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WAndreina Febres, a mother of two living in Oakland, Calif., Enrolled in a study to determine if a diet could make a difference in the amount of pesticides in her body. She did not know what the researchers would find. But his family and the other three people across the country who participated in the survey would discover that they were all detecting detectable levels of pesticide followed. They would also discover that after only six days of organic dieting, each person would see significant decreases in these pesticides, many of which are related to an increased risk of autism, cancer, Parkinson's, infertility and other significant effects on the body. health.
"It's good to see that after a week, the decline has been dramatic," said Febres after seeing the results. "I would love to eliminate these pesticides from my body and the bodies of my family."
This recently published and peer reviewed study helps answer a question that many of us ask when deciding whether to choose the conventional or organic option at the store: the bio does there really a difference? The results say yes, a big difference. Choosing organic products can protect you from exposure to toxic pesticides.
This study, led by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and Friends of the Earth and co-authored by one of us, tracked pesticide levels in four families across the country for two weeks. The first week, families ate their typical diet of non-organic foods; the next week, they ate completely organic. The urine samples taken during the study were tested for pesticides and chemicals broken down into pesticides, called metabolites.
The results? Of the 14 chemicals tested, each member of each family had detectable levels. After switching to an organic diet, these levels dropped dramatically. Levels of all pesticides have dropped by more than half on average. The detectable levels for malathion, a pesticide probably carcinogenic to humans according to the World Health Organization, have decreased dramatically by 95%.
Malathion was just one of the pesticides found in this study and part of a group called organophosphates, which have long been of concern to public health experts because of their impact on children's brain development. Created as neurotoxic agents during the Second World War, organophosphates have been badociated with increased rates of autism, learning disorders and reduced IQ in children. The chlorpyrifos organophosphate, present in all members of the family, is so worrisome to public health that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has planned to ban it in 2017, a proposal abandoned by the US government. Trump administration. As a result of the inaction of the administration, Hawaii pbaded the first state-level chlorpyrifos ban in 2018; and the representative Nydia Velázquez presented a federal bill to ban it.
This brings us back to the cause of bio. When choosing products from organic farming, you are guaranteed that they have not been grown with chlorpyrifos or the approximately 900 synthetic pesticides authorized in non-organic agriculture . It is now thought that many of these pesticides are carcinogenic, act on the body's hormonal system, disrupt fertility, cause developmental retardation in children or Parkinson's disease, depression or Alzheimer's disease as they age. This study shows that the consumption of organic products can significantly reduce the pesticides to which you are exposed.
But we know that it's not enough to provide people with information about the benefits of choosing organic foods. Many of us have no choice. Today, billions of dollars of our taxes finance a pesticide-intensive agriculture, while programs and research on organic agriculture are terribly underfunded. This misuse of public funds is one of the reasons why many people across the country still do not have access to organic food, or can not afford it.
The representative of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued that in a modern society, moral and rich, no one should be too poor to live. We think it follows that in such a society, none of us should be too poor to afford food produced without toxic chemicals and that we should all be able to support a food chain that protects the health of farmers, farm workers and communities on the front lines of pesticide exposure.
As explained by another mother participating in the study: "Health should not be limited to your income, your education, your race, your gender or your geographical location. I think everyone has the right to eat organic and clean food.
Organic for all, is it too radical?
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Kendra Klein is a senior scientist at Friends of the Earth-US, a national organization working to create a more just and healthy world. Anna Lappé is a bestselling author and national co-director of Real Food Media. Together, they collaborated on Organic for All
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