Food is central to our health, our energy, our vitality. So is there an advantage to eating organic food?
I am reproducing below a small article that accompanied my box this week, writen by Nick Mole, Policy Manager at the Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK).
“The most common route of exposure to pesticides is via the good that we eat. Whilst UK supermarkets do text food items for residues, very few of them make this data publicly available (see who does and doesn’t here at pan-uk.org/supermarkets). In the UK we have little choice but to rely on thje UK government residue testing scheme organised by the Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues in Food (PRiF).
“Every year PAN UK analyses the PRiF data and publishes the “Dirty Dozen” list which is the 12 types of fruit and veg found to contain the most residues (pan-uk.org/dirthy-dozen.
“Testing has revealed residues of up to 125 different pesticides in one sample. The worst offenders are usually non-organic citrus, grapes (fresh and dried), and soft fruits such as strawberries. Apples, pears, and cherries are also frequently contaminated with multiple pesticide residues.
“There are numbers reasons for this. With citrus, fungicides are often applied to stop them rotting during transport and storage. Pesticides are also used to ensure that produce is cosmetically ‘perfect’ and free from blemishes, for example apple scab. Apple scab makes no difference to the taste or quality of the apple and poses no risk to the consumer. However, many retailers believe that the public wants cosmetically perfect fruit even it that means using pesticide to achieve that goal.
“There has also been an increasing problem with glyphosate residues turn up in bread and other arable produce. The use of glyphosate in the arable sector has sky-rocketed over the last 30 years - the most recent government usage statistics shod that, in 2022, approximately 2,010 tonnes of glyphosate active substance were applied to UK arabel crops covering 2.4 million hectares of land - an astonishing amount!
“Hundreds if the legal Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs) have been weakened and tea has suffered some of the most dramatic rises, with safety limits for the chemicals Boscalid and Chlorantraniliprole both increased up to 4,000 times.
“The good news? According to PRiF testing, organic produce almost never has pesticide residues present….
Food is one of the four elements that support and strengthen our immune system - the system we all have that keeps as healthy (the other three are exercise, low stress levels, and avoiding pharmaceutical drugs).
This is why there is a “The Is Medicine (FIM) movement which seeks to transform how we think about nutrition. I recently received an email from the Organic Consumers Association, which provided this information, quoted from Dariush Mozaffrarian, cardiologist and director of the Food is Medicine Institute in the USA.
“About 90% of Americans agree eating more healthy foods is important to prevent the onset of many health conditions, and 86% agree that eating healthy foods should be a priority for treating major health conditions …… but at the same time, they’re confused about how to eat healthy, because it’s complicated.’
The same applies outside the USA, certainly here in Britain. So do consider buying more organic food in future. It is just one element in the healthy food chain. Above all we should remember that Big Food, like Big Pharma, is not averse to selling us products that contains poison, regardless of the harm it does to their customers!
Just as there is no need for anyone to take pharmaceutical drugs/vaccines for their health, there is no reason for any of us to eat food that is known to contains even the smallest amounts of agricultural poison. Big Food, like Big Pharma, are keen to tell us that what they offer is “safe”. No-one should believe them!
