When my kids were young, I joined a support group of uber-moms.
All of us had earned at least one
college degree, so we began homeschooling our kids starting
at pre-pre-school. Every errand became an "educational field trip.” We kept up with the trends on
the internet concerning toxins, vaccines,
microwaves and other insidious child-killers. Daily we
monitored every mouthful of food that went into our precious children's mouths. Now, many years later,
despite my helicopter-hyper-vigilance, my children appear to be normal. At least from the outside.
Probably because we were smart and confident, we thought we
knew more than we really did. My mom-friends are no longer rabid about
every little threat, but remain convinced that they must always buy
organically grown products because they believe "growers don't use
pesticides on them, they are
more natural, therefore more authentic.” Research at our
favorite fount of knowledge, the internet, reveals a poll by the organic
certifying body in the UK discovered that 95%
of people who buy organic do so to avoid pesticides. So we are not alone in being wrong. Yes, it is embarrassing to
admit now, but mom doesn't always know best.
Our food supply faces numerous threats. Insects, mold and
critters threaten to devour whatever the weeds don't choke out. These hungry enemies make no distinction
between organically or conventionally grown crops. Organic farmers face this war armed with an arsenal
of techniques and tools, some of which are pesticides and fungicides approved for use by the USDA
organic standards. What sets apart the organic farm is not the use of pesticides, but the nature
of the pesticides they can use. They must come from natural sources. There is an official list of substances
that can and can’t be used for organic farming. Spinosad, for example, is made from naturally occurring soil
bacteria and is poisonous to insects and mollusks, like slugs and snails. Extracts from
chrysanthemums and the Asian neem tree are also approved for use as pesticides on organic crops.
So okay, moms can still retain some dignity here. Maybe they
do use pesticides on organic produce, but they're natural, so they can't hurt us, right? Sorry moms,
but we were wrong about that too. Rotenone is a case in point. It is derived from roots, stems and
leaves of subtropical plants and kills insects. But in mammals, inhaling Rotenone can cause increased respiration
followed by depression and convulsions. Humans are considered to be fairly susceptible. Although,
none of this will happen to people when it’s applied safely according to the label. Sometimes synthesized
agricultural chemicals are actually safer than naturally derived ones. Glyphosate, which is a common
synthesized ingredient in weed killer used worldwide, has far less toxicity to humans than
naturally derived Rotenone insecticide.
Still, any intelligent mom would conclude the sure way to
avoid pesticides is to always eat food that has not been treated. As my friend said, it’s more “authentic.”
It turns out most species of plants contain their own set of toxins to defend themselves against pest
attacks. One study
estimates that Americans eat about 1.5 grams of natural pesticides per person per
day, which is about 10,000 times more than they eat of synthetic pesticide residues. Who knew?
 |
| Manzanita is one plant that kills all other plants that try to grow under it. |
Farming is an art as well as a science and each farmer
follows his or her own methods. So, even if you are eating food from organic farms that use little to no
pesticides at all, that doesn't always mean the food is safe. (Safety really motivates uber-moms.) Organic
foods tend to have higher levels of potential pathogens according to a study(1) which found food from
10% of organic farms to have E. coli compared to only 2% of conventional ones. The same study found Salmonella in
food from organic farms and none in the conventional farms. Organic farmers often use manure
for fertilizer and many pathogens are spread through animal feces. Because
organic farmers don’t have the ability to use non-organic, anti-microbial
agents, their products might contain microscopic organisms that can make people
sick.
My advice to my friends now would be to go ahead and buy
organically grown food if you like it. If you can learn about the source and the farming methods used by
particular farmers it will help you to follow the values you have for eating food that is as naturally
grown as possible. I'm glad we live in a country where we can have that option, and I work for an
organization that supports both organic and
conventional agriculture. But did I fail as a mom because I
didn’t check the facts thoroughly? My kids survived and they remember being happy children. But had I
known then, what I know now, I probably would have been a lot more relaxed! Okay, maybe just a
little more relaxed. I still would have been anxious about random kidnappings at the mall.
For an interesting look at other myths about organically grown
food see
1. 1. Mukherjee
A, Speh D, Dyck E, & Diez-Gonzalez F (2004). Preharvest evaluation of coliforms,
Escherichia coli,
Salmonella, and Escherichia coli O157:H7 in organic and conventional produce
grown by Minnesota
farmers. Journal of food protection, 67 (5), 894-900 PMID: 1515122
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