American Chemical Society

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Research At Great Lakes Meeting Shows More Vitamin C In Organic Oranges
Than Conventional Oranges

MINNEAPOLIS, June 2 - Organically-grown oranges contain up to 30%
more
vitamin C than those grown conventionally, it was reported today at a
Great Lakes Regional meeting of the American Chemical Society, the
world's largest scientific society. The Great Lakes meeting is being
held at the Radisson Hotel Metrodome June 2-4 and more than 400
scientists and students are expected to attend. This research paper is
being presented in Memorial Hall of the McNamara Alumni Center at the
University of Minnesota. Theo Clark, a visiting chemistry professor at
Truman State University (Kirksville, Mo), reported the finding based on

work done by him and a group of undergraduate students. He said he
decided to conduct the analysis because of a lack of analytical
information about the nutritional content of organically-grown produce.

"Quite often, organic goods come from smaller farms that market their
goods with provocative labels such as 'healthy,' 'delicious,' or
'natural'," he said. "These statements are generally made without
reference to any comparable standards." Clark added that he chose
oranges to begin the assessment because they are high-profile fruits.
"The orange is the traditional source of vitamin C, and it is highly
commercialized, but no one to our knowledge has thought to compare the
organic and conventionally-grown oranges."

Conventional oranges are larger than organically-grown oranges, and
they
have a deeper orange color. Because of their size, "we were expecting
twice as much vitamin C in the conventional oranges," said Clark. But
to
his surprise, chemical isolation combined with nuclear magnetic
resonance (NMR) spectroscopy revealed that the organically-grown
oranges
contained 30% more vitamin C than the conventionally-grown fruits -
even
though they were only about half the size.

Clark said the reason for the added nutritional punch isn't clear, but
"we speculate that with conventional oranges, (farmers) use nitrogen
fertilizers that cause an uptake of more water, so it sort of dilutes
the orange. You get a great big orange but it is full of water and
doesn't have as much nutritional value," said Clark. "However, we can
only speculate. Other factors such as maturity, climate, processing
factors, packaging, and storage conditions require consideration."

In addition to the chemical analysis, Clark and his team conducted a
survey of 27 households (approximately 71 individuals) in the rural
town
of Miller, Mo., to gauge their expectations of organic oranges. Eighty
five percent of respondents believed that organic oranges would have a
higher nutritional content than their conventionally-grown
counterparts,
and Clark's research shows that "they were right on." However, 65%
believed that there was little or no price difference between the two
types of oranges. In fact, Clark's team found that organic oranges cost

an average of twice as much.

Clark says these issues are important because consumers have a right to

know the real nutritional content of organic produce, and hard numbers
such as the vitamin C content can validate the claims of the burgeoning

organic industry. On the other hand, farmers considering a change from
conventional to organic farming methods need to know what consumers
expect, and what they are willing to pay for it.

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