Is Organic Better? Ask A Fruit Fly!

This is going to stir up some stuff.

When middle school student Ria Chhabra heard her parents arguing about the whether organic foods had more nutrition and health benefits, she decided to do a science fair project that, three years later, has earned her top honors in a national science competition, publication in a respected scientific journal and university laboratory privileges that are normally reserved only for graduate students.

Her paper, “Organically Grown Food Provides Health Benefits to Drosophila Melanogaster,” tracked the effects of organic and conventional diets on the health of fruit flies.

The long and the short of it? The fruit flies fed organically grown bananas and potatoes grew bigger, lived longer, exhibited more fertility and had better resistance to stress than than fruit flies fed conventionally grown diets.

And although fruit flies are not human, this settles it for me. Here's a link the the New York Times Health and Science article where I picked this up.