Organic Misinformation

The only reasons to purchase and consume organic foods are to avoid artificial pesticide and herbicide treatment, and to support farming practises that are better for the environment. While research indicates that certain nutrients are more present in organic food, a definitive answer on the overall health benefits is yet to be decided.

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Yet despite this, organic blogs spread the definite knowledge that organic food is superior to non-organic food in every way. Organic diets are boasted to have a variety of health benefits from

Mercola.com is one of these organic blog sites, owned by Dr. Joseph M. Mercola. The self-proclaimed “world’s No. 1 health website” attracts around 1.9 million unique users each month, and gains about 1000 new subscribers each day, across the globe. The site is branded as the one place to go for all your health benefit information, designed for people who don’t have the time, or the knowhow, to sift through scientific journals, and instead want an easy to understand approach to it.

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This all sounds great, until the site’s content is read. Mercola.com isn’t just an organic food blog, although that’s what it prides itself on. It is also an alternative medicine blog, with Mercola desperately trying to prove that the benefits of organic foods, fruits, and vegetables are superior to modern medicine, while simultaneously stating that medicine is dangerous and only organic foods and products should be utilized. Other organic health blog has great similarities to Mercola.com, although to a lesser extent.

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OrganicEating.com, LivingPrettyNaturally.com, NourishedLife.com, and Goodness.com.au are a few of the more popular organic blogs, and their content ranged from organic health products to organic food products and recipes, including highlighting individual food items to incorporate into diets. While these blogs are not trying to disprove modern medicine like Mercola does, they all paint organic products in a superior light to the artificial counterparts.

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All these organic blogs have two major similarities. The first is the complete lack of referencing to support their claims. Many of these articles aren’t opinion pieces or based on anecdotes either, such as the “Best Natural Cleansers of 2018” or “How I lost 30kg using this diet” articles that appear on the sites. These articles are irrefutably trying to prove a point, with titles such as “The Health benefits of Strawberries”, “What does gut health mean?” and “Why you should eat organic”. These articles usually contain no referencing at all, and the articles that do cite other unreferenced organic blog articles or their own website, making these pieces opinion articles disguised as informative reports.

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Peer reviewed sources are far and few between, and pretty much exclusively appear on Mercola.com, on specific articles. The site only includes these references when their findings directly agree with their articles. Many of these reports that disagree with Mercola are never mentioned, and on these articles he will again source his own site, other blogs, or simply not even bother.

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The other similarity between all these blogs is the inclusion of a shop, which even the organic recipe blogs have included on their sites and is likely another reason why these blogs try so desperately to convince people of organic product’s superiority. Many of their articles promote organic products, which can be found in their own stores, which means that they directly profit off people believing what they have written.

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This in turn encourages these bloggers to use aggressive persuasive techniques in their articles, the most common of which is scare tactics, or appeals to fear.

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Mercola.com is especially guilty of this, granted Dr. Mercola’s unique position of being experienced in the medical field. Hence, he understands the advanced vocabulary that is used in scientific reports, which he continues to use in his articles in order to leave an impression on less aware readers. These readers would then be feared into believing Mercola, which makes them more likely to purchase the organic alternatives from his store.

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While other blogs and websites do not follow Mercola’s aggressive tactics, they do rely on echo chambers; people who all agree with each other congregating in the same location, supporting each other’s arguments with very little outside interference or disagreement. Communities such as these can be found on websites like Facebook and Reddit, which will often share biased blogs and articles that they have been reading, further reinforcing a narrowed view of their topics of discussion.

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The reason why the misinformation spread by these websites is dangerous is because these are the most readily accessible sources of information on the internet and would be what most people interested in organic products will stumble onto. Not everyone has the knowhow or the patience to sift through scientific journals and learn the intricacies of how organic food may benefit them. It is far easier to listen to articles written by people who already support organic food and have been using them to their own advantage, rather than the opposing view many researchers provide.

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Now what exactly is this view these researchers provide? Well:

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• Organic foods contain higher amounts of some nutrients, specifically Vitamin C and Omega-3, although the difference have a very small impact on nutritional health.

• The main advantage of organic foods is the limited exposure to synthetic pesticides and herbicides. Most of the time, there will be no exposure whatsoever.

• Organic farming is healthier for the environment than conventional farming, although more land is needed to reach similar yields.

While research into organic foods and their benefits are still ongoing, these conclusions are widely agreed upon. If organic blogs conveyed this information to their readers, very few would be convinced that their products should be purchased, lowering their revenue. Hence, misinformation is spread to profit of their reader’s gullibility.