This is a very interesting article. Thought we would share it with you. All the more reason to Grow Your Own Strawberries.
(NaturalNews) On most dirty produce lists, strawberries make the cut for pesticide contamination. Currently, California strawberry growers use millions of pounds a year of a chemical called methyl bromide. Methyl bromide is banned in many parts of the world and is being phased out because it damages the ozone layer. Like every chemical pesticide, methyl bromide comes with health risks. Respiratory, nervous system, and neurological problems are common with the chemical - and it's especially dangerous to people working on or living near the farms. Now, we're getting this dangerous chemical out of strawberry fields, but it'll be replaced with another chemical that can damage our DNA, as well as cause miscarriages, cancer and brain damage. The new chemical, methyl iodide, is actually considered more toxic than the chemical it's replacing.
The current debate is over how much of this chemical farm workers and town residents will really be exposed to and how severe the health problems they'll have as a consequence. However, the debate really should be: how do we move away from dangerous chemicals as solutions to agricultural problems? Just as we need to move away from dirty oil, we need to move away from polluting our earth and our food growing communities with pesticides. With this choice, we'd also take a step away from polluting the entire human race that ends up eating chemically contaminated crops and drinking contaminated water. Scientists say that using this chemical in agriculture ensures that it will end up in the air and groundwater.
Part of the problem with attempting to figure low end ranges of exposure to known poisons is that no one is accounting for what other poisons people already have in their bodies. For example, if you were to eat a strawberry sprayed with chemical pesticides and you'd never been exposed to chemicals before in your life, the chemical-laced strawberry would probably make you immediately ill. This is because your immune system would be much more active and therefore mount a greater response to threats than most people's do today. However, because you weren't already so chemically polluted your body would be able to detoxify this chemical out of your body.
But today, that isn't the case. It's now being widely documented that pesticides and many other chemicals are backing up in people's bodies and never really being eliminated. When this is the case, no chemical is safe. It's like trying to determine what degree of spanking to give a child that's just been in an accident and has 16 broken bones and severe burns all over the body. Even if you could somehow argue that hitting a child is helpful, or that pesticides in our foods are okay, the damage that's already been done is too great to even consider it reasonable to inflict more - especially when non-toxic, natural solutions are available for anyone who looks into them.
About the author
Kim Evans is a natural health writer and author of Cleaning Up! The Ultimate Body Cleanse. Deep cleansing has helped her, personally, eliminate over a dozen problems in her own body - including several that medical professionals had said there were no solutions for, except long-term drugs.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Update On Pesticides In Our Food
Here is an updated article on the pesticides in our commercial food. More compelling evidence why it is so crucial for all of us to grow our own Organic backyard gardens.
Dirty dozen’ produce carries more pesticide residue
Submitted by Drew Kaplan on June 9, 2010 – 10:56 am6 Comments
If you’re eating non-organic celery today, you may be ingesting 67 pesticides with it, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.
The group, a nonprofit focused on public health, scoured nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine what fruits and vegetables we eat have the highest, and lowest, amounts of chemical residue.
Most alarming are the fruits and vegetables dubbed the “Dirty Dozen,” which contain 47 to 67 pesticides per serving. These foods are believed to be most susceptible because they have soft skin that tends to absorb more pesticides. “It’s critical people know what they are consuming,” the Environmental Working Group’s Amy Rosenthal said. “The list is based on pesticide tests conducted after the produce was washed with USDA high-power pressure water system. The numbers reflect the closest thing to what consumers are buying at the store.”
Special report: Toxic America
The group suggests limiting consumption of pesticides by purchasing organic for the 12 fruits and vegetables.
“You can reduce your exposure to pesticides by up to 80 percent by buying the organic version of the Dirty Dozen,” Rosenthal said.
The Dirty Dozen
Celery
Peaches
Strawberries
Apples
Domestic blueberries
Nectarines
Sweet bell peppers
Spinach, kale and collard greens
Cherries
Potatoes
Imported grapes
Lettuce
Not all non-organic fruits and vegetables have a high pesticide level. Some produce has a strong outer layer that provides a defense against pesticide contamination. The group found a number of non-organic fruits and vegetables dubbed the “Clean 15″ that contained little to no pesticides.
The Clean 15
Onions
Avocados
Sweet corn
Pineapples
Mango
Sweet peas
Asparagus
Kiwi fruit
Cabbage
Eggplant
Cantaloupe
Watermelon
Grapefruit
Sweet potatoes
Sweet onions
What is a pesticide?
A pesticide is a mixture of chemical substances used on farms to destroy or prevent pests, diseases and weeds from affecting crops. According to the USDA, 45 percent of the world’s crops are lost to damage or spoilage, so many farmers count on pesticides.
The Environmental Protection Agency, the FDA and the USDA work together to monitor and set limits as to how much pesticide can be used on farms and how much is safe to remain on the produce once it hits grocery store shelves.
“In setting the tolerance amount, the EPA must make a safety finding that the pesticide can be used with ‘reasonable certainty of no harm.’ The EPA ensures that the tolerance selected will be safe,” according the EPA’s website.
Although the President’s Cancer Panel recently recommended that consumers eat produce without pesticides to reduce their risk of getting cancer and other diseases, the low levels of pesticides found on even the Dirty Dozen are government-approved amounts.
Can small amounts of pesticides hurt you?
The government says that consuming pesticides in low amounts doesn’t harm you, but some studies show an association between pesticides and health problems such as cancer, attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder and nervous system disorders and say exposure could weaken immune systems.
The Environmental Working Group acknowledges that data from long-term studies aren’t available but warns consumers of the potential dangers.
“Pesticides are designed to kill things. Why wait for 20 years to discover they are bad for us?” Rosenthal said.
Some doctors warn that children’s growing brains are the most vulnerable to pesticides in food.
“A kid’s brain goes through extraordinary development, and if pesticides get into the brain, it can cause damage,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
Can pesticides be washed away?
Not necessarily. The pesticide tests mentioned above were conducted after the food had been power-washed by the USDA. Also, although some pesticides are found on the surface of foods, other pesticides may be taken up through the roots and into the plant and cannot be removed.
“We’ve found that washing doesn’t do much,” Rosenthal said. “Peeling can help, although you have to take into account that the pesticides are in the water, so they can be inside the fruit because of the soil.”
All fresh produce, whether it’s grown with or without pesticides, should be washed with water to remove dirt and potentially harmful bacteria. And health experts agree that when it comes to the Dirty Dozen list, choose organic if it’s available.
“To the extent you can afford to do so, [parents] should simply buy organic, because there have been some very good studies that shows people who eat mostly organic food reduce 95 percent of pesticides [in their body] in two weeks,” Landrigan said.
Dirty dozen’ produce carries more pesticide residue
Submitted by Drew Kaplan on June 9, 2010 – 10:56 am6 Comments
If you’re eating non-organic celery today, you may be ingesting 67 pesticides with it, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.
The group, a nonprofit focused on public health, scoured nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine what fruits and vegetables we eat have the highest, and lowest, amounts of chemical residue.
Most alarming are the fruits and vegetables dubbed the “Dirty Dozen,” which contain 47 to 67 pesticides per serving. These foods are believed to be most susceptible because they have soft skin that tends to absorb more pesticides. “It’s critical people know what they are consuming,” the Environmental Working Group’s Amy Rosenthal said. “The list is based on pesticide tests conducted after the produce was washed with USDA high-power pressure water system. The numbers reflect the closest thing to what consumers are buying at the store.”
Special report: Toxic America
The group suggests limiting consumption of pesticides by purchasing organic for the 12 fruits and vegetables.
“You can reduce your exposure to pesticides by up to 80 percent by buying the organic version of the Dirty Dozen,” Rosenthal said.
The Dirty Dozen
Celery
Peaches
Strawberries
Apples
Domestic blueberries
Nectarines
Sweet bell peppers
Spinach, kale and collard greens
Cherries
Potatoes
Imported grapes
Lettuce
Not all non-organic fruits and vegetables have a high pesticide level. Some produce has a strong outer layer that provides a defense against pesticide contamination. The group found a number of non-organic fruits and vegetables dubbed the “Clean 15″ that contained little to no pesticides.
The Clean 15
Onions
Avocados
Sweet corn
Pineapples
Mango
Sweet peas
Asparagus
Kiwi fruit
Cabbage
Eggplant
Cantaloupe
Watermelon
Grapefruit
Sweet potatoes
Sweet onions
What is a pesticide?
A pesticide is a mixture of chemical substances used on farms to destroy or prevent pests, diseases and weeds from affecting crops. According to the USDA, 45 percent of the world’s crops are lost to damage or spoilage, so many farmers count on pesticides.
The Environmental Protection Agency, the FDA and the USDA work together to monitor and set limits as to how much pesticide can be used on farms and how much is safe to remain on the produce once it hits grocery store shelves.
“In setting the tolerance amount, the EPA must make a safety finding that the pesticide can be used with ‘reasonable certainty of no harm.’ The EPA ensures that the tolerance selected will be safe,” according the EPA’s website.
Although the President’s Cancer Panel recently recommended that consumers eat produce without pesticides to reduce their risk of getting cancer and other diseases, the low levels of pesticides found on even the Dirty Dozen are government-approved amounts.
Can small amounts of pesticides hurt you?
The government says that consuming pesticides in low amounts doesn’t harm you, but some studies show an association between pesticides and health problems such as cancer, attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder and nervous system disorders and say exposure could weaken immune systems.
The Environmental Working Group acknowledges that data from long-term studies aren’t available but warns consumers of the potential dangers.
“Pesticides are designed to kill things. Why wait for 20 years to discover they are bad for us?” Rosenthal said.
Some doctors warn that children’s growing brains are the most vulnerable to pesticides in food.
“A kid’s brain goes through extraordinary development, and if pesticides get into the brain, it can cause damage,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
Can pesticides be washed away?
Not necessarily. The pesticide tests mentioned above were conducted after the food had been power-washed by the USDA. Also, although some pesticides are found on the surface of foods, other pesticides may be taken up through the roots and into the plant and cannot be removed.
“We’ve found that washing doesn’t do much,” Rosenthal said. “Peeling can help, although you have to take into account that the pesticides are in the water, so they can be inside the fruit because of the soil.”
All fresh produce, whether it’s grown with or without pesticides, should be washed with water to remove dirt and potentially harmful bacteria. And health experts agree that when it comes to the Dirty Dozen list, choose organic if it’s available.
“To the extent you can afford to do so, [parents] should simply buy organic, because there have been some very good studies that shows people who eat mostly organic food reduce 95 percent of pesticides [in their body] in two weeks,” Landrigan said.
Friday, June 4, 2010
June Has Finally Arrived!
Hi Everyone. June has finally arrived. And Summer is officially underway. Here in Beautiful Southeastern Wisconsin, all plantings should be firmly planted in the ground.
Now it's time to shift into the protective mode. The critters are out in full force - And it's us against them!
This year I made a raised bed garden just for Asparagus and one just for Strawberries. Already the critters have pulled up some of my Asparagus roots. ;o(
And here's some more bad news.......... One cucumber was pulled up and left to die a slow death on top of the soil. Even the major thorny Blackberry's were "topped" by someone.
The backyard is laced with fencing - fencing going in every direction. The makeshift scare crows will be going up soon. Like I said, It's US AGAINST THEM! It seems even my own dogs will turn on me. That's right, I've caught them pulling up young broccoli plants! CAN YOU IMAGINE !!
They even pull their own raspberry's off the canes. If they see me doing something, it's almost a given I will catch them doing the same. Oh, did I ever mention our sister website........ www.DogGoneGlamorous.com. You might want to take a look - Gardeners are generally dog lovers as well.
Until next time..........
Yours In The Garden,
Kim ;o)
Now it's time to shift into the protective mode. The critters are out in full force - And it's us against them!
This year I made a raised bed garden just for Asparagus and one just for Strawberries. Already the critters have pulled up some of my Asparagus roots. ;o(
And here's some more bad news.......... One cucumber was pulled up and left to die a slow death on top of the soil. Even the major thorny Blackberry's were "topped" by someone.
The backyard is laced with fencing - fencing going in every direction. The makeshift scare crows will be going up soon. Like I said, It's US AGAINST THEM! It seems even my own dogs will turn on me. That's right, I've caught them pulling up young broccoli plants! CAN YOU IMAGINE !!
They even pull their own raspberry's off the canes. If they see me doing something, it's almost a given I will catch them doing the same. Oh, did I ever mention our sister website........ www.DogGoneGlamorous.com. You might want to take a look - Gardeners are generally dog lovers as well.
Until next time..........
Yours In The Garden,
Kim ;o)
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