The largest study of its kind has found that organic foods and crops have a suite of advantages over their conventional counterparts, including more antioxidants and fewer, less frequent pesticide residues（残留）. The study looked at an unprecedented 343 peer-reviewed publications comparing the nutritional quality and safety of organic and conventional plant-based foods, including fruits, vegetables, and grains. The study team applied sophisticated meta-analysis techniques to quantify differences between organic and non-organic foods.

"Science marches on," said Charles Benbrook, a Washington State University researcher and the lone American co-author of the paper, published in the British Journal of Nutrition. "Our team learned valuable lessons from earlier reviews on this topic, and we benefited from the team's remarkable breadth of scientific skills and experience."

Most of the publications covered in the study looked at crops grown in the same area, on similar soils. This approach reduces other possible sources of variation in nutritional and safety parameters.

The research team also found the quality and reliability of comparison studies has greatly improved in recent years, leading to the discovery of significant nutritional and food safety differences not detected in earlier studies. For example, the new study incorporates the results of a research project led by WSU's John Reganold that compared the nutritional and sensory quality of organic and conventional strawberries grown in California. Responding to the new paper's results, Reganold said, "This is an impressive study, and its major nutritional findings are similar to those reported in our 2010 strawberry paper."