PESTICIDES AND YOUR HEALTH
Refer to this article posted by Dr. Mercola October 13, 2009
Lab studies indicate pesticides can cause serious health problems,
including: infertility; birth defects, miscarriages and stillbirths;
learning disorders; aggressive behavior; nerve damage; and cancer of
the breast, prostate and lymphatic system. Vegetables and fruits
aren't the only foods contaminated by pesticides. Factory farm animals
eat feed full of pesticides, and these toxins accumulate in their
flesh over the course of their lifetimes. When you eat factory-farmed
meat, you're ingesting not only the pesticides from the flesh, but
also antibiotics and hormones.
Organic Fruits and Vegetables
The Environmental Working Group's latest Shopper's Guide to Pesticides
lists the following 12 fruits and vegetables as the most highly
contaminated according to recent testing. It would be wise to buy
these 12 foods organic rather than conventionally grown:
Peach
Apple
Bell Pepper
Celery
Nectarine
Strawberries
Cherries
Kale
Lettuce
Grapes (imported)
Carrot
Pear
Traditional vs. Organic Farming
Where traditional farmers apply chemical fertilizers to the soil to
grow their crops, organic farmers feed and build soil with natural
fertilizer. Traditional farmers use insecticides to get rid of insects
and disease, while organic farmers use natural methods such as insect
predators and barriers for this purpose. Traditional farmers control
weed growth by applying synthetic herbicides, but organic farmers use
crop rotation, tillage, hand weeding, cover crops and mulches to
control weeds.
The result is that organically grown food is not tainted with chemical
residues, which can be harmful to humans.
Additionally, conventional produce tends to have fewer nutrients than
organic produce. On average, conventional produce has only 83 percent
of the nutrients of organic produce. Studies have found significantly
higher levels of nutrients such as vitamin C, iron, magnesium and
phosphorus, and significantly less nitrates (a toxin) in organic
crops.
Why You Want to Go Organic
Eating organic food is a powerful way to optimize your health. By
definition, food that is "certified organic" must be:
-- Free from all genetically modified organisms
-- Produced without artificial pesticides and fertilizers
-- Derived from an animal reared without the routine use of
antibiotics, growth promoters or other drugs
How to Stretch Your Grocery Dollar
One of the reasons you may hesitate to switch to an organic diet is
the expense. Buying organic is surprisingly affordable compared to the
cost of the typical processed food diet many families consume.
However, if you need to pick and choose which foods to buy organic,
the most important foods to buy organic are animal products - not
produce. This is because animal foods tend to have higher
concentrations of pesticides. Non-organic meats have up to five times
more pesticides than non-organic vegetables. Non-organic butter can
have up to 20 times as many pesticides as non-organic vegetables. So
when prioritizing your purchases, look for organic meats, eggs and
dairy products before anything else.
There is one exception to this rule, and this is organic milk.
Pasteurization causes far more problems than the pesticides for most
people. (Iif you haven't tried raw milk from Real Foods Market you are
missing a real treat!)
Choose fresh local foods over organic foods. Often, locally grown
foods are raised according to organic standards at a more affordable
price.
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