Amy Rosenthal, of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), talks about the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides. How it was created, the general break-down of how it can be used, what it covers and what it doesn’t and why, and we reflect about making food decisions to minimize exposure to harmful pesticide residues.
The list can be found at foodnews.org.
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2 responses to “Episode #55: The Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides with Amy Rosenthal”
You brought up a great point in the interview, every country and even region in those countries have different pest pressures, growing environments and regulations/standards. California for example has the toughest standards when it comes to applying pesticides and pesticide residues. The tough thing for me to swallow with the E.W.G list is that it does not differentiate between the region that the product was grown or give the amount of pesticide found on the test and match that up against what a harmful level is.
Working with the same data E.W.G. uses, researches have shown that a person would have to ingest over 10,000 peaches or 15,000 strawberries in one sitting to produce a measurable mark, and thats just to get on the scale, you would have to eat even more for it is begin to be harmful. You would probably overdose on vitamin C before anything. We are working on a website to show this research right now – I will update that URL once complete 🙂
I think the conversation needs to go beyond Organic VS Conventional and more to what region has the best growing practices, best labor policies, best product standards and just who is producing the product you are buying. Retail stores are starting to put up more information about who they buy their produce from and obviously the farmers markets are the BEST way because the grower is right there.
For the case of California peaches, plums and nectarines we are working on a series called PPNTV, where we go out to the orchards and let growers talk about their practices to help solve consumer misconceptions that are out there in regards to agriculture. It’s really just a place for people to get to know their California stone fruit grower.
See the YouTube page here: http://www.youtube.com/ppntv
We are constantly in contact with the over 1,100 California peach, plum and nectarine growers and welcome feedback from viewers. If anyone has questions they want to ask a grower just send me a message at [email protected]. We’re going to be back out in the orchards soon!
I would be interested to know about the health risks of systemic pesticides, either via direct consumption or indirect in the meat of conventional or “naturally raised” livestock.