Pesticides in my Meal
Yesterday I enjoyed a traditional homemade Peruvian dish known as Tacu Tacu. It usually consists of beans or lentils mixed with rice and fried into a crispy pancake. On the side, I had a mixed green salad with avocado and sliced apples and I drizzled it with a balsamic Italian dressing. As a beverage, I had a glass of water.
Of all of the ingredients that I used, most of them were organic, besides the avocado oil, cumin, and garlic salt. However, I'm interested in learning the amount of pesticides I would have consumed if I chose not to use organic ingredients.
Below is a list of my ingredients, each with a pesticide quantity that is normally found in the conventional version of the ingredient.
Salad
Apple: 47 pesticide residues
Mixed greens: N/A
Avocado:1 pesticide residue
Dressing: N/A
Tacu Tacu (lentil and rice pancake)
White rice: 15 pesticide residues
Green lentils: N/A
Tomato: 35 pesticide residues
Red onion: 1 pesticide residue
What did you find out about the pesticide residues that may be in or on your food? The pesticide residues that I found in the conventional form of the ingredients I used had a total of 99 pesticide residues, and this did not include multiple items that weren't on the "What's On My Food?" website. These pesticides were linked to multiple health issues as well as environmental issues including: Neurotoxins, Honeybee Toxins, Known/Probable Carcinogens, Suspected Hormone Disruptors, and Developmental/Reproductive Toxins.
What do you think about this? Honestly, Im appalled! This is one of the major reasons I decided to go organic. As we can see, there are foods that have more than one pesticide and it's possible that multiple doses of a pesticide are ingested via different products. For example, Pyrimethanil can be found in both apples and tomatoes and it is a known or probable carcinogen, hormone disruptor, and bee toxin. However, we must also consider that this pesticide can be found in more products. So, as we consume different products with the same pesticide, we expose ourselves to higher health risks.
What should we be doing about this in terms of public health, not just in terms of our personal choices? As with any major public health concern, I believe policy development is key. Policymakers and our government need to develop and enforce policies that protect the community while also holding big agriculture accountable. We should look into subsidizing organic produce and making that a norm. It's also important to recognize that transition from conventional to organic will not happen over night, so the government needs to find ways to provide technical assistance to agricultural companies through this transition. We must also invest in green chemistry and use science to our advantage. By finding sustainable alternatives that will result in similar production outcomes, it will be easier to convince the agricultural business to shift.
Hi Nalleli,
ReplyDeleteAfter your post I looked up the recipe for Tacu Tacu and its looks delicious. It is scary to see that despite the use of organic produce the pesticide residue score was 99. I agree with you the need for policy development and investment into green chemistry is critical to improve the quality of the foods we all consume. I believe the standards for clean produce should be equal for both organic and non-organic produce I think non-organic produce should be completely eliminated and all produce should be cultivated with organic produce standards.
Hi Nalleli,
ReplyDeleteI agree that the public health concern is first with policy. We need to start to develop policies that will help us in the long run. We must focus on the root cause of the policy first and what can we do to change the process that is not helping the public. I think we must also improve technical assistance as well to make steps towards policy reform in green chemistry.