Do pesticides from foods cause harm to humans? - Page 2

actually it is a basic rule of alchemy (paracelsus), and yes the basic elements have mostly found a place in the body. where do gold ions in our water go in our body when we drink? to our sperm - therefor it's goldenboy ..

those molecules you refer to are not produced by our body, that's why they are called vitamins (a-c-e). and these have not only a limit in numbers, but they are mostly limited to very basic molecules. and guess fucking what, insects and bacteria can adapt much faster to these pesticides than humans, their genom and reproduction cycle is much smaller than those of a human under genetic stress.

so if we speak about toxic stuff that is made to destroy or just imprison the neural system of insects, you better don't think it will not harm you or your small children. if we were still using ddt like in the middle of the last century, you can be very sure the g8 nations were already unable to reproduce ..

There are about a thousand reasons to avoid traditional agricultural products and try to eat organic:

- Worker safety: In addition to being victims of exploitative labor practices, fieldworkers are indeed exposed to high doses of dangerous chemicals. Agricultultural communities are always cancer hotspots (the state and federal gov track this).

- Your safety - Pesticides cause cancer. Period. Saying, "People dont just fall over and die from eating pesticides" is not the right way to look at the problem. Pesticides in the food supply cause increased incidence of cancer, measured as additional cases per 10,000 people. What's the real number? Nobody knows for sure but its not zero.

Environmental damage: Cultivation of non-organic agricultural products causes major environmental damage. The food sector is the third largest emitter of green house gases, behind transportation and electricity generation, associated with petrol based inputs (fertilizers, etc), agricultural equipment, decay of biological materials, etc. Additionally, traditional agricultural causes soil erosion and contaminates water supplies with dangerous chemicals.

Small-scale organic farmers actually sequester carbon, enrich their soil, and cause zero point source pollution.

- Decreased nutritional content: Organic produce will have between 20 and 50% more nutritents/phytochemicals than traditional produce. This is because organic produce is grown in micronutrient rich and biologically active soil, whereas traditional agriculture is grown in basically sterile fertilized earth.

- Biodiversity: Monocropping contributes to a loss of biodiversity - less plants, less polinators, less soil fluora, less life. North America used to be home to hundreds of varieties of corn. Now we have less than ten. Soon we might have 2 or 3. What happens if a pest attacks our crops - and we can't turn to other lineages to find resistant varieties? Biodiversity is an important biological resource is being lost and can never be recovered. Buying organic and artisanal produce helps support people who our cultivating rare varieties.

God, I could go on and on. I studied Environmental Economics at university and did a lot of work on the hidden costs of food products.

If you like this type of discussion, start with Michael Pollen, the Omnivores Dilemma. He introduces many of these concepts.

as I said, there are good reasons for avoiding pesticide use, but I would be very interested in any citations you might have that demonstrate danger to consumers, which is what the OP was asking about. Beyond that, the idea that there are no chemical inputs in organic farming is flat-out false. The issue of nutritional content has been looked at repeatedly and though some studies have shown minor differences (nothing like 50%) in favor of organics, others have shown the opposite. I think you'll find that most literature reviews call this one a wash (as if we were so undernourished htat we needed to worry about minor amounts of phytochemicals to begin with). Biodiversity is a non-issue, since it is not determined by either conventional or organic farming. I think if you'll read Pollan's more recent work, you'll find a more realistic and even-handed description than in Omnivore.