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Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

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Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#91

Post by MrYellowP »

toshk wrote: post #61
nostromo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd rather everyone pay more for food based on your personal preferences? Even though there's a lot of evidence that these foods are entirely safe...

Except it isn't. Already lots of diseases linked to pesticides. Will only be more in the years to come. It's clear that at least farmers and also people living in pesticides ridden areas suffer many diseases, for instance Parkinson: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6176703/#:~:tex... . The only assumption is is that in low doses pesticides are not harmful, but there is no deep knowledge of years and years…

> The only assumption is is that in low doses pesticides are not harmful

In case you haven't noticed yet, the world mostly runs on assumptions people pretend/parrot as facts and even defend their assumptions as if they actually were facts.

Common sense dictates that less harmful dosages are still harmfull, but less so. Your body repairs the damage quicker than it can spread, which works fine until the internal repair rate starts slowing down and that's not even considering any potential long term side effects.

I find it very scary that this study even exists. This is just common sense in Austria. Pesticides are bad, period.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#92

Post by ch4s3 »

Baloo wrote: post #84
ch4s3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most of agricultural history people didn't eat raw vegetables at all, and only some raw fruits. Before the advent of modern agriculture night dirt was a common fertilizer and a serious vector for disease. It's still unsafe to ear raw fruits and vegetables in parts of the world with bad sanitization. I know a few people who have gotten seriously ill consuming fresh pressed fruit juice in North Africa.

It's a nice anecdote, but I've lived and travelled in various African countries and never been sick from consuming fruit, vegetables or pressed juice. I'd be much more worried about eating poorly butchered and stored meat. The idea people throughout history didn't eat raw fruits and vegetables is also quite wrong. Again, after living in rural communities, they largely eat what they can get - which includes a lot of r…

Here's a 2017 study from Egypt about the frequency of parasite cysts on fresh produce[1]. Here's another about salmonella generally in North Africa[2]. Both irrigation and washing of produce use water that may not be safe to drink. This isn't some anecdotal issue I'm bringing up.

[1] https://aeji.journals.ekb.eg/article_17804.html

[2] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2017.0156...

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#93

Post by olyjohn »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #47
lm28469 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trend of "we fucked up big time and need to create additional waste to take negate our fuck ups" is really worrying. Installing ultra sonic cleaners, reverse osmosis machines, AC units, &c. in every single of our houses/flats won't be sustainable

What are people's problems with AC units? An AC unit is more sustainable than a furnace burning fossil fuels and electric heaters. They are just as sustainable as heat pumps.

An AC unit is a heat pump running in reverse.

So here in the PNW, we typically only heat during the winter. Most people here have never had AC in the summer time. So typically, power usage in the summer here is really low. Most of us just turn off the furnace for a number of months. We know it's fall when we finally turn on the heat.

Now that more and more people are getting heat pumps, I suspect that the energy saved during the winter is going to be offset quite a bit by people running their AC in the summer. I don't know how much that will be, but I know I'll be running my new AC unit this summer. Hopefully I won't need it more than a couple of weeks. But it's been hotter the last few summers, and if the trend continues, we'll be running the AC a lot more.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#95

Post by biorach »

tuyiown wrote: post #69
biorach wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the main goal of the pesticides industry is to supply chemicals that kill of various pests (insects, fungi etc) that would otherwise destroy a significant proportion of the harvest. Without these pesticides food would be significantly more expensive and less accessible to many people. I agree that we should talk about moving away from chemical dependent farming but we need to be aware of the full picture in order…

I realize I should have been more nuanced, but you should too. The increase of production is undeniable, I'm not challenging that, and introduction of pesticides in the second half the the 20th century lowered drastically the cost of living of many. But the pesticide industry has become predatory, and their concerns have not been public welfare for a very long time.

Their concerns were never public welfare. They are companies. Their concerns are profit and market share.

I think what you are saying is that they have turned to predatory behaviour in order to grow profits and protect market share.

Your point would have been better made if you had said just that, with examples.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#96

Post by treme »

sschueller wrote: post #77
treme wrote: post #2

ultrasonic washer are by far the best way to wash fruits & veges of these things, in Korea ultrasonic washer-sinks are picking up in popularity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-JZkiGigDw&t=261s research citation https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4688301/

If that worked why would the industry not do this before they put it on the shelve? Organic salad I can buy here (Switzerland) comes marked as pre-washed and ready to eat in many cases.

because most consumers won't be able to tell the difference while they incur cost of extra process. They have pre-washed salads in NA too, but I doubt those are washed using ultrasonic devices.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#97

Post by dukeofdoom »

malfist wrote: post #85
ceejayoz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany and Switzerland have allotment gardens today; communism isn't required.

In the US we had victory gardens during times of war rationing. I personally grow one still today, but not everyone has the space, time and inclination to learn how to grow plants and preserve a harvest.

Just curious, what method do you use to protect against squirrels? They're kind of crazy here, will eat everything. I had one chew through a plastic bird feeder to get at the seeds.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#98

Post by biorach »

ch4s3 wrote: post #56
biorach wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organic farming exists. Consumers can move past herbicides and pesticides by paying more (sometimes much more) for their food, and cooking more from scratch. Of course this is easy for wealthy first-world dwellers. Less so for low income families in places with less diverse supply chains. Organic farming has lower yields (those pests otherwise killed off by the pesticides end up eating a lot of the produce) and is mo…

> Organic farming exists. Organic especially in the US, but also in the EU, doesn't mean no herbicides and pesticides[1][2]. Some of the non-synthetic insecticides are FAR more dangerous for people[3]. A popular organic pesticide from the recent past worked by destroying cell mitochondria in a vast swath of eukaryotic cells, nasty stuff. [1] https://www.global-organics.com/post.php?s=2018-02-02-are-pe... . [2] https:…

Note that as far as I'm aware Rotenone is not on the list of EU approved substances for organic farming. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#99

Post by ldiracdelta »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #50

I'm no fan of communism, but one thing I think communism did better is that allotment gardens and and small cottage gardens where much more attainable under communism for poor people. So even poor people could grow their own food. I live in Ontario where the price of real estate is bonkers. If you own land, you can't even build a shed without there being a main building. And you can't build anything under 800 sqft. T…

Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

Great Leap Forward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

Stalin allowed for the household plot, because.... everyone was starving due to communism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_plot During the Holodomor and in "the breadbasket" of Ukraine, people were arrested for not yielding _all_ of their produce to the state.

Now the effect of terrorizing people with scarcity of food may have caused them to try to grow more of their own food, but I'm not sure that's the best tactic.

Re: Pesticide residues could negate the health benefits of fruits and vegetables

#100

Post by minsc_and_boo »

atty wrote: post #7

Unless I missed something, it’s completely self reported and only following people working in healthcare. This is not a very convincing result.

The cohorts are huge (120,000+ people) and they controlled for a number of other factors in the analysis, so I don't think sample error is here to blame for why they observed high-pesticide fruits/veggies having less health benefits than low-pesticide fruits/veggies.
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