Many of us have been told for years that organic food was healthier (for people, streams, bees, cows, Gaia, etc.) than conventional alternatives.

But others have disagreed.

“Organic foods may cost nearly twice as much as ordinary foods without offering consumers extra nutritional values.”

That was the conclusion reached by a USDA official in a report issued in 1974.

The debate raged. But this week a report issued by Stanford University researchers attempted to answer the question once and for all.

The study, a meta analysis of more than 200 studies over the past decade looking at the nutrient and pathogenic content of organic food and conventional food, concludes that organic food is a big fat waste of money.

Organic critics pounced.

Roger Cohen of The New York Times writes he “cheered” the study's results. Reasonmagazine's own Ronald Bailey pointed to the study as evidence in support of his conventional-is-king beliefs.

Among those not openly cheering for the conventional alternative, responses to the study have ranged from measured to somewhere between snarky and unhinged.