It’s Friday afternoon, and that means it’s time for me to give you a little weekend reading from around the web. Here are a few food related items that I thought might interest you.

The debate on the nutritional merits of organic food has been reignited, this time by the U.K.'s Food Standard Agency (FSA) which stated organic food is no more nutritionally dense than conventional food, based on an independent study.

 

As one might expect, the blogs were abuzz with organic supporters criticizing the study as well as the British media response to it. But is this fight about superior nutritional quality, or how the organic industry markets its products?

The Senate approved a spending bill Tuesday providing $500,000 for the U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector general to broaden an investigation of the department's National Organics Program.

 

 Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), author of the federal law that established the organics program, proposed the Senate funding and has been in discussions over the past month with Secretary Tom Vilsack about needed reforms.

 

When Whole Foods arrived in the UK two years ago it was hailed as a mecca for those determined to follow a healthy diet. But today the struggling US store's chief executive will probably want to eat his words after admitting that, alongside the organic carrots and bags of granola, the shops "sell a bunch of junk".

Image: Matt Callow