What's the deal with organic food?

Emily Oster (0:00)

So Perry, today we're talking about organic food. And I want to tell you something that's really great and special about my life in Rhode Island. Rhode Island is like the best place to live. And one of the really great things about it is there is a really amazing organic farm down in Warren. For those of you who live in Rhode Island, it's called Long Lane Farm, and they have this amazing farm stand, and the produce is like just spectacular. They have like the greatest tomatoes, and they have these amazing salad greens, and it's like during the summer, it's just this incredible delight of like amazing produce that we get all the time.

Perry Wilson (0:36)

It sounds great.

Emily Oster (0:37)

It's so great.

Perry Wilson (0:38)

Yeah.

Emily Oster (0:38)

It is organic though, but they do, you know, they wash it and so on. And the other day, a thing that I really like to eat is what I call a big salad. That's how I refer to it. I put it in like a mixing bowl, and I have like a lot of salad greens and chicken and like guacamole and maybe some hummus and like some other roasted vegetables and some tomatoes. And I like mix it all up and it's like really big and it's a big salad. And the other day, I'm eating it and I'm like, huh.

Perry Wilson (1:03)

Oh no.

Emily Oster (1:03)

There's something like a little crunchier than I expected in this.

SPEAKER_3 (1:08)

Oh no.

Emily Oster (1:09)

And it's a cricket.

Perry Wilson (1:10)

It's a cricket head. Okay.

SPEAKER_3 (1:14)

And-

Perry Wilson (1:14)

A head.

SPEAKER_3 (1:16)

That begs the question, Emily.

Emily Oster (1:18)

Half of the cricket, no, half of the cricket was still in the bowl and half of the cricket was in my mouth.

And you know, some people would have stopped eating the salad. But honestly, I just took the cricket out of the salad and I finished it because it was so delicious.

Perry Wilson (1:37)

I think that's, first of all, good protein.

SPEAKER_3 (1:40)

Yes. Exactly.

Emily Oster (1:41)

People eat insects. Someday we'll all be eating insects.

Perry Wilson (1:43)

I ate crickets in Mexico with my wife. It was like a local delicacy. They were fried and salty and tasted like bacon bits. So I think it's a good option actually.

Emily Oster (1:53)

What I'm saying is that organic produce is great. It contains extra protein and crickets are crunchy.

I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and a data expert.

Perry Wilson (2:07)

And I'm Perry Wilson. I'm a medical doctor.

Emily Oster (2:09)

It's Thursday, October 22nd, 2026, and this is Wellness, Actually.

Perry Wilson (2:14)

Because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information nowadays from every source imaginable. And some of it.

Emily Oster (2:22)

And some of it is, well, actually, bullsh**. Fortunately, we're both people who know how to read studies, how to parse the data, and can tell you what's worth thinking about, and what you can safely ignore.

Perry Wilson (2:36)

But before we dig in, a note that this podcast is for educational purposes and should not be construed as medical advice. We don't know your unique situation, so talk to your doctor for personal health decisions.

Emily Oster (2:47)

This week, we're asking, what's the deal with organic food? Perry and I will give the official smash or pass, and then we'll get to your question of the week. But first, let's do the health news roundup after the break.

And now for the health news of the week. Perry, there is a new article saying that doctors are writing mean things in my medical records. Explain yourself.

Perry Wilson (3:22)

Oh, gosh. It's true, everyone. It's true. We write horrible things about you. The context here is that the 21st Century Cures Act made it way easier for patients to access their medical records, like read their notes. You used to, of course, you could always do this, but it used to be that you had to go to the medical records office at the hospital and file something, sometimes pay money, and it would take months to get your records back, and it was a whole process. But now you basically get to see everything as soon as it comes up. And to be honest, doctors don't 100% love this, in particular when it comes to certain lab tests or pathology results, where you're calling us about it before we've even had a chance to look at it and think through it and process it. And so there are some issues with this. But one of the issues that this article, which appears in JAMA Network Open, by the way, this comes to us from MedPage Today, Christina Fiore, who's actually one of my favorite medical science writers, was writing about this. But the study in JAMA Network Open, interviewed, surveyed 500 adults, and 18% of them reported seeing disrespectful or judgmental language in their medical records. And the vast majority thought that that type of language would lead to worse care.