Are organically grown food the best food choices? The advantages claimed for such foods over conventionally grown and marketed food products are now being debated. Advocates of organic foods — a term whose meaning varies greatly — frequently proclaimed that such products are safer and more nutritious than others. 

   The growing interest of consumers in the safety and nutritious quality of the typical Taiwanese diet is a welcome development. However, such of this interest has been sparked by sweeping claims that food supply is unsafe or inadequate in meeting nutritional needs. Although most of these claims are not supported by scientific evidence, the preponderance of written material advancing such claims makes it difficult for the general public to separate fact from fiction. As a result, claims that eating a diet consisting of organically grown foods prevents or cures disease or provides other benefits to health have become widely publicized and form the basis for folklore. 

   Almost daily the public is besieged by claims for “no aging” diets, new vitamins and other wonder foods. There are numerous unsubstantiated reports that natural vitamins are superior to synthetic ones, that fertilized eggs are nutritiously superior to unfertilized eggs, that untreated grains are better than fumigated grains, and the like.