A friend sent the following article, Organic Shmorganic,
~Mark, I can see why the article disturbed and
confused you. It was crafted to do just that. This looks not to be a mom
sharing her truth but a mercenary piece paid for by chemical/Bio-tec
Agriculture. It was in the news a few weeks ago that Big-Ag had hired PR people
to “fight back’ against bad press. The recent Anti-GMO campaigns, headlines of
bees dying off in large numbers, tests that show higher levels of pesticides in
the urine of children who were fed conventional produce has all been taking a
toll. This looks to be the first wave, so learning to navigate the
misinformation is important. I’ve made comments that may help in seeing through
the illusion.
It begins…
“When
my son was a baby, organic was
a synonym for edible. If
the apples I found at the grocery store weren’t certified, I wasn’t buying
them. I knew that conventional produce could harbor traces of pesticides, and
I’d read that pesticides could affect brain development. Sure, the details of
this association were hazy ~the set-up~ I didn’t know how many pesticides my
son might ingest from Shoprite strawberries, nor did I know whether that amount
would do him any harm. But in a way, it didn’t matter: Shelling out a bit more
cash to minimize the risks, whatever they were, seemed worth it to me.
Fast-forward two years and my son is
eating Shoprite strawberries for breakfast. I support the principles of organic
farming, for sure, but it can be hard to consistently pay $7 for a pint of
something he’ll go through in two days.”
~We pay about $3 to $4 at
Trader Joes~
~Tests in 2012 showed thirteen different
pesticides were measured on a single sample of conventional strawberries. 52
pesticides were detected on sampled conventional peaches, including residues of
highly toxic organophosphates. She could switch the child to seasonal organic fruit,
which is usually on special, but be it $7 or $3, if my kid was
eating a half a pint a day I’d buy organic. ~
She continues, “Plus,
I can’t help but wonder whether giving my son organic food really makes a
difference to his health, considering that he’s been known to lick the bottom
of his shoes, kiss my poop-sniffing dog, and eat crackers -- someone else’s --
off of the preschool floor.” ~Intent; to equate chemical pesticides with
germs, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” runs through…only chemical
pesticides and herbicide can be accumulative and build up over time in brain
tissue and vital organs.~
“Instead of continuing
to wonder, I decided to dig into the literature and talk to toxicologists,
horticulturists, risk experts, and nutritionists to find out whether the
chemicals in conventionally farmed foods could truly pose a risk to my child.
What I’ve discovered has totally surprised me” ~ Substitute; the
story I’m going to spin will make you wonder if conventionally farmed produces
is not safer and more environmentally friendly than organic~ “- let’s just say I’m going to be a little more relaxed about what I
serve kid No. 2”.
“I
want to start off by saying that this column is not about whether organic
agriculture is worth supporting for its environmental benefits (I think it is)
or whether we as a society should care about the chemicals found in our foods
and household products (I think we should). This column is about whether it’s
worth buying organic produce for your kids specifically because you think the pesticides on conventional
produce could harm them.. (If you’re curious
about the importance of feeding your kids organic dairy products, meats, and
eggs, you’ll have to wait because I’m going to tackle that in another column).
~Oh
joy! ~
“I’m also not going to
spend much space addressing the recent debate over whether organic produce has
higher concentrations of beneficial nutrients than conventionally-farmed
produce does. James McWilliams already did a good job of discussing the
nuances of that issue in Slate; from the research,
it seems fairly clear that organic fruits and veggies don’t hold a major
nutritional edge over conventional ones except in that they may contain fewer
nitrates and more vitamin C, but there’s little evidence that these differences
translate into actual health benefits”.
~The link leads to an article
from the same publication that published this article. It’s written by a Texan
who also wrote; “Just Food- Where Locavores Get It Wrong”. He does his best to
look impartial while writing to neutralize or downplay the benefits of organic.
They could just as easily linked to other studies and articles with finding of
organic superiority in some produce with higher vitamin C, anti-oxidants and
trace minerals, but no- they went with the anti-locavore. - (*Locavore- Eating
local food= fresher food, lower carbon footprint, supporting your local farmer rather
than big-Ag., and increased food security).~
“ It’s also difficult to broadly
compare the nutrients found in organically versus conventionally grown foods
because geography and individual farm practices can impact growth drastically”. ~ Disclaimer after legal reviewed of the
article? ~
“So
let’s focus on that other major claim about
organic food -- that is it’s healthier, particularly for kids, because it
contains fewer pesticides. First, let’s start with the fact that organic does not mean pesticide-free.
As scientist and writer Christie Wilcox explains in several eye-opening blog posts over
at Scientific American, organic farmers can and often do
use pesticides. The difference is that conventional farmers are allowed to use
synthetic pesticides, whereas organic farmers are (mostly) limited to “natural”
ones, chosen primarily because they break down easily in the environment and
are less likely to pollute land and water. (I say “mostly” because several
synthetic chemicals are approved for use in
organic farming, too.)”
~The next few paragraphs will
infer that organic food has more pesticides, and is grown with more dangerous
pesticides, neither of which is true. It’s an artful bit of toxic
smoke-and-mirror illution.
~Before being led down the
rabbit-hole, let’s establish some reality. - "Organic fruits and vegetables, have a 30%
lower risk of contamination with pesticide residues compared to conventional
produce," said Dr. Crystal Smith-Spangler of Stanford University, lead on
the study.
~ …And the organic industry has new residue
testing in place to check high risk crops, If crops test positive for pesticide
residue the buffer zones can be adjusted or other measures taken to better
protect organic integrity! So, while Organic strives for industry improvement,
Conventional Ag is hiring people to write misleading articles. ~
“The assumption, of course, is that
these natural pesticides are safer than the synthetic ones. Many of them are,
but there are some notable exceptions. Rotenone, a pesticide allowed in organic farming,
is far more toxic by weight than many synthetic pesticides. The U.S
Environmental Protection Agency sets exposure limits for
the amount of a chemical that individuals (including kids) can be exposed to
per day without any adverse effects. For Rotenone, the EPA has determined that
people should be exposed to no more than 0.004 milligrams per kilogram of body
weight per day”
~Rotenone falls under 205.206
(e) natural pesticides that can be used when the pest hierarchy is found to insufficient.
It’s occurs in nature, ONLY SMALL QUANTITIES ARE NECESSARY, and it has only
minor and transient environmental side effects.
Rotenone rapidly biodegrades under
warm conditions, (about 6 days) so harmful residues are minimal. ~
“Let’s compare this
toxicity to that of some commonly used synthetic pesticides, like the
organophosphate pesticide Malathion. The non-profit Pesticide Action Network calls organophosphates “some
of the most common and most toxic insecticides used today.” (Sarin, the nerve
gas used in two Japanese terrorist attacks in the 1990s, is a potent organophosphate.)
Yet the EPA has deemed it safe, based on animal tests, for humans to be exposed to
0.02 milligrams of Malathion per kilogram of body weight per day. This is five
times more than the amount deemed safe for Rotenone.”
~ This is where the writer(s)
looses all credibility. Malathion and similar pesticides have been banned or restricted in 23 countries, Organophosphates are tied to numerous health
issues and are illegal to import in a total of 50 countries. By comparison,
Rotenone, is a naturally derived pesticide made from plants (like jicama). It breaks down quickly and is not easily
absorbed through human skin or the gastric intestinal track. Linking the two pesticides
in any way other than as polar-opposites is deliberately misleading. As for the
weight argument: Imagine using weight as comparison of BBs to hand grenades.
Both have warnings and are dangerous to children; a BB could be swallowed or
shot from a tiny gun. It takes many many BBs by weight to equal one hand
grenade… both have safety warnings, better to give the infant one hand grenade? ~
“In
other words, by weight, the natural pesticide Rotenone is considered five times
more harmful than synthetic pesticide Malathion. The EPA’s recommended exposure
limit for Glyphosate, another widely used synthetic
pesticide -- you might know it as Round-Up --
is 0.1 milligrams per kilogram per day, which means it’s 25 times less toxic by
weight than Rotenone. The synthetic pesticide Captan is
32.5 times less toxic than Rotenone, and another one, Pyrimethanil, is 42.5 times less toxic than Rotenone.
Rotenone is also not the only natural pesticide that out-ranks synthetic
pesticides in terms of toxicity. The pyrethrins, a class of pesticides derived from
chrysanthemums that are approved for use in organic farming, are more toxic by
weight than Round-Up, Captan, and Pyrimethanil, too”.
~* Synthetic pyrethroids, are
prohibited by NOP for use in organic crop production. Pyrethrum, a natural
pesticide found in chrysanthemums, is a restricted material.
~ As for the Round-up mentioned above…Just in~
(Gilles-Eric Seralini's, whose earlier work found that rats exposed
to genetically modified maize and the pesticide Roundup developed tumors and
other health problems, before his findings were questioned, and retracted by
the powers-that-be. This week published that follow-up tests, this time using
human cells, showed that Roundup and other pesticides were "between two
and 1,000 times more toxic than their main, active ingredient" This was
problematic, said Seralini, as the toxicity of the active ingredient is what
determines product guidelines for accepted exposure levels to the pesticide
being used. “There has been a miscalculation of the real toxicity of
pesticides," the professor said, claiming his research showed "cells
begin to commit suicide" in petri dish experiments after exposure to the
chemicals.) ~ One must understand, the
chemical manufacturers have influenced the legislation to define the criteria
of safety testing. Everyone who ever took chemistry knows that combining
chemicals will generate altogether deferent results that the chemicals would
individually. Until we have sensible
testing we really wont know the human limits of the chemical brews. ~
“It’s only fair to
directly compare toxicities if people are being exposed to similar amounts of
these synthetic and natural pesticides”
~ It would be fair if the
natural and the synthetics were equally in toxicity~
“Many organic farmers
use pesticides as a last resort—so in theory, exposures to natural pesticides
should be low. (Conventional growers don’t use pesticides unless they have to,
either, though; spraying is expensive.) The problem is that farmers often “have
to use a lot of the natural pesticides because they break down faster,”
explains Linda Chalker-Scott, a professor of horticulture and landscape
architecture at Washington State University. “One of the benefits of some of
the more traditional synthetic pesticides is that they have been manufactured
to be more effective at lower doses.”
~ The author will next quote
a 1989 report, in which there is no mention of an established pest hierarchy
because there isn’t one. The study only
proves;
·
Conventional growers using the environmentally
responsible pesticide should first establish a sustainable pest hierarchy.
·
If when digging through archives for a study
to makes your point… and a test does not exist in the time frame of the actual
rule… there may not be a point to be made.
There was no NOP rule in 1989 and there wasn’t much being developed for
organic pest control… because THERE WAS NO RULE! A scientist writing about
organics would have known that. The reader on the other hand might not.
·
FYI- The majority of our farmers use little to
no pesticides because uses of predator bugs, varietal plant selection and other
pest hierarchy measures drastically reduce pest stress. And unlike conventional
GMO producers, organic farmers do not spray Glyphosate
on your food. ~
“Indeed, in a 1989 report, researchers at McGill University grew
apples using either a mixture of organically approved natural pesticides,
including a mixture of Rotenone and pyrethrins, or a synthetic pesticide called
Imidan. They found that, using the natural pesticides, they could achieve a 75
percent yield on their apples only if they sprayed the fruit at least six to
seven times throughout the growing season; using the synthetic pesticide, they
could get a 90 percent yield with just four sprays. Another more recent study compared
the efficacy of two natural pesticides to two synthetic pesticides and found
the organic ones to be much less effective against aphids (plant lice) than the
synthetic ones. Since organic farmers may have to spray crops more frequently
with natural pesticides, it’s not crazy to think,”
~Creating doubt without
blatantly lying…~
“that
organic produce could sometimes have just as much, if not more, pesticide on it
-- natural pesticide,
yes, but remember that natural isn’t intrinsically safe -- compared to
conventional produce.”
~ I will agree that there is
no comparison. The
author clearly tells us that the chemical pesticides are more lethal and last
longer… and as a result they are more likely to show up at your table? Hmm.~
“Ah, but what about all those studies that
suggest that organic fruits and veggies harbor fewer pesticide residues than
conventionally farmed produce does? Those studies only tested for synthetic
pesticides. In the few studies that have also looked for natural pesticides --
the USDA’s Pesticide Data Program tested for
them on organic lettuce in 2009, the California Department of Pesticide
Regulation tested a
handful of organic fruits and vegetables for certain natural and synthetic
pesticides in 2010, and the USDA did an analysis of
organic produce in 2010 -- scientists have found that between 15 and 43 percent
of organic produce samples harbor measurable traces of either natural or
synthetic pesticides or both. far as I can tell, however, no one has published
a comparison of the overall amounts of both types of pesticides on organic
versus conventional produce, so it’s hard to conclude much from these findings
other than that, yes, organic produce can be pesticide-tainted, too“
~There are different ways,
(most of them tedious), like pulling a similar test for conventional lettuce…
(Google; What’s in my food? ). Rather
than offering up more statistics to show that organic produce has measurably
less pesticide residues, let’s go in a different direction. ~A client called our office last week to ask
about taking a huge swatch of neighboring land organic. It seems his beekeeper
friend houses some of his bees on our client’s organic orchard, with the rest were
working conventional groves in the Central Valley. This year he had a 95% loss
of bees in conventional groves. The organic bees were all good, no collapse,
just happy bees. The beekeeper was emotionally and financially devastated by
the loss and was exploring ways to protect his future operation from such
disaster. Organic or Conventional, which would appear to have the more
dangerous and toxic pesticides? ~
“So
now the question is: Are these pesticides harmful to your kids? As any
toxicologist will tell you, it’s the dose that makes the poison. In other
words, just because both conventional and organic produce are sometimes laced
with pesticides doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re doing anyone any harm.
And an analysis of the numbers suggests they’re not. In a 2011 study published
in the Journal of Toxicology, Carl Winter, a pesticide and
risk assessment specialist at the University of California-Davis, and his
colleague Josh Katz took a close look at the fruits and vegetables that topped
the Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen” list --
a top 12 list of what the non-profit group considers the most highly
contaminated conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables sold in the United
States. (This year, apples, strawberries, and grapes topped the list.) Winter
was concerned that the EWG’s methodology was
flawed; among other things, the non-profit group does not compare actual
pesticide levels on fruits and vegetables to the EPA’s exposure limits to
estimate true health effects of consumption.”
~Smoke-and-mirrors,
but they are wearing me down~
“To estimate how dangerous
the pesticide exposures from the EWG’s “Dirty Dozen” actually are, Winter and
his colleagues analyzed USDA data to determine the average levels of the 10
most commonly found pesticides on each of the 12 conventionally farmed fruits
and veggies. They then used other USDA data to estimate the average amounts of
each pesticide that individuals typically ingest from each of the 12 fruits and
vegetables in a 24-hour period. Finally, they compared those daily exposure
estimates to the EPA’s exposure limits for each pesticide.
What
did they find? Well, let’s start with apples, which the EWG considers the most
pesticide-laden fruit or vegetable out there, and look at the pesticide that is
most commonly found on them, called Thiabendazole. Winter and his colleagues found that,
each day from conventionally-grown apples and apple-based products, Americans
typically consume a dose of Thiabendazole that is 787 times less than the EPA’s
recommended exposure limit. Put another way, you’d have to eat as many apples
and apple products as 787 Americans eat in a single day combined in order to be
exposed to a level of this pesticide that approaches the EPA’s exposure limit.
For other fruits and vegetables, Winter
and his colleagues found even less reason to worry. For Captan, the synthetic
pesticide most commonly found on conventionally grown strawberries, Americans
are exposed to 8,180 times less of the chemical per day than the EPA’s limit.
Overall, Winter and his colleagues reported that the EPA’s exposure limits were
more than 1000 times higher than the daily exposure estimates for 90 percent of
the fruit and vegetable comparisons they made.”
~Things we know~
· ~The tests for limits
are done on the active ingredient only- not the brew being applied to the crop.
· Chemicals can be cumulative;
some are stored in the brain and organ tissue for years.
· When combined with
other chemical exposure, the limits of a single chemical can multiply down to
smaller amount being acceptable, less or none is the target for parents.
· Chemicals are not
germs- what doesn’t kill us today can effect our future health or the health of
our children. ~
“Granted,
we’re exposed to pesticides through other means, too, and some pesticides may
have cumulative effects
-- but Winter says that even so, Americans won’t be ingesting anything close to
the EPA’s limits for any of the pesticides used in U.S. agriculture. (And if
you ever did ingest
a pesticide at or above the EPA’s limit, you wouldn’t suddenly keel over and
die. The agency sets pesticide limits at least 100 times lower than the lowest
dose that caused any sign of harm, however minimal, to animals when they were
fed that amount every day for most of their lives.) “We have a tremendous
amount of data showing that what we’re exposed to in the diet for pesticides is
very, very low, and certainly much lower than what would be required to have
any even minimal health concern,” Winter says. And by the way, in none of these
studies were the fruits and vegetables rinsed with tap water before they were
tested, yet research suggests that
doing so can reduce pesticide exposures significantly. Rubbing the food during
rinsing helps,
too”. ~Most fruit is
washed at the packinghouse, pesticide tests are run from the point of sale; if
the packinghouse wash didn’t do the job more washing?~ For more information go to: http://www.whatsonmyfood.org/
~~~~
“In
light of all this, what should we make of some of the research suggesting that
kids exposed to pesticides are more likely to develop ADHD, lower IQs, and autism?
Importantly, the latter two studies did not link pesticide exposure from
food to these
problems; what they found was that pregnant women who were exposed to high
levels of pesticides, either occupationally or because they lived close to farms,
were at an increased risk for giving birth to babies who went on to have lower
IQs or develop autism. The study linking ADHD to pesticides is potentially more
concerning: It found that kids ages 8 to 15 who had 10-fold higher
concentrations of a pesticide break-down product in their urine had about 1.5
times the odds of having ADHD. It’s important to note, however, that the study
only took a single urine measurement in the kids, so it’s hard to know whether it
accurately reflected the children’s usual pesticide exposure or whether the day
of testing could have been anomalous. Ideally, for a study like this, you want
to track urine pesticide levels multiple times to make sure they’re consistent.
One scientist critiqued the study because it did
not control for the fact that ADHD often runs in families; if the researchers
had done this, he argued, they probably would have found no association between
pesticide exposure and ADHD. Finally, the ADHD study focused on the
organophosphate pesticides, which are becoming less and less commonly used by
U.S. farmers every year.”
~Those individuals who are
being exposed to high amounts of pesticides were exposed while growing chemically
farmed food for someone’s table. No amount of scrubbing ones veggies will
safeguard the conventional field-worker, their future, their child and
health. We know we can grow food
organically. We have seen that the more popular organic becomes the more the
cost comes down. The purveyors of GMO and the chemicals that are used to farm
them see trouble ahead in the form of shrinking profits. Articles to confuse
consumers are cheap insurance to help maintain market share. ~
~The rest of the article is
an advisement to eat more conventional veggies. ~
“There’s
another important thing to keep in mind about fruits and veggies: They are
chock full of many naturally-occurring toxic compounds—things like flavonoids,
hydrogen peroxide, and formaldehyde. Research conducted by Bruce Ames, director
of the Nutrition & Metabolism Center at the Children’s Hospital Oakland
Research Institute, has found that Americans
consume about 1,500 milligrams of natural toxins from plants a day, which is
approximately 16,000 times more than the 0.09 milligrams of synthetic
pesticides we get from food every day. These natural toxins are for real, too:
According to Ames’s work, the natural chemicals that are known to cause cancer
in animals and are found in a single cup of coffee are about equal in weight to
a year’s worth of our exposure to synthetic pesticide residues that are known
to cause cancer. In a 1996 report,
the National Research Council, a non-profit institution that provides expert
advice to the government, noted that “natural components of the diet may prove
to be of greater concern than synthetic components with respect to cancer
risk,” in part because “synthetic chemicals are highly regulated while natural
chemicals are not.”
If
you ask Ames or the National Research Council what all this means, you won’t
hear anyone say OMG don’t eat plants; they
are trying to kill us. It’s Ames’s belief that plants are
exceptionally good for us in spite of the fact that they contain high levels of
natural toxins -- and that we certainly shouldn’t be worried about the
minuscule differences in pesticide levels between organic and conventional
foods. Indeed, if the research literature is clear about anything regarding fruits and vegetables, it’s
that eating more of them -- conventional or organic -- does good things for the
body. Onereview concluded
that the quartile of Americans who eat the most fruits and vegetables, organic
or not, are about half as likely to develop cancer compared to the quartile who
eat the least. Fruits and veggies may also prevent heart disease anddiabetes.
A fascinating 2012 study used
research-based models to predict what would happen if half of all Americans
increased their (conventional) fruit and vegetable intake by a single serving
each day; it predicted that doing so would prevent 20,000 cases of cancer a
year. When the authors modeled whether this increased intake might pose risks
due to the greater pesticide exposure, they concluded that yes, there might be
10 additional cases of cancer every year in the U.S. Put another way, the
benefits far, far outweigh the risks.
What
all this means for parents is that we should stop worrying so much about
whether the apples we buy are organic or conventional -- we should just start
giving our kids more apples. (And, sure, wash them when you can.) The
Environmental Working Group agrees: In the first sentence of the executive summary of
its 2013 Shoppers Guide to Produce, the organization points out that “the
health benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables outweigh the risks of
pesticide exposure.” What’s more, irrational fears over conventionally farmed
produce can introduce dangerous trade-offs. As University of Michigan decision
psychologist Brian Zikmund-Fisher put it to me, “If you don’t feed your kid the
‘right strawberry,’ what do you feed him?” I’ve walked into markets with a
hungry kid and been so afraid to buy the conventional apple that I’ve gotten
him a snack pack of Annie’s Crackers instead. And I know there are parents who
buy the Peter Rabbit Organics Fruit Pouches at Starbucks because they don’t
know whether the bananas on display are organic. These aren’t smart moves.
It is far, far better for your kids’ long-term health to get them in the habit
of eating whole fruits and vegetables, regardless of what type of farm they
came from, than to give them pretty much anything else to eat, no matter how
organic or all-natural it may be.”
~The intelligent
parent would know that a banana could be peeled. Never the less I don’t know
anyone who eats 100% organic especially when traveling and/or dining out. The
system isn’t fully in place to support all-organic but it’s getting better with
more affordable organic food choices turning up in markets and restaurants.
Organic producers
are getting better results using safer pesticides, few if any herbicides and
environmentally sustainable farming practices. Meanwhile conventional agriculture
is lobbying to get stronger brews legalized as the weeds and bugs have adapted.
Please understand the biggest difference is MONEY. There are some super-cool
people making a living selling beneficial bugs and Bio-flora Crumbles to
organic farmers… Then there is Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, and DuPont, who can’t
get rich from organic and can afford to buy people to write confusing articles.
Like the plants we
eat, we are a product of our environment. Our health, our future, and the
future of our children are intrinsically tied to the health of the environment.
In the time of Camelot it was said: The land and the King are one. Holistically
speaking, the land and the people are one. ~
The article was written by;
Melinda Wenner Moyer is a science
writer based in Cold Spring, N.Y. and is DoubleX’s
parenting advice columnist. Follow her on Twitter.
In addition to the sources mentioned, The Kids
would like to thank Jeff Gillman at Central Piedmont Community College.
~The map was offered by Ro Elgas~
***Please
share liberally!
