Greens Not So Peachy Advice
Led by groups like the Environmental Working Group (EWG), environmental activists continue in their crazy crusade to fight pesticide use of any kind, even when it serves important public health benefits. One such benefit involves making produce affordable by warding off pests that reduce yields and make fruits and vegetables more affordable. Since these foods fight off cancer, making them affordable has important public health benefits as people eat more when prices are lower. Yet because some portion of these foods many have trace chemicals on them–so low that they don’t matter for public health purposes–greens are actually discouraging people from eating some fruits and vegetables. Among the “dangerous foods” they say are peaches! That’s crazy! See more about the EWG’s ridiculous–and dangerous–crusade against healthy fruits and vegetables here.
Image attribution: foodistablog’s photostream on Flickr.
I guess you haven’t heard of the cation principle, or “think before you act” principle. From what I’ve read, DDT usage might not have had anything with the bird’s eggs to do, but you can’t deny all the documented drawbacks of pesticide use. These (often persistent) organic things accumulate in our bodies and we don’t know if there are any threshold effect to await in the future. People say that we have to “make ariculture” efficient. Why? Does everybody know how much food we throw away each year? How the rich countries’ lateral trade contracts effect local production? This is not a question about crazy treehuggers, but a more complex one. Clever usage of land, watering and fertilizing is optional, pesticides are an easy, short-term solution.
/Henrik