BARTENDER, GIMME A BEER WITH A DDT CHASER
...or How Pesticides in Food Can Accumulate in the Human Body

Work is killing you anyway, so you might as well drink a big glass of poison, right? Of course not! But think about the cumulative effect each year of eating over 1,000 meals, each of them featuring foods that contain some level of pesticide residue. It adds up.

The US Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control both released studies in 2003 indicating that the average American carries a "body burden" of chemical pesticides. These unwanted chemical stores have come from food we eat and possibly from other sources such as exposures to pesticide applications in homes, yards, schools, or workplaces. When one considers that the typical pesticide is designed to be a neurotoxin, it's likely that most people would not want to have ANY body burden of pesticides.

Washing food thoroughly helps remove some of the toxins but often cannot make the foods pesticide-free. In addition to contaminating our bodies, most agricultural pesticides also wreak havoc on the environment by contaminating air and drinking water; by harming wildlife; and, in the case of "persistent" pesticides that don't break down quickly, by causing problems for years or decades after their initial application. So, free yourself and the environment from The Big Glass of Poison—go organic!

Learn more about organic food from the Organic Trade Association

Learn more about how pesticides affect humans from Pesticide Action Network

Publish date: 01-SEP-2002

More articles and resources....

• Pesticides in Food - Wallet Guide to Help You Avoid the Most Contaminated Foods
• Organic Myths and Realities (article)
• Resource Page for Organics
• All subjects

Get Grinning Planet free via email

"One's stomach is one's internal environment."

  — Samuel Butler