"Bio not necessarily healthier, but vegetable is"

Bio food may not actually be healthier, according to doctor of sciences and moral philosophy Stijn Bruers. He says there is not enough scientific proof to support that claim, but it can be made for vegetable food.

More research in traditional agriculture

“For consumers, their health is the prime reason to buy bio food, because it allegedly improves one’s health due to the lack of chemicals. However, no one, not even the World Health Organization, has already been able to pinpoint the health benefits when pesticides are removed from conventional agriculture”, Bruers told Dutch paper AD.

He refers to the fact that the industry has studied soil tillage and less poisonous pesticides over the past few years and that the “traditional agricultural industry has taken more steps in that regard than the bio farming industry“, he told De Standaard. Bruers highlights several reasons: bio farmers’ yield is lower, which requires them to cultivate more soil and plough it more often because pesticides are not an option. However, that is not as positive for the organisms living in the soil itself.

Despite his statements, Bruers does not want to motivate consumers to sidestep bio food. “That is not what I am saying. I merely want to point out that the evidence to support the notion that bio is healthier and more environmentally friendly is dubious at best.”

Focus on vegetable food

Vegetable food has actually been proven to be healthier, which is why Bruers’ suggestion is to spend more money on campaigns to motivate consumers to buy more vegetable food.

“The environment would also stand to gain if we eat vegetable food, because it lowers our dependency on pesticides, deforestation, fertilization and antibiotics. Over the past few years, we have seen ever more proof that vegetable food has plenty of advantages.”