It is a trend that has taken hold more and more since the early XNUMXs and then grows more and more up to the present day.
We are talking about organic and everything that revolves around this word now praised everywhere, which as a first side effect has produced an increase in the prices of many products called bio!
The annual turnover of these products is around 4 billion a year, with constant growth however. More and more people are buying organic products for various reasons, first of all thinking about health then because they think they have a lower environmental impact and because no pesticides and other chemicals are used ... but is this really the case?
According to a report commissioned by the British Food Standard Agency, organic foods do not show superior quality characteristics to corresponding traditionally grown foods. In fact, most organic food products are similar to non-organic ones, all except for cereals, where organic ones are poorer in proteins and organic tomatoes which are richer in vitamin C, but this justifies organic in health terms?
There is no evidence showing substantial nutritional differences between organic and conventional foods. The most extensive and in-depth research ever carried out on this topic, with publications from 1958 to 2008 and more than 52 scientific reports drawn up in the last 50 years. The synthesis of the scientific director of the project, Professor Alan Dangour, is that “there is no evidence of any significant health benefit deriving from eating so-called organic foods. Traces of miniscule differences can be observed, but they are unlikely to be of relevance to public health. '
Emanuele Bianchi, food expert at Altroconsumo adds that respecting the soils, the cycles of nature, animal welfare and not using pesticides, is not enough to say that it is also good for health.
From a study by Altroconsumo it was found:
As we have already said in most foods there are no differences both in nutritional and health terms, whether they are organic or not, in fact they are almost identical, so even the flours follow the same quality speech between organic and traditional.
Why do the Molini like other companies follow in the wake of how the market is going, is there a demand for organic products? So let's make an organic flour! Nothing bad is right, the Mills are companies and they have to sell, the wrong thing is to give bad information, that is, to make people believe that organic flour is healthier without proving it with scientific evidence. It is obvious that the mills cannot prove it with scientific evidence because the scientific evidence says just the opposite or at least as reported in the data I mentioned earlier denies that bio is better or better.
With organic flour, therefore, a better pizza is not produced, but only an “organic pizza”, which in fact is no longer healthy, much less good. Let's say that the main difference between organic and non-organic flour is mainly the price, to the delight of producers who are thus able to "profit" on a belief that has now become popular. Do you know what the placebo effect is?
This is the definition: “The state of health of the patient who has access to such treatment can improve, provided that the patient places confidence in that substance or therapy. This improvement induced by the patient's positive expectations is called the "placebo effect". It means that if for example a doctor prescribes a peppermint candy to a patient who thinks he is sick but in reality he is not and makes him believe that the candy is a miracle drug, that patient feels better until he thinks he is cured. This can only be done with patients who are not really sick but who believe they are. Here with the bio we are using the "placebo effect".
At Sigep 2018 some Molino to stand out even went so far as to advertise their flours as 100% Italian, making it clear between the lines that they are produced only with Italian wheat. But I wonder how can there be 100% "made in Italy" flours if we import wheat from abroad? So either you are a very small Molino that sells in a small restricted area with the little wheat it finds in Italy or if it proposes itself as a large Molino there is something that does not add up if it is then said to market and produce only Italian wheat flours. ..no? In Italy, the law says that companies and mills are not obliged to indicate the origin of the raw material on the packaging, but must report the name of the plant that carried out the last significant transformation. "The flours marketed in Italy - states Italmopa, in the press release of 21 March 2017 - are 100% Made in Italy, even if they contain imported wheat, because the last processing takes place on national soil". A flour produced from imported wheat but transformed in Italy is therefore "100% Italian" by law. So here is the unmasked other "hoax" of those large mills that advertise their flours as 100% Made in Italy. This message can be said by law that is why it is advertised but it is deliberately deceptive because it suggests to the most inexperienced that there are many and they know that those flours are produced with 100% Italian wheat which is not true. Proof of this is the fact that the mills that advertise the deceptive message of 100% Italian flours do not specify to their customers how things really are. It is not even in their interest to do so otherwise they would not have done that kind of publicity.
We have come to the point of giving an aesthetic sense to everything, for food that aesthetic sense is conferred by these "labels" that only in the perception offered by marketing can it give to consumers.
With this it is clear that with bio we are faced with a pure and simple marketing operation that is moving capital from one production to another, but which in reality does not offer any real advantage to the consumer except the placebo effect of be convinced that it is better often comforted by the fact that everything pays a lot more! And when you pay dearly for a product, you tend to think that it is necessarily better.
