That depends who you ask. Ask the main author of the FSA commissioned report in 2009 or the authors of the 2012 study and they will tell you no. But ask Prof. Leifert and the other authors of a new paper published in the British Journal of Nutrition this month and they will tell you yes.

The new study (like the old studies) is a meta analysis of published papers on the matter. The authors claim that the reason their conclusions differ from that of the earlier studies is that they have access to many papers that were not available at the time of the previous papers. The main author of the 2009 study hit back by saying they are mixing good data with bad to come to their conclusion.  I would say the debate continues then…

The main findings of the study where that organic food contained more antioxidants and less heavy metals than the non organic kind.

Click here to read the open access paper on the British Journal of Nutrition website.