Gardeners might be shocked to find there appear to be little, if any, nutritional or taste benefits to growing organically, says Which? Gardening.
In small-scale trials of three popular garden food crops – potatoes, calabrese (broccoli) and tomatoes – experts found that non-organically grown garden veg were tastier and more nutritious than organically grown crops.
The non-organic calabrese was found to have significantly higher levels of antioxidants than the organically grown samples; while non-organic potatoes contained more Vitamin C than the organic crop.
A panel of expert tasters found that the non-organically grown tomatoes had a stronger tomato flavour and were slightly sweeter than the organic samples. 69 per cent of tasters at the Totally Tomato Show agreed.
Ceri Thomas, editor of Which? Gardening, says:
“The surprising results of this small-scale trial call into question a lot of preconceptions about the taste and nutritional value of organic vegetables.
“However, this trial didn’t look at other benefits of going organic, such as the impact on the environment. Whatever methods you use, any gardener will tell you that home grown fruit and veg beat supermarket fare hands down.”
