowledgeable about the topic of nutrition. He's also passionate about helping to provide accurate nutrition education to the public. You can find a lot of free information on his Instagram page, and he also runs a podcast called The Nutrition Science Podcast, which is a top 25 nutrition podcast in the US and provides in-depth education on all things nutrition. I love his show.

Michelle (00:01:04) - Definitely go follow it. I'll put a link in the show notes and while you're on your phone, head over to my show and leave me a quick rating or review. It really helps my show climb those charts as well, so that it can be seen by more people, and we can spread more of the good word about how to live nourished and free. Welcome to the show, Adrian.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:01:25) - Yeah, thanks for having me.

Michelle (00:01:26) - Thanks for being here. I'm excited to dig into this topic. I was listening to your episode on organic and grass fed and free range, and it was so well done. And I feel like I get this question a lot. Actually, I don't even get it as a question. It's more so just that people assume that I agree that organic is better and grass fed is better, and free range is better. And all these things and it it ends up being an interesting situation because I'm like, well, hang on, let's backtrack. Let's, let's touch on that really quick.

Michelle (00:01:56) - Cause and with the topic of organic, it's become just embedded into our society that people are like that is better and they don't really stop to question. But is it though, and maybe we should dig into like the details, a little bit of why this even was brought about and what what the whole deal is. So I'm excited to have you on to dig more into the nuance of organic foods. And, and maybe we'll get into some grass fed and free range stuff as well when it comes to beef and chickens and all that good stuff. But let's start off with just a basic definition. What does organic mean when it comes to food?

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:02:36) - So organic is a USDA label, and it means different things depending on the type of food that you're looking at. So when you're looking at produce for example,, that's going to determine the types of pesticides that are used and the types of agricultural methods that are used to produce that food. So most of the time when people are thinking about organic food, we're thinking about produce.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:03:00) - , and we'll talk about, you know, organic processed foods in a second. But when we're thinking about produce,, it dictates the agricultural methods and the types of pesticides. So,, notice that I said the types of pesticides, because a lot of people think that organic means that they don't use pesticides, and that's not actually the case. Organic uses pesticides, but they're organically approved pesticides. And these pesticides, it's important to note they haven't been necessarily studied to be shown to be safer,, in any way than the conventionally used pesticides that are used on conventional produce. And there are studies that have shown that actually organic food has to oftentimes use higher amounts of the organic pesticides because they're not as effective at getting rid of pests. So I want to backtrack a bit, because a lot of people get concerned about the topic of pesticides overall. And when you say pesticides, people kind of get scared about that. And the reality is that we have to use pesticides in order to feed people. Like we have to feed an entire population of 7 billion people, and we have to produce food for that.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:04:10) - And in order to produce food in order to for us to have food in the grocery stores, pesticides have to be used., a lot of us, you know, we hear certain things and we're like, we get into these ideal,, mindset of, you know, we need to just use no pesticides, and this stuff should never be used. And that's not possible in reality, pesticides have to be used in the pesticides that are used on conventional produce. And I know it sounds scary, but the residues that are on the end product,, that that's highly regulated. So when you go buy a product at a store and you buy, let's say, broccoli, for example, or an apple or berries, the amount of pesticide residue that is on that product is regulated, meaning that the, the. Government sets a standard that has been shown to be significantly lower than what we would expect to cause health problems. So what we do to determine, you know, what this level should be is we give these pesticides to animals, and then we find the level at which the lowest level that causes any harm in animals.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:05:22) - So let's say that's, you know, let's give it a valuable one. So, you know, if there's 1mg/kg of,, you know, this, this pesticide on the end product that was shown to cause harm, you know, increased rates of cancer in mice over long terms of exposure. So once that's been determined, then the government takes that amount and they divide that by a thousand. And that's the upper limit of what's allowed to be on the final product. That's the amount of residue that's allowed to be on the final product. Now this isn't ideal. Would be zero, of course., but these levels are set to be in a pretty like pretty well established safe limit. And so a lot of people think that eating conventional produce is harmful. And that's just not the case. You know, we're getting exposed to pesticides. Yes. And it would be better if we weren't getting exposed to pesticides. But these pesticides are there. They're at such a low level. And the reality is the health benefits of consuming fruits and vegetables, even with exposure to pesticides, those small amounts of pesticides,, is pretty well established, like any of the research that we have, showing positive health effects of eating more fruits and vegetables was done with conventional produce.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:06:43) - They weren't using organic produce. And so that's kind of the, you know, the I think I went on a little bit more of a tangent there,, in terms of like, you know, beyond the definition, but that's, you know, the definition is I love it. It's a label that is given by the federal government for adhering to certain farming practices in the way that you grow your produce, and also not including GMOs, which most products aren't GMO anyway. Very few fruits and vegetables have genetically modified alternatives, so that's usually not even an issue., but that's what that's what we have on the on the produce. Now, when it comes to processed foods, there's more,, more regulations around that. So if you're purchasing like a processed food that's, you know, considered organic, then it can't have artificial sweeteners, it can't have artificial colors. And there's a list of other things that it can't have if it's an organic processed food. So sometimes,, choosing organic with processed foods sometimes is going to just include different ingredients that may, you know, may be a more health promoting product, just as a result of the fact that there's certain things that can't be included in those foods.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:07:54) - So,, that's in my opinion, there's two different discussions when it comes to organic processed foods versus organic produce., so the main thing that we're considering organic produce is, you know, is there are we getting exposed to pesticides that may harm our health?, with conventional that would make us want to buy organic. And then also, there's another thing that you'll hear often is does organic produce have more nutrients? And so that's another thing that people will claim is, you know, organic food is much more nutritious if it's not organic, it doesn't have any nutrition because the soil doesn't have nutrients or whatever the case may be., so I talked about the first one. You know, the organic food also has pesticides. And so in the in the conventional pesticides, you know, we don't know if there's any difference in the risk of consuming organic versus conventional when it comes to pesticides. You'll see studies. And this is a funny one. So you'll see studies where they put people on a organic diet.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:08:54) - And then they measure the pesticides that were in the like. They measured the amount of pesticides in the urine, and they show they'll say going on an organic diet reduces pesticides by 90%. But what they're really showing is it reduces the pesticide exposure to the pesticides found in conventional food, because those are the only ones they're measuring. They don't actually measure the or the urinary output of the organic pesticides., in these studies, they're just looking at specific pesticides that were only in the non-organic food because that.

Michelle (00:09:26) - Can't believe these studies even get published. Like like who approves this?

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:09:32) - That one. I used to only buy organic food for a period of time. And that study was a big reason why I did that, because I they just took it out of context, because I didn't understand this topic very well. This was like in my 20s when I was just getting into my PhD and,, you know, I saw that study and a few others, and I was like, oh, wow, this, this tells me that I should buy organic food.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:09:57) - But I didn't really understand the. The classifications and criteria and all of that. And,, you know, so there's a lot of things like that that'll make you, make you believe that organic food is significantly healthier because there's these cherry pick studies that are showing, you know, something like this where they're just measuring the conventional pesticides and showing that they went down, but they're not showing you that the exposure to organic pesticides probably went up quite a bit as well., now you can and I don't want to say that you can't buy food without pesticides. It's just hard. It's difficult for most of us to to access that. Like, you could find a local farm that doesn't use pesticides or uses very little and tells you exactly how they grow their food., and you're going to pay a lot more. You're going to go out of your way. You're probably not going to be able to get all the things that you use on a normal basis. I did that as well in my 20s is I used to like, you know, go to local farms and buy.

Michelle (00:10:50) - A lot of work.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:10:51) - That way. It was,, but I was I got pretty concerned about the pesticides from some of this research. And so that's what kind of drove me to look into it more and kind of make a, a more informed decision over time is because personally, I was going through a lot of I was like taking multiple steps to, to buy as like organic and quote unquote pesticide free as possible. Yeah. And,, I think I was just scared into it from, from not really understanding the full context of it. So,, as I mentioned, we we don't know the difference. Like if there's, if it's safer to eat organic pesticides versus non-organic, we don't we don't really know. And we know that eating, you know, conventional pesticides in the context of fruits and vegetables, perfectly safe, going to have a health benefit., when it comes to nutrition, there is some truth to the fact that organic food does have slightly higher nutrient content on average, than non-organic foods.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:11:50) - So,, when this is,, measured in various studies, when they take random samples from grocery stores and they compare, there's about a 10 to 20% difference in various micronutrients. So sometimes we'll see like vitamin C, 20% higher. You know, one study they looked at total antioxidant capacity of the,, of the organic foods. And they found that that was about 20% higher than non-organic foods. So there is truth to the fact that there's slightly higher nutritional content of organic foods, about 10 to 20% on average. And so that would be a reason, you know, for that, many people may consider choosing,, organic foods as well. You know, there's the possibility of you're getting exposed to different pesticides, potentially a little bit lower pesticide residues, which has been shown on average, like there's slightly lower pesticide residues on on organic food, even though they're still there, and then slightly higher nutrient content. So there are slight advantages to choosing organic produce is you're going to get, you know, on average, a little bit lower pesticide residues in a little bit higher nutrient content.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:12:58) - So if, if everything was equal and you said, hey, should I choose organic or conventional, I would say go with organic. If everything else is equal. The problem is we have to take into consideration the cost.

Michelle (00:13:12) - And that's a big one for accessibility.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:13:16) - So yeah, these two things are really important. And one of the reasons why I mostly don't buy organic anymore, and I mostly don't recommend it anymore, is because the difference is small in terms of, you know, the improvement that you would get by going organic when it comes to produce. And the cost is often quite large. Now, if it's if it's a minor difference in the organic produce looks just as good or better, then that's probably a better choice., but in many cases, like say, for example, if I'm going to buy strawberries, it's about 250 for me, for a pound of strawberries, of non-organic strawberries and $6 for organic strawberries. And so.

Michelle (00:14:00) - Which is honestly the reality a lot of times.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:14:03) - Yeah, it's typically going to be twice as much or somewhere around there, sometimes even more.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:14:09) - And so when that's the case there isn't it like you then you have to take into consideration other factors, you know, your budget. And then as I mentioned earlier, accessibility. Because depending on where you live, you may not even have access to organic produce. And so you may not I mean, you'll have access to some things, but, you know, I can't buy everything that I want organic because a lot of those things aren't even available. All of the things that I eat on a regular basis. And so you have to take these things into consideration. So take that. Organic food is probably slightly better nutritionally, slightly lower in pesticide residue. But then the cost difference, if finances are something that you, you know, you're really trying to pay attention to when you're making your choices and you're trying to equally weigh finances in health, you know? If there's more than a 20% difference in cost, it's probably not worth it., you know, if it's 50% more, so if it's a dollar versus $1.50 per pound, that's 50% more,, cost wise, for something that's slightly better from a nutritional standpoint.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:15:15) - Again, if you are someone who you just say, I want the best. I don't really care what it costs, then you'll probably want to go that direction. But if you're someone who's taking into consideration the financial aspect of it, it usually doesn't make sense to purchase organic. And as I mentioned earlier, the pesticide residues that are found on the final product are well-regulated and conventional produce, and you can wash most of that off as well. So all you have to do is, you know, soak your produce or rinse it under water for a couple of minutes. You know, soak it for five minutes and then rinse it or just rinse it and you're going to get off most of the pesticide residues, like in most cases, over 80 and 90% of the pesticide residues will come off with just rinsing your your produce. And you want to rinse it anyway because people are touching it at the grocery store and stuff.

Michelle (00:16:03) - Yeah.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:16:05) - , so.

Michelle (00:16:05) - It's a long journey to go from the farm store. Yes.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:16:09) - I mean, yeah, it got picked in in transported and.

Michelle (00:16:12) - , yeah.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:16:13) - Definitely wash your produce. And then when you do that, you're going to get off most of the pesticide residue,, from just washing your produce. So when we take all that into consideration, you know, there's, it's a nuanced topic. And a lot of times we want things to be presented to us in a very black and white way. And that's, you know, as you said, a lot of people default to thinking like organic equals good, organic equals healthy., and, and it's easy mentally to grasp your head around that and just, you know, oh, organic. I buy that as opposed to having to kind of make these decisions with more information. But you know what? What I prefer to do is help people, you know, have the right information to make decisions on their own., because at the end of the day, if you think you have to buy everything organic and that doesn't fit your budget for whatever reason, it may cause you to eat less fruits and vegetables, it may cause you to eat less nutritious foods that you should be getting into your diet.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:17:05) - , because you don't want to spend $6 on strawberries, so you just skip them. And I've done that where it's like, oh, I don't want to spend that extra., and I had been convinced that the conventional produce is, you know, filled with chemicals and, and gonna harm my health. And,, that's not the case. You know, conventional produce is perfectly fine. Rinse it off for sure. But, you know, if you're if you're concerned about the pesticide residues, you know, it's going to get most of them off just by rinsing it. You can also add a like if you're soaking it, you can add a little bit of vinegar or baking soda to the water. And that actually gets off even more of the pesticide residues., but.

Michelle (00:17:42) - Again, does that change the taste at all?

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:17:44) - You're not going to taste in the final product because you rinse it afterwards. So you soak it for like 5 to 10 minutes. So just a big bucket of water. Soak all your produce with a little bit of baking soda to make it either more basic or more acidic.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:17:55) - And that helps to kind of get some of those residues off. So there's been studies that have done either way., and it increases the, the, the amount of residues like that that are washed off a little bit. But again, most of it's water is the what does most of the,, the, the washing off of. And these other things can help. But if you just soak it in water and rinse it, that'll get off most of the pesticide pesticide residues.

Michelle (00:18:23) - Which is good news for lazy people like me. Yeah, I don't.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:18:27) - I don't do more than that.

Michelle (00:18:29) - I don't have time to soak my food. So a couple of things that I wanted to touch on was, well, first of all, we were we kind of alluded to the studies that utilize your analysis to see how much pesticide residue was found when somebody had conventionally grown produce versus organic. When I'm thinking about a urinalysis test. The thing with that, that I also ponder is it's in their urine, which means it was being excreted.

Michelle (00:19:03) - You know what I mean? So wouldn't that be a good thing that we're finding it in here? And what do you think about that?

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:19:12) - That I mean, that's the case. These things really don't build up., in a lot of people don't understand these. These are very well studied before they get approved to be sprayed all over our crops. And. Yeah, and again, there's a lot of I get it, there's a lot of corruption with the government and corporations and there's yeah.

Michelle (00:19:31) - We get it. We know there's a lot going on.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:19:34) - We understand that. But in these cases, like for the FDA to approve something that is knowingly causing harm in to allow it to stay on the market is not something like you'll hear conspiracies about that, but that doesn't actually happen. Like we take.

Michelle (00:19:50) - Pharma, man.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:19:52) - Things get taken off the market when they knowingly cause harm. They took trans fats off the market. They're taking certain plastics out of packaging, like there's when when there's a clear health risk and there is an alternative, things get taken off the market.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:20:08) - The other thing is people say, I know people when I say this like this is regulated. People will immediately think in their head, well, I don't trust the government. Right. And yeah, and it's because of some of these regulations means.

Michelle (00:20:20) - Nothing to the.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:20:21) - FDA and the government that that make it seem much more malicious than it is. Like there are thousands of people working for the FDA that are good people who are doing good work, who are truly trying to regulate our food and drugs the best that they can to keep us safe. But it's just a difficult task.

Michelle (00:20:44) - Yeah, it is. So with the organic pesticides then, because you had said, like with conventionally grown pesticides, there's all types of barriers to entry before it can be used. And you know, with it being like tested on animals first and then we scale that back even by a thousand before we apply that to our food and everything that we actually eat. So with organic pesticides, is there still a degree of testing being done? And yeah, regulating to be sure that those are as safe as the conventionally ones.

Michelle (00:21:21) - Some of the ones.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:21:23) - , some of them, but I don't think that is applied to all of them because of their natural. So we're allowed to use these, these things because they're, they're quote unquote natural and they're just.

Michelle (00:21:39) - Adrienne, talk to me about natural things. Does that automatically mean that it's more healthy and not poisonous or not toxic?

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:21:47) - Well let's talk I mean yeah. So I mean some of the, some of the most natural things can be poisonous. I mean, yeah, natural versus conventional doesn't mean more poisonous or less poisonous. You know, things that are natural can be extremely poisonous or extremely harmful to our health., you know, we can pick something up off, off the ground. It's completely natural and eat it and die. And that, you know, that's something that we don't. And because you'll see people say these pesticides or neurotoxic and endocrine disrupting.. So sounds scary. Natural products like these. So for example caffeine is considered a pesticide. Don't talk.

Michelle (00:22:30) - To me about caffeine right now I feel attacked with my cold brew here.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:22:35) - In it would be because when it's tested in animals it's neurotoxic and it can have these effects. And so we hear this stuff and it's like, okay, it's this compound was used and it was neurotoxic and disrupted the metabolism because that's what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to kill pests. And right, you know, this might be tested in other animals at very high doses. And it does the same thing. And and you hear these terms throwing around neurotoxic and hormone disrupts hormones. When you hear those things it's almost always because like if you hear someone saying this is neurotoxic, this disrupts your hormones. It's almost always a complete exaggeration of the reality of, of the risk of consuming that product. And so the organic stuff is I know that some of them, just because of the fact that they are natural, they are allowed to be used without undergoing the same amount of testing. I know that the testing is different and it's not.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:23:39) - There's no established limits in the same way with the conventional pesticides.

Michelle (00:23:44) - Yeah. Like that. That feels a little bit to me. Like then maybe it's not even worth it if finances aren't a concern to to have organic with, specifically with. Produce. Like maybe there's 10 to 20% increase in nutrient profile and vitamins and minerals, but and antioxidants. But is that really worth it? If there's so much if there's a big cloud of questions around how safe are these pesticides and what are the levels that they're even showing up on my food right now, because they have to use more in order for it to be effective. And can't you just wash the conventionally grown and then maybe have a little bit more to make up for that 10 to 20% of vitamins and minerals that are higher in organic, you know, like have an extra strawberry.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:24:30) - Yeah. That that's that's the route that I would generally recommend., as you mentioned though,, so in the studies that do look at so they take random samples from the grocery store and they compare residues on organic versus conventional.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:24:47) - Organic is more likely to have no pesticide residues. So it's I think it's like 30 or 40% of organic samples will have none in the final, like at the grocery store. So okay, you're probably getting exposed to less. But again, there's there is question marks just based on the way that the regulations work and not but, you know, farmers aren't necessarily going out and over spraying for no reason. And so most of the time the organic farms are trying to do things in a different way and trying to like, minimize the use of some of these things. Like, that's kind of some of the ideals that a lot of these organic farms approach it with. And, and I'm definitely like, you know, because sometimes people say I want to support, you know, organic farms that do things in certain ways. And I'm all for that. Like, you know, yeah, using your money to invest in things and people who you feel like are, you know, supporting the environment and doing things the right way, just know where that money's going.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:25:49) - Like so just buying organic. Like the grocery store isn't necessarily going to be supporting that, because a lot of times they're just massive organic farms that are just like conventional farms, but they just have USDA organic label in, and they are doing things very similar to conventional farm. And they're not necessarily, you know, being more mindful of the environment and all of that. So if that's why you want to choose to buy organic, I would say try to develop a relationship or look more into, you know, the where you're buying your produce so that you know, you're supporting, you know, that type of cause if that's why you're because I've seen people say that like, I want to buy it because I want to support, you know, more sustainable farming practices.. And,, I'm not an expert there, but, what I so I've, I've read and listened to research about that quite a bit. And organic requires more land. And so it isn't necessarily more sustainable,, and isn't necessarily suitable for feeding our entire population because it just requires more land.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:27:01) - , and so,, you know, just from that perspective, like, just look into where you're spending your money if you're kind of going from that direction.

Michelle (00:27:08) - Yeah. No. That's good. Do you feel like there's any other studies that get brought to light a lot about organic versus conventionally grown that you want to touch on, and you want to kind of like bring people in to maybe another perspective on it.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:27:25) - Those are the main ones. There's been a couple of more recent studies that have shown their larger population studies, where it's been mostly out of this one cohort in France, and it's like they've been following these 100,000 people for, you know, 15 years now. And they've asked about organic and non-organic food because in the past, we don't have a lot of good research on this, because long term research, because,, well, organic wasn't even necessarily a big thing before. And we didn't really ask about it in research studies. We weren't asking people, is the produce you're eating organic as opposed to non-organic? Because that wasn't a big thing.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:28:02) - So that's only been over the last like 20 years where we're gathering more data on long term research., there's one study that came out that showed that, like organic food consumption was associated with lower rates of cancer, and I think heart disease as well. It's from this one French cohort. And so sometimes people will see that. The problem with that is people who eat organic food also have other healthier behaviors. And so it's really hard to tease out with this stuff. We like one study, shouldn't we? We can't base our, you know, our conclusions on one study like this. We have to see this replicated over and over again in different populations to really understand whether or not this is a true, you know, effect. Like, is the non-organic food consumption actually increasing the rates of these things? Because, you know, in one study, it could be that the people who eat organic are just there only like organic food was only available in one region of that country. In that region of that country is, you know, more walkable people are healthier.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:29:06) - It's by the beach. It's, you know, a number of different things. It's it's a wealthier area. And so those people who have been eat organic have been have all these other healthier lifestyle behaviors, and that's driving the outcomes versus the fact that they're eating organic. So that's why sometimes we never really want to look at like one study with these things. We want to see compilation of research. We want to see, you know, trends with things. But that one came out, I think it was 2 or 3 years ago. And that that one stirred things up again where people were like, oh, organic increases or lowers risk of cancer. But yeah,, it's just one study. There hasn't been other research that has confirmed that relationship. And,, like I mentioned a second ago, there's there's a lot of different things when we look at studies have to be interpreted very, very meticulously., yeah. There's a conclusion that comes out, but there's a lot of gray in the middle that needs to be understood and combed through,, to really put that conclusion into perspective.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:30:10) - And unfortunately, when you see.

Michelle (00:30:13) - And it was in France too, right.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:30:15) - Yes.

Michelle (00:30:16) - Sorry to interrupt you, but I was just thinking, isn't there? I think I remember you saying this on your on your episode about organic food. Isn't the regulation or the standards different in Europe versus America? So again, like you can't necessarily not really. There's all these reasons not to apply it. But there's another one.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:30:35) - Yeah exactly. And when these things come out you'll see you'll see headlines that don't they don't put them into context unfortunately. You'll see a headline that says organic food lowers risk of cancer, or eating organic lowers cancer risk or something like that. That'll be the headline that you'll see on all over the place on different, you know, New York Times and Washington Post. When these studies come out and they don't really describe the full context of like, okay, this study was done in France. There's significant differences between the groups of people who eat organic versus those who don't eat organic. This study hasn't been replicated.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:31:11) - You know, there's many different things that need to be taken into consideration. And at the end of the day, again, as we've discussed, like the discouraging people from like, the thing that gets to me with this is when people see this research, they're just discouraged, oftentimes from eating conventional fruits and vegetables. Yes. And that's the last thing that people need to be doing for their health is like avoiding fruits and vegetables. And so buying conventional is going to be significantly less. And for many people, doubling your grocery bill in order to buy organic is just not going to be worth it. Like I, I switched over, so I mentioned I had this time where I would almost I try to avoid anything that wasn't organic like as much as I possibly could, and the amount that that lowered my grocery bill when I started reading this research and it took me, it took me a bit because it was like there was some cognitive dissonance for sure. I was like,, I was still like, mentally kind of scared.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:32:19) - Yeah. You buy conventional produce for a bit because I was, I had been like scared into it, basically scared into thinking that these pesticides are so harmful. And I'm not a toxicologist, you know, I'm nutrition person. So, you know, when you hear scary things about a, you know, chemical that I don't really understand that. Well, I know nutrition, but this was something that I didn't really have a lot of background in it. You know, it led me to really feeling like I should avoid those things. And yeah, it's your grocery bill, Will. It makes a huge difference if you only bought organic versus not. It's going to double. And that's just not worth it for most people.

Michelle(00:32:57) - Well, and that's why I wanted to do this episode is because I think that there's, there's the nuances that we've talked about of like, okay, there may be a little bit higher amount of,, vitamins and minerals and such. There may be lower pesticides. The pesticides may be safer that are used, maybe.

Michelle (00:33:18) - But what happens is that when we have all these messages put out in the media that lack the context, that lack the nuance, people are afraid to then do the other option, which is conventionally grown produce. And there are people that I've seen videos of people straight up saying, if you can't eat organic, don't eat fruit vegetables at all, which is insane. And that's why I wanted to do this episode, because I want to like. Talk through how you don't need to be that extreme about this, and that's actually harmful. If you are extreme about this and you're leaving fruits and vegetables out of your diet for fear of pesticides, which can easily be washed off, and you can easily eat a couple more pieces of the strawberries or blueberries to get the extra nutrients that you might have gotten from the organic version. And yeah, like that. It's just kind of elitist too, because there's areas where they don't even have organic options, and it's probably the majority of the US actually, that is in a situation like that.

Michelle (00:34:30) - But we usually see on social media these tiny little pockets of wealthy individuals and privileged individuals buying their organic foods and talking about how that's solving all their problems, you know? Yeah.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:34:44) - And truthfully, it's probably not going to make a difference. And the other side of it, as you mentioned earlier, is like just the fact that people associate this with like, healthy is just that that tells how good of a marketing campaign organic food is. And like the organic label is largely marketing. And so they put together a pretty good marketing campaign around convincing people that, you know, organic equals better. And then and then companies have to pay $40,000. I think it's I think it's probably more than that now. It used to be 40,000 to get inspected to, to get that organic label. And so it's it's a business around.

Michelle (00:35:21) - You know why they're marked up so much. Yeah.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:35:23) - And so it's, it's a lot of marketing and to the point where people literally have been convinced that like organic equals healthy, I can't tell you how many times someone has because when you meet people, they try to like tell you how well they eat, when they find out.

Michelle (00:35:37) - Every time, every time.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:35:40) - So some people try to tell you their diet, and I can't tell you how many times people have said like, oh yeah, you're a nutritionist, I only eat, I only eat organic or something along those lines. Yeah. And I'm like cringing inside. I don't say that because I don't want to go on a rant.

Michelle (00:35:57) - Do you think that impresses me?

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:36:01) - Well, I mean, people telling us about their diet is number one. Just like it's so funny when people do that. But yeah, it needs to be a meme of that. Yeah the part where,, it surprises me every time though, because it's happened to me 4 or 5 times. And the reason they came up is because it happened a couple of days ago, and I remembered it now because someone said it a couple of days ago where they and I just have to, like, bite my tongue and be like, oh, cool. Like, because I don't want to go on a rant about and they didn't ask.

Michelle (00:36:35) - For a rant either. Like, it's just it's the most. And for anybody listening to this, it's like, oh, I've definitely done that to Michelle or to Adrian. We love you. Like we all the respect of the world for you. We know it's just like a natural human response, but it's like, what do you want us to say?

Michelle (00:36:52) - Yeah, okay. Before we end, I want to touch on really quick. I'm not going to get into grass fed beef and free range unless you have like a quick thing you want to say about that, because you do talk about it in your podcast episode, which I can just link in the show notes. So if anybody wants to listen to that, they can. What I want to get to before we finish out is the EWG, because you have my favorite quote from your episode was, this list is garbage. And I think you know what we're talking about. It's the Dirty Dozen list. So give our listeners a quick insight into why it's garbage.

Michelle (00:37:30) - Yeah.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:37:30) - So the Dirty Dozen in clean 15, they're they're doing what I talked about earlier with the with the study is they're measuring non-organic pesticides and they're they're not measuring organic pesticides. They're looking at non-organic pesticides, select ones. And they're they're looking at they're not looking at concentrations. They're actually just seeing is there any residue of this pesticide on the food. So say they always list strawberries is like one of the top ones. Spinach is one of the top ones., that's because they have residues from different pesticides. We don't know how much of those residues are on there. And we don't know whether or not that's unsafe. It's not like I just mentioned. These are going to be within safe limits if they actually measured concentrations., but what they're reporting is the foods that have higher numbers of pesticide residues on average. And it doesn't say anything about how much, it's just the types of pesticides that are used in those specific foods. Like, for example, I'm not a farmer, but I'm pretty sure that strawberries have to have different types of pesticides based on the types of pests that like to eat them.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:38:36) - And so that's why that would require different types of pesticides. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're being used at a higher rate, or they're more unsafe or they're dirty, quote unquote., and so the EWG is putting out this list. The EWG is is a marketing organization. It's a it's an advocacy group for organic food manufacturers. So like all of the organic organic companies basically help fund the EWG. And the EWG puts out information that scares consumers into buying more organic food. So they scare you away from buying conventional food and make you feel like you have to buy organic food or higher cost options. And that benefits the companies that help to sponsor the EWG. And EWG is not a scientific organization. This is it's basically a trade group. It is not a scientific organization. So a lot of people get the wrong idea. They think the environmental working group, the information they put out, I've seen a lot of people like they base their nutrition and personal care product decisions on the information that's put out by these groups, and that is it's just going to drive you crazy.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:39:47) - It's going to lead you towards this path that we just talked about, of trying to avoid a bunch of stuff that is really not a major risk for you, and causing you to go out of your way to spend a lot more money and, you know, just do things that aren't necessarily having a major impact on your health. One of the things I always talk about is like, we're worried about, you know, people get so worried about, you know, pesticides and, you know, the quote unquote chemicals in our personal care products and little things like that. There has not been any evidence to show that these have any major impact on our health. But what we do know is like eating more fruits and vegetables, exercising more, sleeping more like we have well established habits that have a major impact on our health that most people aren't doing like. So we need to focus. There is what I always try to like, get people to go back to, because we get really caught up on all of this minutia that that, you know, seems really important.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:40:42) - But we're not doing the basics like most people aren't doing the simple stuff on a day to day basis. It's really going to improve your health. And if you're sleeping five hours, not eating fruits and vegetables, you have a really crazy eating schedule that doesn't meet your nutrient needs correctly and like it doesn't matter if you're avoiding pesticides, it doesn't matter if you're,, you know, cutting out these little things, you're not going to experience a health improvement if you don't have those basics down and you're not really focusing on the foundation, which is your lifestyle.

Michelle (00:41:13) - Yeah, your non-toxic shampoo and conditioner won't solve all your problems if you're missing the basics.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:41:24) - That was all at the same time. I was like, I would buy like my products at the farmer's market and stuff. So they would be like non-toxic. And it's like deodorant that doesn't work. That was $12.

Michelle (00:41:36) - Full granola. You went full all in on the granola phase.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:41:41) - I did that was my early 20s. I was like, I'm going because I got into nutrition from changing my diet and improving my health dramatically. And so you see all these, you know, I got exposed to all of these wellness influencers and accounts early on before I started, like reading research. Yeah. And I got just pulled in that direction with things., and that's why I talk about it quite a bit. And I think I have a good experience of like kind of discussing this because I did all that stuff for a while and like, yeah, my health is better over a decade later than it was back then because I was like. Just stressing about.

Michelle (00:42:23) - And you're saving more money.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:42:24) - Didn't matter. Oh, yeah, a lot more.

Michelle (00:42:30) - Yeah. Well, this was great. So I think to recap organic versus conventionally grown when it comes to produce, there's going to be about 10 to 20% on average. As Adrian said, increase in the vitamins and minerals and antioxidants found in organic foods and minimal pesticides.

Michelle (00:42:51) - Right. Slightly better.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:42:53) - On average, there's lower pesticide residues on organic versus conventional.

Michelle (00:42:58) - Okay, so there is that element here. But you also have to weigh that against with conventionally grown they're significantly cheaper usually and more available more accessible. And you can still wash off all the residue with a simple rinse in the sink. Or as Adrian mentioned, you can,, soak it for about five minutes, maybe it with some baking soda or some vinegar if you're really concerned about the residue, and maybe just have a couple more bites of whatever the product is that you're eating, the produce that you're eating to get those extra nutrients, and that you would maybe have gotten from the organic version., when it comes to the cost benefit analysis, you have to weigh that for yourself. Is it really worth it to you to pay the extra amount? Typically, what I see is that it is a significant markup between conventionally grown and organic produce and packaged foods as well. There's always a significant markup on packaged foods because, like Adrian said, it's a marketing term.

Michelle (00:44:07) - As soon as you put that stamp on it, people are so convinced now that organic automatically means healthier, which isn't always the case, so they can justify marking up the price because they'll know people will buy it and you have to determine if that's worth it to you to spend the extra money on something that may not be benefiting your health much more, or at all. Any other thoughts or things you want to close out with?

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:44:35) - No, you covered it. You know we have to approach nutrition. All topics in nutrition there kind of look like this. Like it's going to be great. And if someone's telling you this or that, or it makes it seem extremely simple and black and white, that's when you need to be skeptical. And it's hard to make decisions with this information. Like sometimes it's easier to just be told like eat conventional or eat organic. And sometimes we we want to we want that. Yeah. But I would encourage people not to seek that out because what's going to happen is you're going to.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:45:12) - Limit your options and you're going to make it to where you can't actually stick to that. So if you think you only have to, you can only eat organic. You're going to limit your options, and it's going to make it difficult for you to follow a healthy dietary pattern because you're sticking to such rigid black and white thinking. And when you spend more time and it takes more time to kind of learn about the nuances of each topic, then that helps you to make a decision that you're comfortable with. They can be fluid over time. You know, maybe you buy a little bit more organic when your finances are in a better place, and maybe you have to tighten things up. But other times, and you're okay with those those decisions because you understand the, you know, the inputs that go into that. And, you know, a lot of people struggle with that because, you know, you're buying organic, but then your your income goes down and then you feel like you can't buy anything and you can't eat anything in the grocery store because you've created this black and white thinking around nutrition.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:46:10) - It feels easy at first, but over the long run, it's not going to help you really build sustainable habits.

Michelle (00:46:17) - Yeah, that's a really good point. These things that can be easy at first are overall usually unsustainable, like quick fixes or things that just tell you exactly how to live and give you a blueprint and make all the decisions for you. They can be easy for a week or two, but maybe a little longer, but in the long run, not necessarily. So it's usually worth it to do the extra legwork of really digging into a topic and figuring out what's important to you about that topic. That way, in the long run, you've done your due diligence to decide what's really important to you, and you can just continue to honor that decision. Yeah. And for the last point that I want to make, please do not avoid conventionally grown produce or foods just because you think that they're complete trash. If they're not organic, Adrian and I will be very, very sad and we will cry.

Michelle (00:47:07) - Before you go, where can the listeners find you to get in touch with you and share about your podcast, too? Because I know that they'll love that. Yeah.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:47:15) - So I have a podcast called the Nutrition Science Podcast., as Michelle mentioned, I cover various topics like this one, and I try to do what I was just talking about earlier is like, give you all of the nuance so that you can listen to an episode. Like, I talk about organic, I talk about,, collagen, for example, and give you the gray area of,, helping you to make that decision for yourself. Because, like I said, almost never is a topic yes or no., it's always it depends based on various factors. And when you listen to like, most of my episodes are about 30 minutes, if you listen to one, you'll usually have most of the information that you need to be able to make a decision on that topic, so I recommend checking that out. You can also find me on Instagram.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:48:01) - , my handle is at Doctor Adrian Chavez with a period in between each. So doctor period Adrian, period Chavez. And you can find all of the other things that I do from my links on Instagram.

Michelle (00:48:14) - Perfect. And I will put the links to your Instagram into your podcast in the show notes as well. Yeah, I'm excited to to get this out there and thank you again for your time.

Dr. Adrian Chavez (00:48:22) - Yeah. Thanks for having me.