This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 1:37pm and is filed under Food Safety, Organic foods, Labels, Health, Food Production. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
We are pleased to present this guest post from Terry Etherton, who normally blogs here.
In the first peer-reviewed study of its kind, a paper*** published in the July issue of the prestigious Journal of the American Dietetic Association (JADA) reports the results of an in-depth survey study comparing retail milk for quality, nutritional value and levels of different milk hormones, including bovine somatotropin (bST).
The study looked specifically at three label claims related to dairy-cow management: conventional milk, recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST)-free milk and organic milk. The recent trend in misleading food labeling based on agricultural management prompted the study.
While minor differences were observed for the three labels, the differences were not “biologically meaningful.” The authors of the study (including me) concluded that label claims “were not related to any meaningful differences in the milk compositional variables measured.” The only difference among conventional, rbST-free and organic milk is price, according to the study, with milk labeled rbST-free or organic selling for anywhere from $1 to $4 more per gallon than conventional milk.
The study will help food and nutritional professionals respond effectively to consumer questions and perceptions about confusing and deceptive milk-label claims that are designed to differentiate rbST-free and organic milk from conventional milk. The objective of these marketing campaigns it to have consumers pay a whole lot for rbST-free or organic milk when, in fact, they are compositionally the same as conventional milk.
***Vicini, J, T.D. Etherton, P. Kris-Etherton, J. Ballam, S. Denham, R. Staub, D. Goldstein, R. Cady, M. McGrath and M. Lucy. 2008. Survey of retail milk composition as affected by label claims regarding farm-management practices. J. Am. Diet. Assoc. 108:1198-1203.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:14pm
Wow! What a great article. I hope we can find a way to get the entire article accessible to the public.
I found it interesting that the differences that were statistically, although not biologically, significant were not always in the direction one would expect based on popular press. Case in point, that estradiol and progesterone (female sex hormones) were highest in organic milk!
Thanks, Terry for the guest post and the article itself.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:52pm
[…] recent JADA paper we discussed here also found no biologically meaningful differences in rBST-free, traditional and […]
August 27th, 2008 at 9:42pm
i’m confused. so does this mean that the articles i read about research showing that organic milk has higher levels of vitamin E, omega 3 essential fatty acids and antioxidants are wrong? or did your study not really address that? i am trying to figure out what’s best to buy from all kinds of angles.
thanks.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:11pm
I’ll make my best stab at an answer, since Terry is only a guest post-er. The study looked at macronutrients (fat, lactose, protein, total solids), hormones and antibiotics but not at the specific nutrients you mentioned.
My opinion is that while the diet may influence those levels to some extent (and I am not sure whether it is a biologically meaningful extent or not), whether the milk is organic or produced with or without rBST in and of itself does not influence those things.
One of the difficult things to figure out from studies that make it into the news is whether the reported differences are due to whatever is claimed on the label or is just coincident with those claims.
IMHO, buying organic is more about supporting specific production practices and principles than about nutrition. I do have a personal bias that because food produced under an organic label often carries a higher price tag, it sometimes is given a bit more QC than generic and istherefor of higher quality. For instance, I buy Stoneyfield or Brown Cow yogurt almost exclusively, not because they are organic but because they are an entirely different class of yogurt. I believe they would be just as good if non-organic milk was used.