One of the most common questions I get when I speak is “What do you think about buying organic?” As with any question like this, I first try to gently explain that what I or anyone else thinks doesn’t really matter. What matters is the science: What the best available balance of evidence shows right now. How else could we possibly make decisions for something as critical as the health of ourselves and our families?
I put together a 5-part video series summarizing the best science comparing the nutritional content, pesticide risk, heavy metal toxicity, and food poisoning risk of organic versus conventionally raised foods, including a video on practical tips for making your own DIY fruit and vegetable wash:
- Are Organic Foods More Nutritious?
- Are Organic Foods Safer?
- How to Make Your Own Fruit and Vegetable Wash
- Are Organic Foods Healthier?
- Are the Benefits of Organic Food Underrated or Overrated?
They are all available right now as a video download as part of my new Latest in Clinical Nutrition volume 24 (all proceeds go to this charity). It can also be ordered as a physical DVD. The organic food videos are all scheduled to go up on NutritionFacts.org next month, but you can download and watch them right now.
I’m excited to announce that the downloads are now in HD and have all the chapters marked like in the physical DVD.
The current batch of videos from volume 23 on NutritionFacts.org just ran out, so starting now and running through June, I’ll be rolling out the videos from this new DVD, volume 24. The DVDs give folks the opportunity to sneak-preview videos months ahead of time, watch them all straight through, and share them as gifts, but there is nothing on the DVDs that won’t eventually end up free online here at NutritionFacts.org. If you’d like the works–40+ hours of video–you can get the complete DVD collection.
In the image above you can see the list of chapters from the new volume 24 DVD — a preview of what’s to come over the next few months on NutritionFacts.org. Order my new DVD at DrGreger.org/dvds or through Amazon. It can also be ordered as a video download at DrGreger.org/downloads.
If you were a regular supporter, you’d already be an organic food expert by now, having gotten the new DVD last week! I now come out with new DVDs every 9 weeks. If you’d like to automatically receive them before they’re even available to the public, please consider becoming a monthly donor.
Anyone signing up on the donation page to become a $15 monthly contributor will receive the next three DVDs for free (as physical DVDs, downloads, or both–your choice), and anyone signing up as a $25 monthly contributor will get a whole year’s worth of new DVDs. If you’re already signed up and didn’t receive your volume 24 yet, please email Tommasina@NutritionFacts.org and she’ll make everything all better.
If you’d rather just watch all the videos online as they launch, but would still like to support my work of helping to educate millions about healthy eating, you can make a tax-deductible donation to my 501c3 nonprofit organization NutritionFacts.org using a credit card, a direct PayPal link, or by sending a check to “NutritionFacts.org” PO Box 11400, Takoma Park, MD 20913.
Time and time again you’ve heard me kvetch about the corrupting role money has played in the field of nutritional science. Financial considerations decide which foods get studied, which studies get published, and which findings get disseminated to the public. And when a company funds its own research, you always have to worry if the inherent conflict of interest is biasing the results. That really hit home when I was recording the video, Nutritional Yeast to Prevent the Common Cold. The video ends with a concern that some brands of nutritional yeast may be contaminated with lead.
What a frustrating experience it was hounding these companies to answer simple questions about the safety of their products. Then I had a revelation: Why not do our own testing? Even if all the companies did get back to me, why should we believe what they say? So I am hereby announcing the NutritionFacts.org Research Fund. Do you eat nutritional yeast? Even if you don’t, do you want to know if the companies were lying? Then donate to the Fund and as soon as we’ve raised enough I’ll send off samples from each of these brands to an accredited lab and we’ll find out.
Any money left over in the Fund will go to future research projects. Want to know if there are heavy metals in popular brands of amla or turmeric? Should we check Eden Foods preliminary bean results? Check for oxidation by-products in DHA supplements? You tell me! Leave your suggestions and comments on the Research Fund page and we’ll post all the results when they come in.
-Michael Greger
