Abstract
Surveys generally find the most common consumer rationale for adopting organic foods is a positive belief regarding personal health benefits. The current research examines the persistence of organic food health beliefs after exposure to a Stanford University meta-analysis, which concludes that organically produced foods do not offer significant nutritional advantages versus conventionally produced food. Content analysis of 710 reader responses to reports of the Stanford study results is utilized to classify the ‘pro-organic’ and ‘organic-skeptic’ reader comments into one or more of the following opinion categories: 1) the validity of the Stanford study, 2) the personal impact of organic food consumption, and 3) the environmental impact of organic food production. No evidence is found that the Stanford results changed the minds of pro-organic commenters regarding organic foods, as health related benefits continued as the most common justification for organic food consumption, particularly when produced by small local farms. The analysis also finds the Stanford results confirming organic-skeptic beliefs that organically produced food provides little or no health advantage to justify its high price, which suggests that convincing organic skeptics to regularly choose organic foods may require the adoption of higher yield farming methods as a means of reducing organic price premiums. Methods that increase organic production yields, however, may create conflicts among the many pro-organic consumers who believe that organic health and environmental benefits are derived from relatively inefficient local farm production. The current results also suggest that content analysis of anonymous and voluntarily provided online content is an effective method for minimizing social desirability response bias among respondents, which is often an issue in the empirical study of topics involving environmental beliefs, attitudes, and behavior.
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