by Marion Nestle

Currently browsing posts about: Pesticides

Jan 30 2024

The endless hazards of commercial baby foods: lead and pesticides

LEAD

I’ve posted previously about the recent finding of high levels of lead—and now chromium—in applesauce pouches.

I’ve also posted about the inadequacy of inspections of such products.

The lead problems are continuing.

The FDA says it has received 89 complaints as of January 16, with the average age of the affected children less than one year (you have to scroll way down to see the latest updates).

The CDC says it has received reports from state and local health departments:

Total Cases: 385

Confirmed Cases: 97

Probable Cases: 253

Suspect Cases: 35

Both agencies say: Do not feed recalled products to your children!

  • WanaBana apple cinnamon fruit puree pouches – including three packs
  • Schnucks-brand cinnamon-flavored applesauce pouches and variety pack
  • Weis-brand cinnamon applesauce pouches

What caused this?  The best guess is (deliberate?) adulteration of the cinnamon.  Not nice to think about.

PESTICIDES

I read in The Guardian: Nearly 40% of conventional baby food contains toxic pesticides, US study finds.

The research, conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) non-profit, looked at 73 products and found at least one pesticide in 22 of them. Many products showed more than one pesticide, and the substances present a dangerous health threat to babies, researchers said.

The EWG research: New EWG study (2023): Pesticides still found in baby food but most-toxic threats eliminated through advocacy, regulation.

  • New EWG research finds fewer pesticides in baby food than in the  groundbreaking 1995 study, Pesticides in Baby Food.
  • Though EWG detected some pesticides, the most toxic have been removed.
  • EWG’s advocacy helped drive market change – but the fight for safer food continues.
  • Federal oversight of pesticides in children’s food is inadequate, as explored in depth in a 1993 landmark National Academies of Science study.
  • No pesticides were detected in any of the 15 organic products.

Well, this message is clear: if you must buy commercial baby food, buy organic.

Overall, you are better off feeding babies the healthy foods you eat, pureed or cut up so they don’t cause choking, and as unsalted and unsugared as possible.

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Mar 24 2023

Weekend reading: pesticides on produce

The Environmental Working Group has just published its annual lists of Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen.

  • The Dirty Dozen—those with the highest levels of harmful pesticides:  Strawberries, spinach, kale/collards/mustard greens, peaches, pears, nectarines, apples, grapes, peppers, cherries, blueberries, green beans.
  • The Clean Fifteen—those with the lowest levels of harmful pesticides: Avocados, sweet corn, pineapple, onions,papaya, sweet peas (frozen), asparagus, honeydew melon, kiwi, cabbage, mushrooms, mangoes, sweet potatoes, watermelon, carrots

What always interests me about these lists is how nobody except the EWG wants to deal with pesticides on produce, and how much pushback the EWG gets from industry.

IFIC, the International Food Information Council (an industry front group), criticizes the EWG for promoting “organic produce as being safer and healthier than conventional produce.”  It says (my paraphrase except for direct quotes):

  1. You don’t need to avoid any kind of produce.
  2. Regulators ensure all foods are safe.
  3. Regulators inspect and monitor all foods.
  4. Residues are on all foods but “they are not to be feared.”
  5. “Giving elite status to organic produce is detrimental to people’s health.”
  6. Everybody agrees people need to eat more produce.
  7. “Shelf-stable foods, organic or conventional, present relatiable and healthy foods for all of us.”

My translation: Don’t bother with organics, ultra-processed foods are fine.

The Alliance for Food and Farming (a produce industry trade group) says:

Despite peer reviewed research showing it is scientifically unsupportable and negatively impacts consumers, the so-called “dirty dozen” list will be released soon  This list was developed to invoke misplaced safety fears about fruits and vegetables – the food group we are encouraged to eat more of every day to improve physical and mental health, prevent illness and increase lifespan.

This group says the “Dirty Dozen” recommendations are “unsupportable” and “negatively impact consumers and produce consumption.”

It says,

  • Just wash it! According to the FDA, washing produce under running tap water can reduce and often eliminate pesticide residues, if they are present at all.
  • A farmer’s first consumer is their own family so food safety is always their priority.

Comment: We use a lot of pesticides, more than 400 in the US alone, and more than 2.5 million metric tons annualy, worldwide.

We can debate the degree of harm caused to individuals, especially children, but there is no question they are bad for soil and the environment, and I’ve never heard anything suggesting they are good for us.

We would be better off eating fewer of them and producing food in ways that use less of them.

If EWG pushing farming in that direction, it needs it.

Choose organics as a means to encourage more sustainable production practices (vote with your fork).

Advocate for policies to reduce pesticide use (vote with your vote).

And thank EWG for holding industry’s feet to the fire.

*******

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Sep 15 2021

Midweek reading: The Meat Atlas

Take a look at this.

The authors write:

It is clear that many (especially young) people no longer want to accept the profit-driven damage caused by the meat industry and are increasingly interested in and committed to climate, sustainability, animal welfare and food sovereignty causes. We consider this an encouraging step for our future and want to use this Atlas to strengthen their commitment with information.

This Atlas is intended to support all those who seek climate justice and food sovereignty, and who want to protect nature. Revealing new data and facts, and providing links between various key issues, it is a crucial contribution to the work done by many to shed light on the problems arising from industrial meat production.

They aren’t kidding about data, facts, and issues.  The graphics alone are worth viewing.  Three examples.

Pesticide applications, global:

Diseases transmitted by animals to humans: A chronological list

Trends and investment in plant-based meat alternatives

And here’s what The Guardian highlights: meat and dairy firms emit more greenhouse gases than Germany, Britain, or France.

 

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Mar 28 2019

Environmental Working Group: Pesticides in Produce

I am often asked about pesticides on fruits and vegetables, how serious a problem they are, and how to avoid them.  I don’t know how harmful they are; the research is too hard to do definitively.  But I generally favor the Precautionary Principle: while the science is pending, avoid them as much as you can.  Here’s how.

The Environmental Working Group has released its annual lists of the most and least pesticide-laden fruits and vegetables.

EWG’S DIRTY DOZEN FOR 2019

  1. Strawberries
  2. Spinach
  3. Kale
  4. Nectarines
  5. Apples
  6. Grapes
  7. Peaches
  8. Cherries
  9. Pears
  10. Tomatoes
  11. Celery
  12. Potatoes

The report emphasizes:

  • More than 90 percent of samples of strawberries, apples, cherries, spinach, nectarines, and kale tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides.
  • Multiple samples of kale showed 18 different pesticides.
  • Kale and spinach samples had, on average, 1.1 to 1.8 times as much pesticide residue by weight than any other crop.

EWG’S CLEAN FIFTEEN FOR 2019

  1. Avocados
  2. Sweet corn
  3. Pineapples
  4. Frozen sweet peas
  5. Onions
  6. Papayas
  7. Eggplants
  8. Asparagus
  9. Kiwis
  10. Cabbages
  11. Cauliflower
  12. Cantaloupes
  13. Broccoli
  14. Mushrooms
  15. Honeydew melons

See the full list of fruits and vegetables.This results may sound cute, but this report comes with impressive supporting material:

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Feb 22 2018

USDA’s pesticide testing results for 2016

Worried about pesticide residues on fresh and processed fruit and vegetables?

The USDA tests for a bunch of them in more than 10,000 food samples (of which more than 90% are fruit and vegetables).

The results from 2016 are encouraging.

Residues exceeding the tolerance were detected in 0.46 percent (48 samples) of the total samples tested (10,365 samples).

Of these 48 samples, 26 were domestic (54.2 percent), 20 were imported (41.7 percent), and 2 were of unknown origin (4.1 percent).

Residues with no established tolerance were found in 2.6 percent (273 samples) of the total samples tested (10,365 samples).

Of these 273 samples, 179 were domestic (65.6 percent), 90 were imported (32.9 percent), and 4 were of unknown origin (1.5 percent).

These are low percentages.

They could be lower.

It’s good the USDA is keeping an eye on this.

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Mar 23 2017

Two U.N. Rapporteurs take on pesticides

The Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, and the Special Rapporteur on Toxics, Baskut Tuncak, have issued a report on pesticides as a human rights issue.

They

Told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that widely divergent standards of production, use and protection from hazardous pesticides in different countries are creating double standards, which are having a serious impact on human rights…The Special Rapporteurs pointed to research showing that pesticides were responsible for an estimated 200,000 acute poisoning deaths each year. The overwhelming number of fatalities, some 99%, occurred in developing countries where health, safety and environmental regulations were weaker.

The site says the full report is available here, but I could not access it from that site and requested it.  It is here).

In the meantime, The Lancet has an editorial about it: “Phasing out harmful use of pesticides.”

The UN rapporteurs are damning about the “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics” of the pesticides industry and the money spent on influencing policy makers and disputing scientific evidence. They call for a new global treaty to regulate and phase out the use of hazardous pesticides in farming. Such an international pact would be a welcome addition to efforts towards a more sustainable future but it will take time to form, especially considering the likelihood of industry opposition to it. More immediately, much more can be done nationally to strengthen existing weak regulations on the use and safety of these chemicals to protect the health of populations and the environments that they depend on.

Let’s hope these statements bring this issue to public attention—again.  We need another Rachel Carson!

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Jan 3 2014

Winter Friday: a good day for GMO announcements

Two today:

General Mills: GMO-free Cheerios

General Mills says it will make a GMO-free version of its Cheerios cereal.  This is surprising because it says Cheerios’ oats have never been GMO.   Now, it will take extra trouble—and, no doubt, charge more—to make sure the GMO and non-GMO sugars and corn don’t mix.

USDA deregulates 2,4-D herbicide for GMOs

The USDA released its draft Environmental Impact Statement:

as part of its review to determine whether to deregulate genetically engineered (GE) corn and soybean plants that are resistant to several herbicides, including one known as 2,4-D.  [USDA] APHIS is performing an assessment of these GE plants, while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is conducting a concurrent review of the related herbicides.

…Dow AgroSciences’ GE corn and soybean plants are the first developed to be resistant to 2,4-D and are intended to provide farmers with new plants to help address the problem of weeds that have developed resistance to other herbicides.

Dow, which filed the petition for this action, is pleased.

Is 2,4-D safe?  The USDA says yes.

The National Pesticide Information Center sort of says so too, except that it lists plenty of reasons for concern, “possibly carcinogenic” among them.

Earth Justice points out that this action will allow farmers to douse fields with 2,4-D:

The potent and toxic 2,4-D has been linked to many human health problems. It also is likely to harm non-genetically engineered crops in neighboring fields, threaten endangered species, and ultimately lead to the development of weeds that are resistant to it, leading to even more problems.

Even more reason to buy and promote organics!

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Mar 15 2013

Drug corporations 1, Bees 0

Everybody is, or should be, worried about the health of bees.  Without them, we don’t have pollinated agriculture.

Bees, the New York Times tells us in an astonishing statistic, “pollinate 71 of the 100 crops that provide 90 percent of the world’s food.”

Bees are not doing well, and nobody really knows why.  Could colonies be collapsing because of a virus?  Mites?  Stress?  Or, as in the case of a leading hypothesis, insecticides used on crops?

Europeans worried about a particular class of highly effective insecticides widely used in production agriculture—neonicotinoids—proposed to restrict their use in flowering crops for two years.

But the European Union voted today to allow use of neonicotinoids to continue, even though the European Food Safety Authority recommended against this.

Also as discussed in the New York Times,

Companies that produce neonicotinoid-based pesticides, including the German giant Bayer CropScience and Syngenta, the big Swiss biochemical company, have lobbied strenuously against the moratorium. Monsanto incorporates the chemical into some of the seeds it produces; in the United States, neonicotinoids are heavily used on the country’s huge corn crop.

Some nations in Europe already restrict use of these insecticides, but not all.

The Times quotes officials of companies that make neonicotinoid insecticides, Bayer and Syngenta.  The officials say:

  • The science is uncertain.
  • Banning them would jeopardize agricultural competitiveness.
  • Prices of food, feed, fiber and renewable raw materials would rise.
  • 50,000 jobs would be lost.

This comes right out of the standard industry playbook.  Anything that harms bees in the short term has long term consequences.  Shouldn’t officials be looking at long-term strategies for protecting bees.  Bees need help!  And so will we, if we don”t help them now.

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