The second reason, Benbrook says, i

The second reason, Benbrook says, is that organic crops aren't getting as much fertilizer. More heavily fertilized conventional crops may grow faster and get bigger, but as a result, their nutrients may get diluted.

"That's why when you buy these great big juicy apples that are just sweet as sin, it's that extra moisture and carbohydrate that dilutes the vitamin C and the anthocyanins," he says.

This analysis, however, probably isn't the end of this debate.

Jeffrey Blumberg, a professor of nutrition at Tufts University, says attempts to draw conclusions from collections of hundreds of different studies, each one comparing organic and conventional food, are beset by a host of methodological problems. For one thing, there's no single "organic" or "conventional" production system.

Some organic crops get lots of organic fertilizer; some don't. Some are protected with lots of natural pesticides; some are not. Conventional practices vary widely, too. So it's difficult to know, in the end, what you really are comparing. And food that's compared in these studies may not be the same as the food you're buying in the store.

In any case, Blumberg says, the difference in nutritional quality between organic and non-organic fruits and vegetables really isn't that big — especially when you consider the gap between what Americans should eat, and what they really consume.

"Most Americans are getting only a couple of servings of fruits and vegetables every day," he says. "We're recommending that they get up to nine servings."

What really will make a difference in people's health, he says, is just eating more fruits, vegetables and whole grains. If you eat plenty of these foods — whether they're organic or not — you'll get plenty of antioxidants.