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Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products

theguardian.com

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Re: Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products

#11

Post by clairity »

mherdeg wrote: post #9

This is an area where I'm torn. Should I be buying only organic produce or should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce? There is a tradeoff... with young kids and a full-time job the time I can spend buying or preparing meals is pretty limited. I don't fully understand the magnitude of the risks of, say, eating too much vs. eating too much pesticide. I'm also ki…

the (magnitude of) risk isn't certain yet, but it's unlikely zero, given our history of poorly quantifying the harmfulness of a variety of substances. a reasonable hedge is to buy organic for the dirty dozen and non-organic for other produce. eat less processed sugar regardless, whether you replace it with fruit or not.

Re: Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products

#12

Post by Nicksil »

mherdeg wrote: post #9

This is an area where I'm torn. Should I be buying only organic produce or should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce? There is a tradeoff... with young kids and a full-time job the time I can spend buying or preparing meals is pretty limited. I don't fully understand the magnitude of the risks of, say, eating too much vs. eating too much pesticide. I'm also ki…

>This is an area where I'm torn. Should I be buying only organic produce

No.

>should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce?

Yes.

It is no surprise you feel torn. Tons of money is invested into the marketing of "organic" produce when it has, in-fact, ZERO positive gain over conventional produce. The FUD being forced down everyone's throat by the "organic" industry is designed to make you feel exactly like that. When you introduce doubt, you create a path to convince folks into spending money on your product.

But don't take my or anyone else's word for it. If you can muster the time, spend an hour or so perusing Wikipedia, reading articles and collecting sources and you'll find in relatively short time the "organic" thing is solely a money grab. With "organic" food, you are getting the same exact thing grown by conventional methods but at a higher price.

Groups such as the one mentioned in this article don't want you to perform your own research, they just want you to believe what they have on their web site. It's bogus.

Re: Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products

#13

Post by mandmandam »

So, 74 'Highly Hazardous Pesticides' from just 12 fruit. And likely with significant crossover, so you get double and triple-dosed.

We know they're more toxic than your ex, and we know that there's people out there eating all these fruits and grains, like your mum.

So why do we have debate on Round-ups' toxicity, or the 'economic benefits' of robot-powered, topsoil-eroding mono-cultures with no life in them?

Why do we talk about MDMA piss polluting rivers after festivals, instead of the persistent petrochemical pesticides fucking up all our water and insects and birds and insides?

We know organic perma-culture is better; for our bodies, for the soil, for the water and birds and bees.

... But there are statuses to quo I guess, so fuck us.

Re: Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products

#14

Post by mherdeg »

clairity wrote: post #11
mherdeg wrote: post #9

This is an area where I'm torn. Should I be buying only organic produce or should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce? There is a tradeoff... with young kids and a full-time job the time I can spend buying or preparing meals is pretty limited. I don't fully understand the magnitude of the risks of, say, eating too much vs. eating too much pesticide. I'm also ki…

the (magnitude of) risk isn't certain yet, but it's unlikely zero, given our history of poorly quantifying the harmfulness of a variety of substances. a reasonable hedge is to buy organic for the dirty dozen and non-organic for other produce. eat less processed sugar regardless, whether you replace it with fruit or not.

Yeah the fact that it took us years to identify issues with like, BPA or trans fats -- and the constant churn on stuff like glyphosate where it feels like regulators continue to be slower than data -- have me worried. Maybe we should be buying more organic ... It's not any extra time and not overall a huge amount of extra money in the grocery budget.

Re: Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products

#15

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

Nicksil wrote: post #12
mherdeg wrote: post #9

This is an area where I'm torn. Should I be buying only organic produce or should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce? There is a tradeoff... with young kids and a full-time job the time I can spend buying or preparing meals is pretty limited. I don't fully understand the magnitude of the risks of, say, eating too much vs. eating too much pesticide. I'm also ki…

>This is an area where I'm torn. Should I be buying only organic produce No. >should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce? Yes. It is no surprise you feel torn. Tons of money is invested into the marketing of "organic" produce when it has, in-fact, ZERO positive gain over conventional produce. The FUD being forced down everyone's throat by the "organic" industry…

> With "organic" food, you are getting the same exact thing grown by conventional methods but at a higher price.

But thats the problem: you have no way of knowing if "conventional methods" (i.e. no pesticides) were used to grow the produce unless there is a label signaling it. That label is called "organic".

Re: Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products

#16

Post by Nicksil »

mandmandam wrote: post #13

So, 74 'Highly Hazardous Pesticides' from just 12 fruit. And likely with significant crossover, so you get double and triple-dosed. We know they're more toxic than your ex, and we know that there's people out there eating all these fruits and grains, like your mum. So why do we have debate on Round-ups' toxicity, or the 'economic benefits' of robot-powered, topsoil-eroding mono-cultures with no life in them? Why do w…

>We know organic perma-culture is better; for our bodies, for the soil, for the water and birds and bees.

It's not better. Not a thing about it makes it better than conventional agriculture. Indeed one could make the argument it is worse than conventional agriculture for the items you listed because of the less effective methods used for "organic" pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer application.

Re: Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products

#17

Post by Nicksil »

clairity wrote: post #7
syntaxing wrote: post #6

I’m assuming there is different list for different countries? Are these “dirty 12” a good representation in the US? If not, anyone can point me to a list similar but for the US?

the dirty dozen concept seems global at this point. i've referred people to this list by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), though i don't know that it's better than any other: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty-dozen.php note that the recommendation for these produce items is to buy organic. there's a complementary list (clean fifteen) of the least polluted produce, for which buying regular is fine: https://www.…

>the dirty dozen concept seems global at this point. i've referred people to this list by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), though i don't know that it's better than any other: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty-dozen.php

>note that the recommendation for these produce items is to buy organic. there's a complementary list (clean fifteen) of the least polluted produce, for which buying regular is fine: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/clean-fifteen.php

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a political lobbying group for the organic industry.

Re: Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products

#18

Post by Nicksil »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #15
Nicksil wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is an area where I'm torn. Should I be buying only organic produce No. >should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce? Yes. It is no surprise you feel torn. Tons of money is invested into the marketing of "organic" produce when it has, in-fact, ZERO positive gain over conventional produce. The FUD being forced down everyone's throat by the "organic" industry…

> With "organic" food, you are getting the same exact thing grown by conventional methods but at a higher price. But thats the problem: you have no way of knowing if "conventional methods" (i.e. no pesticides) were used to grow the produce unless there is a label signaling it. That label is called "organic".

>But thats the problem: you have no way of knowing if "conventional methods" (i.e. no pesticides) were used to grow the produce unless there is a label signaling it. That label is called "organic".

I don't follow. Both "organic" and conventional agriculture use pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.

Re: Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products

#20

Post by Nicksil »

clairity wrote: post #11
mherdeg wrote: post #9

This is an area where I'm torn. Should I be buying only organic produce or should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce? There is a tradeoff... with young kids and a full-time job the time I can spend buying or preparing meals is pretty limited. I don't fully understand the magnitude of the risks of, say, eating too much vs. eating too much pesticide. I'm also ki…

the (magnitude of) risk isn't certain yet, but it's unlikely zero, given our history of poorly quantifying the harmfulness of a variety of substances. a reasonable hedge is to buy organic for the dirty dozen and non-organic for other produce. eat less processed sugar regardless, whether you replace it with fruit or not.

>the (magnitude of) risk isn't certain yet, but it's unlikely zero, given our history of poorly quantifying the harmfulness of a variety of substances. a reasonable hedge is to buy organic for the dirty dozen and non-organic for other produce. eat less processed sugar regardless, whether you replace it with fruit or not.

If the goal is to reduce ingestion of substances applied to crops, then what you describe is not a reasonable hedge as both "organic" and conventional crops use pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. You're better off saving your money by buying conventional produce than spending extra money on the purchase of the same thing.

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