In a study published in the journal Nutrients, researchers show that there are differences in the measures of healthfulness between conventional and organic packaged foods in the U.S. Overall, organic foods contain fewer ultra-processed ingredients and cosmetic additives and exhibit higher nutritional quality. These features of organic foods sold in the U.S. are significant because lower dietary ingestion of ultra-processed foods, added sugar, sodium and trans-fats is associated with improved public health outcomes.

The dataset included nutrition and ingredient data for 8240 organic and 72,205 conventional food products sold in the U.S. from 2019 to 2020. Compared to conventional foods, organic foods in this dataset had lower total sugar, added sugar, saturated fat and sodium content.