For spices and tea it really makes sense to buy organic (not that there are no fraudsters but still).
People still use tea bags even though they're a top source of microplastics.
EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
51–60 of 315 posts
Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's one of the richest food cultures in the world. If you've never tried sichuan peppercorn on mapo tofu, or pickled mustard greens on noodle dishes, I think you're in for a real treat. These do involve foods from China though..
You can use safe Australian ingredients to cook the recipe.
Where in Australia grows Sichuan peppercorns? They're almost exclusively grown in China and the general regions nearby to my knowledge.
Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
#53The report itself[†] blames the pesticide residue on a "boomerang effect" from EU countries: EU countries export these banned pesticides to third countries, those countries use the banned pesticides on the food they grow, and then the EU countries import that food. In effect, EU companies are still profiting off of the sale and use of banned pesticides on food that Europeans will eat. [†] https://www.foodwatch.org/fi…
Unfortunately this is an all too common pattern in the history of pesticides. In 1979 DBCP was banned in the US after factory workers became sterile. Dow Chemical happily shipped tons of it to be sprayed directly on banana workers in banana republics[0] by Dole/Chiquita/Del Monte. To this day Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, and Nicaragua have some of the highest rates of infertility, birth defects, and chronic illnesses in the world
This was just after the Gros Michel had gone basically extinct because of monocropping. The banana companies hired scientists to figure out what to do that almost universally recommended diversifying the crop. But they calculated that it'd actually be cheaper to just double down on pesticide application and start again with another monocrop.
There's an incredible documentary about the banana industry history (and practices that continue to this day like banana companies paying gangs to assassinate local labor leaders) called Bananaland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoRmtQht8-E
Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Organic is a label which means something specific. Compliance with the definition is controlled by law, however imperfectly. It is not just greenwashing.
You are both correct. Organic means something specific. However what it means is not what most people think it means. People want healthy and good for the earth - that is not what organic gives you. Sometimes it does, but sometimes conventional ag (with all those scary chemicals) is better.
Yes, I get this argument. But everybody intuitively understands the basic proposition of organic. Namely: "We have not added anything to your food for which you don't have many thousands of years of evolutionary preparation." That is not pseudoscience, it's rational circumspection. Or, as the European Commission calls it, the "precautionary principle". Speaking for myself, I find it convincing.
Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
#55The report itself[†] blames the pesticide residue on a "boomerang effect" from EU countries: EU countries export these banned pesticides to third countries, those countries use the banned pesticides on the food they grow, and then the EU countries import that food. In effect, EU companies are still profiting off of the sale and use of banned pesticides on food that Europeans will eat. [†] https://www.foodwatch.org/fi…
I checked the list of pesticides in the article, and almost all of them were banned because of the effect on pollinators, not because of human health. So using these pesticides only on products for export makes utterly no sense!
They were never used in EU, what happened was that EU exports the pesticides and then they are used in other countries and then those food products are imported into EU.
So EU makes pesticides that itself bans from being used on their own fields. Which isn't that weird, it isn't the chemical that is banned it is using it as a pesticide that is banned.
Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
#56More relevant is that 14 out of 64 samples had levels above the legally allowed limit (MRL), of which 12 pesticides that are not approved in the EU (page 12 of report). This is more severe than products 'containing' pesticides, which could as well be advancements in measurement. Problematic products are: Peppers, dried (6x), Cumin (3x), Rice grain (2x), Tea leaves and stalks (1x), Non-fermented tea leaves (1x), Mix o…
Cumin always shows up on these lists, whether it's with heavy metals or something else. It's to the point where I've more or less just stopped cooking with it because I don't trust it to be safe.
Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
#57For spices and tea it really makes sense to buy organic (not that there are no fraudsters but still).
Yes and no! In the UK, tea means tea bags and that normally means tea bags made of a plastic/paper mix. If I remember, the bag material is made and then they heat it up to get the plastic out, revealing the holes, needed for the bag. Of late there has been criticism of microplastics in tea bags, and the posh organic bags have fared quite badly. Fancy sachets are not necessarily it. As for chemicals, not one farmer sp…
Oh no, I drank 1 ml of saturated fat. Is it even still all bad for you? I thought I heard some detail about that recently ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat
> A 2024 meta-analysis found that odd-chain and longer-chain saturated fatty acids were negatively associated with the risk of cardiovascular disease, including stroke.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd-chain_fatty_acid
>OCFAs are found particularly in ruminant fat and milk (e.g. pentadecylic acid).
(I don't know if that means most of the saturated fatty acids in milk, it's full of different varieties.)
Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
#58We're reaching the point where people need to install GC/MS systems in their homes in order to be safe from food hazards.
No we don’t. And the greatest hazard is the soul crushing disappointment that is a Dutch tomato.
Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
EU generally leads the developed world in regulation, that has become a meme and a joke. but for Food related stuff, EU standards and regulation are truly superior for consumers, relative to US and other countries
> but for Food related stuff, EU standards and regulation are truly superior for consumers, relative to US and other countries That is mostly a myth. EU and US take different approaches to setting food safety regulations, which means they have different lists of banned substances. The EU bans a lot of substances that have no evidence of actual adverse effects just out of an abundance of caution or sometimes even beca…
The message you respond to talks about "food stuff", which is admitedly blurry. You focus on food safety, which is very good in the US. But the EU also regulates heavily food quality and sustainability, and it usually shows IMO.
Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Organic is just green washing, it doesn’t mean no chemicals. Plenty of organic products contain toxic chemicals and heavy metals. Organic oats have been found to contain glyphosate. Organic spices have been found to contain heavy metals.
Organic means that no non-organic pesticides have been used in production. There are still organic ones available, which are less dangerous. Especially to the farmers who are the first ones to get exposed to the poisons we spread on the fields.
> There are still organic ones available, which are less dangerous.
"Organic" as in certified 'Organic' or as in the class of molecules?
If the former then I'd love to see the classification requirements that make a qualifying chemical safer all the ones that aren't.
If the later, that's blatantly untrue