Last night I made chicken shawarma with rice and a salad with cucumbers. The only thing that was organic was the lettuce, everything else was conventional.
Using the what's on my food website, I searched chicken thighs, rice, and cucumbers.
Poultry Thighs
According to the website, there are 8 known pesticides found in poultry. The two most prominent pesticides found in poultry thighs were piperonyl butoxide and DDE p, p. There is about a 3% chance that these pesticides are found in poultry thighs. Both are suspected to be carcinogenic and hormone disruptors. Piperonyl butoxide is found to be a bee toxin and DDE p, p is found to be a developmental/reproductive toxin.
Rice
There are 15 pesticides found in rice, 10 of which are suspected to be hormone disruptors. The two most prominent pesticides in rice are piperonyl butoxide and MGK-264. Piperonyl butoxide has a 16% chance of being found on rice whereas MGK-264 has an 8% chance. As noted above, piperonyl dioxide is suspected to be a carcinogen, hormone disruptor, and a bee toxin. MGK-264 is suspected to be a carcinogen.
Cucumbers
There are 86 pesticides found in cucumbers, most of them suspected to be hormone disruptors. The two most prominent pesticides in cucumbers are propamocarb hydrochloride and endosulfan sulfate. Propamocarb hydrochloride is detected 55% of the time and ndosulfan sulfate is found 38% of the time. At this time, there the toxicity of these two chemicals are not listed on the website.
Making the choice to completely shop organic has grown over the course of this class. There are a number of potential health benefits as well as environmental benefits to shopping organic. In terms of public health action against the use of pesticides, I believe there needs to be an increase in federal regulation and policy against the use of such poisons. In addition, incentives should be encouraged for those that choose to shop organic. Overall, more health education of the detrimental health effects of pesticides needs to be more readily available to the general public.
I am also surprised to learn there are 8 pesticides found in poultry and 86 in cucumbers. Those items are one of my favorite choices for a healthy meal. I prefer organic food, and we tried to eat organic at home. Organic food provides many benefits for our health and for the environment. I’m concerned about pesticides on fruits and vegetables. This week’s article states that peeling and washing fruits and vegetables only reduce surface residues and remove dirt and bacteria, but that can’t completely remove pesticides.
ReplyDeleteI was also very surprise about the amount of chemicals I found in the food I was eating. Just like you, I have grown to buy more organic products. One of the articles that we had to read had a table that showed you what organic products are recommended to buy; I found this very useful. This is the type of information that we need to provide individuals in order to prevent health outcomes from the intake of pesticides.
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