The Environmental Working Group has released the latest edition of its Shopper's Guide to Pesticides, with the "dirty dozen" and "clean 15" based on residue levels.
I find these dirty and safe list to be a crock. Focusing on what food a consumer might ingest pesticides is the opposite of what sustainable and organic farming is about.
Cotton is the single heaviest user of pesticides of any crop. There is no residue in cotton clothing so it's OK to buy conventional cotton clothes?
This obsession with what traces of pesticides says nothing about the toxicity of the pesticides that are used, since not all show up easily in mass spec lab test. Botran is a fungicide that shows up on lab test like the Vegas Strip. Temik, a systemic pesticide with is very nasty, is harder to identify in testing. But according to these list, Botran is worse than Temik due to residue counts
I personally will not eat conventional strawberries or peaches due to their ability to absorb pesticides, however that says nothing about the workers in the fields that are exposed to pesticides on a daily basis.
The real problem with these list is that they are focused on food buyers not the field workers who truly suffer from exposure to pesticides. It time to stop thinking about me and worry about everyone in the pesticide food chain.
Do you know why there is a difference between the grapes being imported or domestic? More importantly, does that imply that it "isn't as bad" (I hate to use that simplistic a term) if you eat domestic non-organic grapes?
I find these dirty and safe list to be a crock. Focusing on what food a consumer might ingest pesticides is the opposite of what sustainable and organic farming is about.
ReplyDeleteCotton is the single heaviest user of pesticides of any crop. There is no residue in cotton clothing so it's OK to buy conventional cotton clothes?
This obsession with what traces of pesticides says nothing about the toxicity of the pesticides that are used, since not all show up easily in mass spec lab test. Botran is a fungicide that shows up on lab test like the Vegas Strip. Temik, a systemic pesticide with is very nasty, is harder to identify in testing. But according to these list, Botran is worse than Temik due to residue counts
I personally will not eat conventional strawberries or peaches due to their ability to absorb pesticides, however that says nothing about the workers in the fields that are exposed to pesticides on a daily basis.
The real problem with these list is that they are focused on food buyers not the field workers who truly suffer from exposure to pesticides. It time to stop thinking about me and worry about everyone in the pesticide food chain.
Organic George
Do you know why there is a difference between the grapes being imported or domestic? More importantly, does that imply that it "isn't as bad" (I hate to use that simplistic a term) if you eat domestic non-organic grapes?
ReplyDelete