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Nutritional Description of Organic and Conventional Food Products in Spain: The BADALI Project

Organic food and drink is undoubtedly a growing market. Consumers perceive organic food as healthy, and nutrition claims (NCs) and fortification may add to this perception. Whether this is true is still a matter of controversy, particularly for organic food products. We present here the first compre...

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Autores principales: Ropero, Ana B., Borrás, Fernando, Rodríguez, Marta, Beltrá, Marta
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10144859/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37111095
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu15081876
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author Ropero, Ana B.
Borrás, Fernando
Rodríguez, Marta
Beltrá, Marta
author_facet Ropero, Ana B.
Borrás, Fernando
Rodríguez, Marta
Beltrá, Marta
author_sort Ropero, Ana B.
collection PubMed
description Organic food and drink is undoubtedly a growing market. Consumers perceive organic food as healthy, and nutrition claims (NCs) and fortification may add to this perception. Whether this is true is still a matter of controversy, particularly for organic food products. We present here the first comprehensive study of large samples of six specific organic food types, analysing the nutritional quality (nutrient composition and “healthiness”) as well as the use of NCs and fortification. In parallel, a comparison with conventional food is also carried out. For this purpose, the Food Database of products in the Spanish market, BADALI, was used. Four cereal-based and two dairy-substitute food types were analysed. Our results show that as many as 81% of organic foods are considered “less healthy” by the Pan American Health Organization Nutrient Profile Model (PAHO-NPM). Organic foods present a slightly improved nutrient profile compared to conventional foods. However, many of the differences, though statistically significant, are nutritionally irrelevant. Organic foods use NCs very frequently, more than conventional foods, with very little micronutrient fortification. The main conclusion of this work is that consumers’ perception that organic food products are healthy is unfounded from a nutritional point of view.
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spelling pubmed-101448592023-04-29 Nutritional Description of Organic and Conventional Food Products in Spain: The BADALI Project Ropero, Ana B. Borrás, Fernando Rodríguez, Marta Beltrá, Marta Nutrients Article Organic food and drink is undoubtedly a growing market. Consumers perceive organic food as healthy, and nutrition claims (NCs) and fortification may add to this perception. Whether this is true is still a matter of controversy, particularly for organic food products. We present here the first comprehensive study of large samples of six specific organic food types, analysing the nutritional quality (nutrient composition and “healthiness”) as well as the use of NCs and fortification. In parallel, a comparison with conventional food is also carried out. For this purpose, the Food Database of products in the Spanish market, BADALI, was used. Four cereal-based and two dairy-substitute food types were analysed. Our results show that as many as 81% of organic foods are considered “less healthy” by the Pan American Health Organization Nutrient Profile Model (PAHO-NPM). Organic foods present a slightly improved nutrient profile compared to conventional foods. However, many of the differences, though statistically significant, are nutritionally irrelevant. Organic foods use NCs very frequently, more than conventional foods, with very little micronutrient fortification. The main conclusion of this work is that consumers’ perception that organic food products are healthy is unfounded from a nutritional point of view. MDPI 2023-04-13 /pmc/articles/PMC10144859/ /pubmed/37111095 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu15081876 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Ropero, Ana B.
Borrás, Fernando
Rodríguez, Marta
Beltrá, Marta
Nutritional Description of Organic and Conventional Food Products in Spain: The BADALI Project
title Nutritional Description of Organic and Conventional Food Products in Spain: The BADALI Project
title_full Nutritional Description of Organic and Conventional Food Products in Spain: The BADALI Project
title_fullStr Nutritional Description of Organic and Conventional Food Products in Spain: The BADALI Project
title_full_unstemmed Nutritional Description of Organic and Conventional Food Products in Spain: The BADALI Project
title_short Nutritional Description of Organic and Conventional Food Products in Spain: The BADALI Project
title_sort nutritional description of organic and conventional food products in spain: the badali project
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10144859/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37111095
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu15081876
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