Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by vkou » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 2:31 AM UTC

jniedrauer wrote: post #8

> Although the levels of individual pesticides are within legal limits, activists fear the combination of multiple chemicals could be particularly damaging to people’s health. This is the important part. Activists' fear should not dictate health policy. That should be done by scientists. This organization, Pesticide Action Network, is opposed to GMOs and other modern farming techniques that kicked off the green revol…

> This is the important part. Activists' fear should not dictate health policy. That should be done by scientists.

The default is that vendors dictate health policy. It should be up to them to conclusively prove that these chemicals are not harmful at the concentrations they are used.

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

#82

Post by ricardobeat » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

tharkun__ wrote: post #63

ricardobeat wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stoping to work a full time job and buying only organic produce are kinda mutually exclusive.

Buying organic: yes. Eating organic: no. At least in the US and Canada this should work. Of course not everyone can do it and it's not for everyone. You gotta live in the right place and know the right stuff. You want some acreage. That's where you'll grow your organic veggie garden. This doesn't need too much of the acreage but you also want woodlands that you can get your fire wood from sustainably. You also want t…

Yeah, that is a nice lifestyle but unattainable for 99.999% of humanity. And not very sustainable in terms of land and resources unless you do it as a community. Even then, you could only sustain a tiny, tiny fraction of earth’s current population like this.

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

#83

Post by heavyset_go » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 2:56 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #49

Nicksil wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even if that is accurate(source?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming >quantity applied says nothing about the danger of the substance to humans. Quantity is the deciding factor when talking about toxicity to humans. If I've misunderstood your comment, please correct me.

Let’s just take one example: Sodium Bicarbonate, commonly known as Baking Soda works well as an efficient and cost effective fungicide and insecticide. It is actually registered with the EPA for use against certain plant fungi, powdery mildew. As a foliar spray used in the garden, it works wonders against fungus and bugs. There’s approximately no amount of sodium bicarbonate a person could reasonably ingest, in this…

Sodium bicarbonate isn't actually used in farming like this. Copper pesticides[1] are though, and they are not without their own downsides and consequences.

This article touches on pesticide use in organic farming[2].

I like organic farming, but a lot of what passes for "organic" in the US is far from ideal and feels more like regulator-sanctioned scam. I'd feel more confident buying organic produce if there were stricter guidelines and enforcement.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_pesticide

[2] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/httpblogs...

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

#84

Post by taotau » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 3:04 AM UTC

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…

For me the answer to that question, as with most things in life, is a do a bit of both. Don't just buy the same food from the same place all the time.

Most people choose, conciously or not, to trust in organisations like the FDA to work in their interests, and I don't think that trust is wholly misplaced - sure, guidelines might be stretched sometimes in the interests of getting a pesticide product to market, but it's rare that you hear of someone taking a bite of an apple and dropping dead. The issues that arise from toxicity in food come with small doses of the stuff building up over time. You can aleviate this by varying the source and the type of food you consume. The body is pretty resilient and has mechanisms for dealing with managable levels of toxicity. Potatoes, tomatoes and peppers are all from the nightshade family, one of the nastiest natural poisons, and yet we consume tonnes of these with no ill effect.

Try to buy seasonal produce - organic or not, things grown and sold locally will have way less chemical treatments applied to them.

Take the kids to your local farmers market once a month - talk to the stall holders and learn whats fresh and where it comes from. You get a fun family outing and a bit of variety in your food. A little bit of the good stuff is bound to help your body process the chemicals from the bad stuff you buy the rest of the time. It doesnt have to be all or nothing.

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

#85

Post by ta988 » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 4:00 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #59

jniedrauer wrote: post #8

> Although the levels of individual pesticides are within legal limits, activists fear the combination of multiple chemicals could be particularly damaging to people’s health. This is the important part. Activists' fear should not dictate health policy. That should be done by scientists. This organization, Pesticide Action Network, is opposed to GMOs and other modern farming techniques that kicked off the green revol…

Science: substance X is bad. Pesticide company: Ok, we'll modify X slightly so that it is a different molecule from a regulations perspective, but with the same effect.

Look at the dtory of Mediator in France. Same story. Take a substance that's known to cause cardiac valve defects but makes a ton of money, add an easily cleavable chemical group to it, make money until anybody notices, claim you didn't do it on purpose...

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

#86

Post by ta988 » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 4:05 AM UTC

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #61

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s just take one example: Sodium Bicarbonate, commonly known as Baking Soda works well as an efficient and cost effective fungicide and insecticide. It is actually registered with the EPA for use against certain plant fungi, powdery mildew. As a foliar spray used in the garden, it works wonders against fungus and bugs. There’s approximately no amount of sodium bicarbonate a person could reasonably ingest, in this…

Might apply to vinegar, too, another insecticide, although I don’t know if consuming huge quantities of vinegar is bad for you. I’m guessing not as bad as the same quantity of Round-up or a variety of other synthetics.

Many plants would die quickly if you use vinegar and it gets in the soil, same with baling soda. Thats stuff that will work for house plants but not really in a field unless you have a lot of people with tiny brushes...

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

#87

Post by forgotmypw17 » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 4:22 AM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #82

tharkun__ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying organic: yes. Eating organic: no. At least in the US and Canada this should work. Of course not everyone can do it and it's not for everyone. You gotta live in the right place and know the right stuff. You want some acreage. That's where you'll grow your organic veggie garden. This doesn't need too much of the acreage but you also want woodlands that you can get your fire wood from sustainably. You also want t…

Yeah, that is a nice lifestyle but unattainable for 99.999% of humanity. And not very sustainable in terms of land and resources unless you do it as a community. Even then, you could only sustain a tiny, tiny fraction of earth’s current population like this.

I never suggested it is sustainable for anyone else but one individual, the hypothetical individual being a combination of your situation and my perspective and experience applied to my admittedly limited understanding of your situation.

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

#88

Post by esyir » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 11:08 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #40

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…

42% of people are obesse in usa. That seems like very obviously the more immediate risk by many orders of magnitude. The risk of pesticides (that are within legal limits) is a bit more nebulous, but seems almost certainly nowhere near as pervasive as obesity. If you have a known risk that's significant, probably best to focus there. However is this really the trade off? For the most part you can't really buy pesticid…

Sure I can. I can murder myself with pesticide free, ethically raised double cheeseburgers.

It's quite easy to find unhealthy food with the standard list of virtuous labels. Go to any high end restaurant, you'll probably get just that.

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

#89

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 1:48 PM UTC

jniedrauer wrote: post #8

> Although the levels of individual pesticides are within legal limits, activists fear the combination of multiple chemicals could be particularly damaging to people’s health. This is the important part. Activists' fear should not dictate health policy. That should be done by scientists. This organization, Pesticide Action Network, is opposed to GMOs and other modern farming techniques that kicked off the green revol…

[deleted]

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

#90

Post by jbotz » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

Nicksil wrote: post #10

This article has so much misleading information. It's bonkers. >The official figures, analysed by Pesticide Action Network (PAN), found 122 different pesticides in the 12 most polluted products, which the charity calls the “dirty dozen”. Many of these are hazardous to human health; 61% are classified as highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), a concept used by the UN to identify those substances most harmful to human hea…

> All food is organic. "Organic" is this context is a marketing term and nothing more.

This is a straw-man. "Organic" here refers to the growing methods, not the food... no, the people who coined the terms were not as stupid as you are trying to make them out to be.

And yes, "organic" is marketing term, but it is a regulated marketing term that provides some useful information to the customer.