The Pesticide Report Is Out
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PDP is the USDA’s national pesticide residue testing program that analyzes approximately 25,000 samples a year, according to Dr. Chuck Benbrook, writing at www.generationsoforganic.org.
Here are the program’s results for the new PDP, as reported by Dr. Benbrook.
Baby food
There is first-ever data on three baby foods — pears, green beans and sweet potatoes. In general, the sweet potatoes and pears were pretty clean, but 9 percent of the green bean samples had clearly unacceptable levels of the organophosphate insecticide methamidophos. A remarkable 25 percent of pear baby food samples contained six or more residues, and 3.7 percent of the samples contained 10 residues. Not good. As always, buy organic!
Bee Killing Insecticides
Nicotinyl insecticide residues are extremely common because they are widely used and are systemic – they work by moving into the plant, including the harvested portion. In fact, about 1 in 10 of samples tested by the PDP (across ALL crops) had residues of imidacloprid (Admire), and many fresh fruit and vegetable samples contained residues of two nictoinyls. This is the family of insecticides implicated in honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder.
Drinking Water
Extensive testing was carried out on drinking water, including school wells. These data have some surprises– especially the fact that 85 percent of finished drinking water had residues of 2,4-D. This phenoxy herbicide is known to be a significant risk factor for a host of reproductive problems, birth defects, and cancers. It is also linked to a possible, new herbicide-tolerant, genetically engineered corn variety currently under review by the USDA and EPA.
Atrazine (another endocrine disrupting herbicide linked to breast cancer and a host of developmental abnormalities) was found in 95 percent of samples of drinking water! The levels are generally very low, but this year’s PDP confirms that most people living in heavily farmed regions are ingesting three, four or more herbicides daily via finished drinking water.
The PDP survey also includes organic samples. Just as in recent years, the organically grown food tested by PDP in 2010 has substantially fewer residues. When residues are detected, the levels are usually 10 to 100 times lower than in conventional samples. Based on TOC’s “Dietary Risk Index,” typical risk levels in organic foods are 50-200 times lower than in the corresponding conventional foods. Clearly, consumers purchasing organic food to lower pesticide exposures and risks are getting just that.
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Glorious, glorious. The summer fruits are here. The stone fruits—cherries, plums, the short season of the apricots, nectarines, peaches, pluots, and plumcots. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, marionberries. The wildings: black caps, wineberries, huckleberries.
Make sure they’re organic. Make some preserves, but easy on the sugar. Better yet, freeze them. Berries are frozen whole on trays then put into freezer bags for cold storage. Stone fruits are pitted and sliced in water, lemon juice, and honey syrup, then frozen in freezer bags—just enough for a portion for dinner. Mix berries and stone fruits for winter compotes.
And just for fun, there’s this poem by Walter de la Mare, entitled, “Berries.”
There was an old woman
Went blackberry picking
Along the hedges
From Weep to Wicking. -
Half a pottle-
No more she had got,
When out steps a Fairy
From her green grot;
And says, ‘Well, Jill,
Would ‘ee pick ee mo?’
And Jill, she curtseys,
And looks just so.
Be off,’ says the Fairy,
‘As quick as you can,
Over the meadows
To the little green lane
That dips to the hayfields
Of Farmer Grimes:
I’ve berried those hedges
A score of times;
Bushel on bushel
I’ll promise’ee, Jill,
This side of supper
If’ee pick with a will.’
She glints very bright,
And speaks her fair;
Then lo, and behold!
She had faded in air.
Be sure Old Goodie
She trots betimes
Over the meadows
To Farmer Grimes.
And never was queen
With jewelry rich
As those same hedges
From twig to ditch;
Like Dutchmen’s coffers,
Fruit, thorn, and flower -
They shone like William
And Mary’s bower.
And be sure Old Goodie
Went back to Weep,
So tired with her basket
She scarce could creep.
When she comes in the dusk
To her cottage door,
There’s Towser wagging
As never before,
To see his Missus
So glad to be
Come from her fruit-picking
Back to he.
As soon as next morning
Dawn was grey,
The pot on the hob
Was simmering away;
And all in a stew
And a hugger-mugger
Towser and Jill
A-boiling of sugar,
And the dark clear fruit
That from Faerie came,
For syrup and jelly
And blackberry jam.
Twelve jolly gallipots
Jill put by;
And one little teeny one,
One inch high;
And that she’s hidden
A good thumb deep,
Half way over
From Wicking to Weep.
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