Does organic food taste better?
Organic food has become a lightning rod for controversy, which is unsurprising given the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over it. Extensive research has compared organic and conventional crops in terms of yield, soil health, pesticide use, and many other parameters, often reaching different conclusions. Meanwhile, the public is at least as confused as the experts. In the face of this uncertainty, and despite organic foods costing up to three times more than their conventional counterparts, consumption of organic food is on the rise . Of those members of the public who do purchase organic products, 24% do so for health and taste reasons. In fact, 18 different studies have found that members of the public associate organic food with good or better tasting products. But are these consumers getting what they pay for?
It is reasonable to believe that organic crops might taste different. One of the major distinctions between growing systems is that organic farming relies on natural fertilizers like compost and manures, which have different nutrient availabilities than synthetic fertilizer. This could influence the concentration of sugars and other compounds in organic and conventional fruit, thereby changing flavour. In the case of meats, animals raised on pasture (more characteristic of organic production systems) may have a diet that is more rich in grass and therefore contains different compounds that alter the beef’s taste profile.
But can humans detect these differences? To figure this out, I reviewed ten studies investigating taste preference across a variety of foods and drinks. Unfortunately, my investigation didn’t yield easy answers: there was no conclusive preference for organic products amongst trained taste panelists or public consumers. In fact, there was an equal number of studies where participants showed a preference for organic as studies where participants preferred conventional foods, and many studies showed no difference at all (Table 1).
These results should suggest to you that organic food does not taste better than conventional food 100% of the time. So let me dive into a couple of experiments that are representative of the whole batch to find out what’s going on.
In 2002, Laurence Fillion and Stacey Arazi (“Does organic food taste better? A claim substantiation approach”) compared organic and conventional orange juice by presenting members of the public with 14 different orange juice products. They found that participants preferred the organic orange juice and there was no difference between a group of participants who were blinded and another group who knew what they were drinking. When they repeated the study with pasteurized milk, they reported no detectable difference in taste.
In 2007, Xin Zhao and colleagues ran a more thorough study with the same goals. In this experiment, vegetables (lettuce, spinach, arugula, mustard greens, cucumber, tomato and onions) were grown using conventional and organic methods. Blinded participants evaluated taste, finding no significant difference, except in tomato, where conventional tomatoes were slightly preferred (although this may have partially been due to difference in ripeness).
That point about ripeness matters. There are numerous factors that can control the taste of food beyond the growing method such as when the fruit/vegetable was picked, how long it was allowed to ripen on the plant, the method of ripening, and how it was stored. If we relied on only one study, the difference in taste between organic and conventional might be overwhelmed by another variable. Most studies controlled for this by growing their own food, but some researchers sampled from local farms and others relied on retail outlets, both of which are arguably more representative of actual customer experience. In other words, the taste of a product experienced by an actual consumer is influenced by far more factors than just the production method.
Looking beyond those ten studies on food preference, I found that more recent efforts to understand the differences between organic and conventional foods have focused on how social status motivates consumers to view organic foods as tastier. In one experiment, university students were given two identical samples of carrots, but told that one sample was organic. They reported no taste preference when conducting the test in private. However, when the tasting situation was visible to others the organic food tasted more pleasant and participants felt more inclined to purchase it.
On the other hand, organic foods which are perceived as being more processed may undermine a consumer’s expectations of organic food and thereby change their perceptions of that food. And to complicate matters, different consumers perceive the same products differently; most individuals perceive organic foods to be lower in calories than conventional foods, but not individuals who frequently read food labels.
Different preferences among consumers could actually help to explain the larger picture of what’s going on. Some have suggested a “core organic taste” composed of several elements that may be extra appealing for consumers seeking that organic food experience: natural flavour, less sweetness, whole grains and freshness. If organic consumers are looking for a particular set of qualities in their food then this, along with the psychological “halo effect” of organic food, might help explain why organic consumers swear by that organic taste.
The question of whether organic food tastes better is actually pretty complicated; organic foods may indeed taste better to some people and not to others, and only in some circumstances. To complicate matters more, there are multiple definitions of organic, with some definitions referring to a holistic management philosophy and others to standards which differ by jurisdiction. When it comes to organic, the answers are rarely sweet and simple.
