Pesticides and herbicides are serious chemicals that can damage our bodies and destroy our health. They are difficult to wash off our fruits and vegetables, and are unavoidable in our other foods like eggs, milk, or grains. We end up ingesting all of these chemicals. And though it's only in trace amounts each time, the total amount can build up over time and start to cause some serious chronic health issues.
Just think about it for a second. This is bad for everyone and anyone. It's bad for our seniors who may already have health problems. It's going to get worse for adults if they've been eating it their whole adult lives and then age into the senior population. And of course, children have it the worst. Their brains and immune systems are still developing. They haven't built up any internal defenses or tolerance against such powerful toxins. Plus, they can be ingesting and accumulating these toxins in their bodies their whole life!
These health problems caused by pesticides are real. They disrupt our hormones and alter the natural balance in our bodies. These chemicals are known to kill birds and insects, even in small doses. They have been linked to damaging the brain/central nervous system as well as causing breast, colon, lung, ovarian cancers, just to name a few. There are also studies that have linked pesticides and daily exposure to lower a child's IQ score compared to those of their peers who do not suffer daily pesticide exposure.
This stuff gets into everything and everywhere, and it's bad. It gets on our food surfaces, in the ground, and in the atmosphere. Trees soak it up and animals get it from what they eat. It's just as bad as the micro-plastics you might have read about! In fact, there was one study showing that seals and Eskimos, who were far from any area of pesticide use, still show pesticide levels in their fat tissues because of the atmosphere and the foods they ate (migrating fish, etc). There's even evidence showing that human milk may be the most contaminated milk of all mammals!
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more information to share. The pesticides and herbicides being used today are way more potent than the ones we started with post-WWII. There's a whole lot more of them now too. Even RoundUp, which we can buy in almost any home gardening store, has been linked to causing cancer.
We're not trying to incite a riot or claim the sky is falling, but we are trying to help people make more informed decisions. We can't stop the manufacturing or use of pesticides today nor can we clean all the pesticides from our air. However, we can start to make a change today. I'm sure you all know but each time we buy food at the grocery, online, or at our farmer's market, we are voting. We can choose what types of veggies and fruits we want, what snacks and meats they should offer. We can also choose if we prefer organic or conventional (non-organic). Organic is usually a little pricier today but the more we choose organic today, the lower the costs will be in the future. Besides, we might only get one shot at this thing called life. Let's not mess it up.
More Good Reads:
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/what-you-need-to-know-about-a-popular-weed-killers-alleged-link-to-cancer
- https://time.com/5782994/pesticides-kids-epa/
- https://time.com/2914155/organic-food-children-health/
- http://people.oregonstate.edu/~muirp/pesthist.htm
- https://www.fishersci.com/us/en/scientific-products/publications/lab-reporter/2016/issue-4/the-evolution-chemical-pesticides.html
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK236265/