As the Genetic Literacy Project reports, a review touting the alleged benefits of drinking natural milk grew to become a manufactured-for-headlines occasion and a monetary bonanza for the overall health and organic goods business. Let’s separate the hype from the details.
[This story was co-authored with the GLP"s Jeremy Summers]
The net erupted final week after Washington State University issued a information release titled “Researchers see extra dietary rewards in organic milk,” promoting a just-published review as a prolonged awaited silver bullet proof of the superior overall health advantages of natural foods. All the stories lacked were consensus science. Here’s how the media bungled their reporting and what the science genuinely says—and doesn’t say.
The journal report, co-authored by properly-acknowledged organic researcher Charles Benbrook, claimed to be “the first huge-scale, U.S.-broad comparison of natural and typical milk”—it wasn’t, but we’ll get to that later on. Published in PLOS A single, the Public Library’s open-entry resource, the news struck quick media gold, spawning a spate of misleading headlines and stories, even in the mainstream press.
“More Beneficial Fatty Acids Discovered in Organic Milk,” headlined Kenneth Chang’s New York Times story. (Reality: natural milk does not have larger concentrations of far more valuable fatty acids.) Businessweek‘s Andy Martin’s report was titled “Is Organic Milk Much better for You? It May Be.” (Reality: It is not.) The NBC News headline for the story by Melissa Dahl, a overall health writer and editor, was among the least accountable: “Yep, natural milk actually is greater for you than regular milk.” (Truth: Nope.)
The activist media upped the ante, with stories that go through like industry news releases in Mom Jones (Tom Philpott cites the research as ‘proof’—Fact: No way.) and Grist “Organic milk is better for your heart” (Fact: No much better than typical milk.), and the promotion of the story by the Organic Buyers Association, Stonyfield Natural and other organizations and organizations set to gain financially from this news.
While the rapturous headlines and the endorsements sound definitive, the science is something but. The flurry of uncritical stories touched off by the release of this research is a textbook illustration of how easily science can be manipulated and misrepresented—and why journalistic vigilance is so crucial.
Fatty acid conundrum
Charles Benbrook claims that “organic milk is better” than conventional milk simply because it consists of drastically greater concentrations of heart-healthful fatty acids. Testing virtually 400 samples over an 18-month time period, the study staff discovered that conventional milk they examined had an common omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratio of five.8, far more than twice the ratio of two.three they reported from natural milk. They say that is a far more favorable balance.
The issues with the study go far past poor math. Whilst some scientists argue that greater ratios of omega-six to omega-three lead to greater well being risks, that is not the consensus belief. Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition division at the Harvard College of Public Well being says that studies like this a single that claim that omega-six fatty acids are damaging advertise a “false assumption.” According to Willett, omega-6s are in fact linked with a decrease risk of heart disease. The ratio touted in the study is “irrelevant,” he says, and health aware buyers need to consume much more of each varieties of fatty acids—directly contradicting a central assumption in the Benbrook research.
Other scientists are concerned about the crude way Washington State University and Benbrook promoted the analysis. They make it seem like a breakthrough research, a theme echoed widely in news stories, and even by the New York Instances in its otherwise balanced report. Kenneth Chang calls it “the most clear-lower instance of an natural food’s offering a nutritional advantage in excess of its standard counterpart.”
In fact, research following study—thousands of them, with the 237 deemed most pertinent summarized in a meta-examination by a group at Stanford University published last year—have identified “little proof of well being positive aspects from organic meals.” The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Mayo Clinic, amid dozens of organizations, have mentioned organic foods offer you no nutritional positive aspects in excess of typical foods, and the National Dairy Council, which represents natural and conventional farmers, states there are no distinctive rewards from natural milk.
In spite of Benbrook’s claim, this is neither the first key nor the most comprehensive review evaluating the overall health variations of organic and conventional milk. In 2010, for instance, the Journal of Dairy Science evaluated samples from 48 states and reached the opposite conclusion from Benbrook’s one particular-off publication. That study also looked at milk labeled as recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST) cost-free. (rbST is a synthetic model of the protein, which organic activists, such as Benbrook, say is unhealthy, although there is no data to support that declare.) The conclusion in JDS:
All round, when data from our analysis of [fatty acid] composition of conventional milk and milk labeled rbST-free or natural were combined with earlier analytical comparisons of the good quality and composition of these retail milk samples, final results established that there have been no meaningful differences that would have an effect on public wellness and that all milks have been similar in dietary top quality and wholesomeness.
Grass fed not organics
“The dilemma with this review,” animal scientist at the University of California-Davis Alison Van Eenennaam notes in an e-mail, “is that it conflates ‘organic production’ with ‘omega-three ranges in pasture’. Fatty acids located in milk are derived almost equally from two sources: feed and the microbial exercise in the rumen of the cow. It is effectively acknowledged that milk from cows consuming grass has slightly increased levels of omega-three fatty acids. Grass-fed standard milk would have the very same fatty acid profile. This can actually be noticed in the research. Conventional milk from Northern California, the place cows are normally grazing pasture, had a fatty acid profile and omega-three articles related to organic milk.”
What about the claim that natural farmers are far more likely to grass feed their cows? That is real in some cases but not in other people. Based upon the time of the yr organic cows may or may not graze on pasture. In accordance to USDA organic suggestions, they can technically be off it for 8 months if raised in a area with a short grazing season.
Got (More healthy) Milk? How Activist Scientists And Journalists Bungled Report On Natural Foods
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