Friday, May 09, 2008

Pesticide Management at Home

Everyone knows that pesticide poses problem to the society at large; but yet, some of us just don't plain  care. All of us should know that proper cleaning of produces should be done wholeheartedly to prevent excess residues of pesticides to accumulate in our body. detoxification therapy is centred around this idea, where accumulated toxins get detoxified. According to Doctor Leon Chaitow, detoxification therapy is likened to a little nudge to our body, where normally it will perform neutralisation of toxins naturally and automatically.

For everyone's convenience sake, I have listed a few food that are rich in contaminants. Bear in mind that this data is procured from the United States and this might not be representative of all data in the whole wide world. I am not even sure will this data be applicable to food imported from the states.
Here is the list:

Test Results: Complete Data Set
Rank (worst to best)
Commodity
Combined Score
Percentage of Samples Tested with Detectable Pesticides
Percentage of Samples With Two or More Pesticides
Average Number of Pesticides Found on a Sample
Average Amount (in ppm*) of All Pesticides Found
Maximum Number of Pesticides Found on a Single Sample
Number of Pesticides Found on the Commodity in Total
1 Peaches 100 96.6% 86.6% 3.1 1.134 9 42
2 Apples 96 93.6% 82.3% 2.8 0.894 9 50
3 Sweet Bell Peppers 86 81.5% 62.2% 2.4 0.138 11 64
4 Celery 85 94.1% 79.8% 3.0 0.413 9 30
5 Nectarines 84 97.3% 85.3% 3.0 0.576 7 26
6 Strawberries 83 92.3% 69.2% 2.3 0.799 8 38
7 Cherries 75 91.4% 75.8% 2.8 0.290 7 25
8 Lettuce 69 68.2% 44.2% 1.7 0.142 9 57
9 Grapes - Imported 68 84.2% 53.2% 1.8 0.284 8 37
10 Pears 65 86.2% 45.7% 1.6 0.586 6 33
11 Spinach 60 70.0% 31.2% 1.1 1.240 6 24
12 Potatoes 58 81.0% 18.0% 1.0 1.655 4 18
13 Carrots 57 81.7% 48.3% 1.6 0.046 6 31
14 Green Beans 55 67.6% 42.0% 1.4 0.199 6 35
15 Hot Peppers 53 55.0% 27.5% 1.0 0.290 6 51
16 Cucumbers 52 72.5% 31.7% 1.2 0.057 6 40
17 Raspberries 47 47.9% 23.3% 0.9 0.906 6 21
18 Plums 46 74.0% 27.1% 1.1 0.666 4 15
19 Oranges 46 85.1% 34.6% 1.3 0.100 4 18
20 Grapes - Domestic 46 60.5% 23.4% 0.9 0.104 7 31
21 Cauliflower 39 84.6% 14.6% 1.0 0.004 5 15
22 Tangerines 38 66.7% 33.3% 1.2 0.375 3 4
23 Mushrooms 37 60.2% 22.3% 0.9 0.158 5 16
24 Cantaloupe 34 53.3% 19.4% 0.8 0.026 4 25
25 Lemon 31 55.6% 10.0% 0.7 0.188 5 10
26 Honeydew Melon 31 59.2% 14.2% 0.8 0.012 4 16
27 Grapefruit 31 62.9% 15.2% 0.8 0.056 4 9
28 Winter Squash 31 41.3% 11.6% 0.6 0.017 5 26
29 Tomatoes 30 46.9% 13.5% 0.6 0.029 5 16
30 Sweet Potatoes 30 58.4% 10.0% 0.7 0.198 3 17
31 Watermelons 25 38.5% 13.2% 0.6 0.021 4 13
32 Blueberries 24 27.5% 10.0% 0.4 0.327 4 11
33 Papaya 21 23.5% 5.0% 0.3 0.053 4 19
34 Eggplant 19 23.4% 6.9% 0.3 0.013 4 15
35 Broccoli 18 28.1% 3.2% 0.3 0.004 3 19
36 Cabbage 17 17.9% 4.8% 0.2 0.121 3 18
37 Bananas 16 41.7% 2.0% 0.4 0.029 2 7
38 Kiwi 14 15.3% 3.4% 0.2 0.160 3 8
39 Asparagus 11 6.7% 0.6% 0.1 0.026 2 19
40 Sweet Peas - Frozen 11 22.9% 2.3% 0.3 0.010 2 5
41 Mango 9 7.1% 0.5% 0.1 0.057 2 13
42 Pineapples 7 7.7% 0.6% 0.1 0.002 2 7
43 Sweet Corn - Frozen 2 3.8% 0.0% 0.0 0.005 1 3
44 Avocado 1 1.4% 0.0% 0.0 0.001 1 2
45 Onions 1 0.2% 0.0% 0.0 0.000 1 2
Note: We ranked a total of 44 different fruits and vegetables but grapes are listed twice because we looked at both domestic and imported samples.

* ppm means parts per million
*This is procured from http://www.foodnews.org/fulldataset.php and Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce by Environmental Working Group is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

The Bad News
Time to list out the top Twelve of the Most sinister Produces.
12 MOST Contaminated Fruits and Vegetables
  • Apples
  • Bell Peppers
  • Celery
  • Cherries
  • Imported Grapes
  • Nectarines
  • Peaches
  • Pears
  • Potatoes
  • Red Raspberries
  • Spinach
  • Strawberries
Those produces used in the test were prepared in a standard manner i.e. washed, peeled, cored etc. as they are prepared before we ate them. Latest FDA standard dictates that a large amount of the produces be used for sampling so the data procured here is not just estimation, this is real hard cold data (for the States).
The problem we have here is this; the twelve most contaminated food are eerily common and consumed800px-DDT_chemical_structure_highres almost routinely. What options do we have here then? Surely all of you have heard of detoxification therapy (this is the best bet) but is this a long run to exhaust our body (i.e, consuming toxic to burden our liver, kidney etc.)? How about organic food? That is another best bet but sometimes, how organic is ORGANIC food? Some of them don't even pass tests and their certificates are counterfeited. This has appeared a number of times in the news and has cause quite an uproar in the community.
So, buy organics that you have confirmed its authenticity. Do not buy food arbitrarily without any verification on the organic certification. Check with your local authority to ensure this.

The next best thing to do is to clean them thoroughly. What I feel as a best tool is to wash them thoroughly with a teaspoon of sea salt (richer in ionic content) and a tablespoon of vinegar (half of a lemon might be more appropriate) added to a Basin of water. This will remove most of those chemical residues in the produce. Peel apples, melons, and cucumbers even tough the skin is supposedly to be good for all of us. The amount of pesticides just does not worth it. If you want to eat those peels, try buying organic produces that you have verified.

Good News
Then those produces least contaminated (consistently clean) are:
12 LEAST Contaminated Fruits and Vegetables
  • Asparagus
  • Avocados
  • Bananas
  • Broccoli
  • Cauliflower
  • Corn (sweet)
  • Kiwi
  • Mangos
  • Onions
  • Papaya
  • Pineapples
  • Peas (sweet)
So maybe it is better for us to eat food from the LEAST contaminated group than the MOST contaminated group. This is, no doubt, common sense but some of us just prefer the food in the MOST list (just because of habit?). It is time to rethink our food intake...

The Apothecarist's Solution

However, if you are still unconvinced and wanted something that will work well to rid yourself of pesticides, herbicides, fertilisers, and slow suicides, our apothecarist has sourced in a reliable but yet economical solution. It is our apothecarist's very own brand: Mayura Apothecary VegeFruit Wash. This enzyme-based fruit wash will help you to remove unwanted additives while remaining gentle to your hands and vegetables as well as fruits.

Take a look at the product by clicking on this link: http://www.mayuranatural.com/webshaper/store/viewProd.asp?pkProductItem=12


A short and comprehensive guide can be downloaded, http://www.foodnews.org/pdf/EWG_pesticide.pdf.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your chart breakdown on all of this is phenomenal....thank you. This gives greater clarity to the public and readers in genral as the what types of insecticides sprayed on food. Your providing the actual graphs is wonderful!
Please continue providing this type of information. It's greatly appreciated in this day & agge where the producers are not entitled to provide the consumer with what's being put on their food!