Food Choices for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet

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“Honey laundering”

In Food to Avoid, Toxins and Pesticides,
  • Posted on September 8, 2011
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Is there anything that can’t be contaminated? Apparently not. The latest news is about honey. Last month a story in Grist summarized an article by Food Safety News which revealed that much of our honey supply is smuggled in from China – smuggled because of possible contamination with heavy metals (heavy metals are elements like arsenic, lead, and mercury) or illegal antibiotics.

The FDA is apparently not doing enough to inspect imports or to stop shipments from countries that are known to sell contaminated honey. Their counterparts in the European Union, however, have done more, banning questionable imports from India, which may serve as a middleman between China (with tainted honey) and U.S. markets.

An expert interviewed for the Food Safety News article says, “There are still millions of pounds of transshipped Chinese honey coming in the U.S. and it’s all coming now from India and Vietnam and everybody in the industry knows that,” said Elise Gagnon, president of Odem International, a distributor of bulk raw honey.

So it’s honey laundering.

Actually, this may be a good time to start using another sweetener altogether. I hate to think of bees being killed so we can have the fruits of their hard work, and I also know that bees are needed to pollinate many species of plants here and abroad. So check out things like brown rice syrup, agave nectar, molasses, and other plant sources.

Photo by Muhammad Karim on Flickr


Meat, health, and planet

In Animal Cruelty, Food to Avoid, Toxins and Pesticides, Uncategorized,
  • Posted on July 21, 2011
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The Environmental Working Group has released a new report. Working with CleanMetrics, they assessed the rates of greenhouse gases emitted by 20 types of proteins (meat, fish, dairy, and vegetable sources). Here’s the take-home message  : “Lamb, beef, pork and cheese generate the most greenhouse gases. They also tend to be high in fat and have the worst environmental impacts.”

I love it when experts not only give you the worrisome news, they show you practical steps you can take to respond. From EWG’s exhortation to “Eat ‘greener’ meat when you do eat it,” I’ve condensed some key recommendations:

For your health:
Avoid highly processed meats like lunchmeats, hot dogs, and smoked meats.
Choose leaner cuts, which may have fewer toxins than fatty ones

For the animals:
Choose certified humanely raised. You don’t want to participate in the torture perpetrated by factory farms! Niman Ranch, which began forty years ago north of San Francisco, has grown to partner with over 650 independent ranchers and states that all its animals are raised humanely.

For the environment:
Avoid farmed and airfreighted fish. Well, we in the Bay Area have access to local fish, so the air freight has less relevance here. But what about endangered species? What about. Monterey Bay Aquarium has a list here.

And of course, the most powerful recommendation of all is, “Eat less meat and dairy.”

This report and its website version are goldmines of information. For instance, you can find out which part of the life cycle of a given product made the heaviest environmental impact. Weird fact: “Roughly 20 percent of all meat sold in the U.S. winds up in the trash. That makes the pesticides, fertilizer, fuel and water used to produce and process it, as well as the resulting greenhouse gases and environmental damage, unnecessary and preventable.”

For the full report, go here.


Strawberries — would you like pesticide-grown, or organic?

In Food, Food to Avoid, Good News, Toxins and Pesticides, Useful tools,
  • Posted on August 4, 2010
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commons.wikimedia.org

We’ve long known that strawberries are among the most heavily sprayed crops, and now we have another reason to worry. Yet another chemical is being considered to add to the war on bugs. Remember this name: methyl iodide. You’re going to be hearing a lot about it.

This week, though, the state of Washington ruled against allowing the pesticide maker to sell it in their state, giving hope to those who don’t want it permitted in California. The Pesticide Action Network, based in San Francisco, applauds the decision, as does a spokesperson for the Physicians for Social Responsibility. Earlier this year, a report from Californians for a Healthy and Green Economy asserted that the state could save $700 million a year in health care costs if we reduced our exposure to toxic chemicals. One expert said, “California’s budget crisis has led to drastic cuts in health services, and the cost of healthcare is soaring across the nation. If we can prevent illness, save money, and save families, then we need to do it,” says Martha Arguello, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles. “Physicians advise patients on how to lead a healthy lifestyle, but no amount of physician consultation can prevent exposure to some of these toxic chemicals — the government has an obligation to step in and make create public health protective policies.” http://yubanet.com/california/CA-could-save-700-million-in-health-care-costs-by-reducing-chemical-exposure.php

While you’re waiting for the government to protect us, do you want to see a colorful, scary readout of the pesticides you just might be putting into your body? Pesticide Action Network has created an amazing website (aptly named What’s On My Food)  where you can click on the name of a food and get a slew of information about what chemicals are used to grow it in conventional agriculture. Just the names of the types of chemicals give me the willies: carcinogens, hormone disruptors, neurotoxins, and developmental or reproductive toxicants.

Chemical war against bugs seemed like a good idea a few generations ago, but now the dangerous side effects are well known. If you can’t afford an all-organic diet, please think about making strawberries the first organic on your grocery list.

Also found on the Examiner.com


EPA Must Fulfill its Duties (says a Federal Judge)

In In the News, Toxins and Pesticides,
  • Posted on June 16, 2010
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In May, a federal court ordered the EPA to study 75 pesticides and their effects on endangered species within the next 5 years, and to limit their use in wildlife areas until the evaluation is completed. Did you know that 10 million pounds of pesticides are used in the San Francisco Bay Area every year? And that’s only the amount that gets reported. The Center for Biological Diversity, which filed the lawsuit that forced this decision, said, “These pesticide-use restrictions will protect some of the Bay Area’s most vulnerable wildlife from inappropriate use of toxic pesticides.”

-Source: Center for Biological Diversity Newsletter


What? Poison’s Not Good for Kids?

In In the News, Toxins and Pesticides,
  • Posted on June 8, 2010
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In case you were wondering why there’s such a surge in attention deficit problems among kids, you might want to consider another possible cause: pesticides. A recent Harvard study found that even small, legal amounts of organophosphates (some of the commonest pesticides in the US) can show up in children’s bodies. 94% of children had residues of organophosphates in their urine and of those, kids with the highest levels were almost twice as likely to have ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Susan Kegley of the Pesticide Action Network (panna.org) says, “When it comes to pesticides, children are among the most vulnerable – pound for pound, they drink 2.5 times more water, eat 3-4 times more food, and breathe twice as much air as adults. They also face exposure in the womb and via breast milk. Add to this the fact that children are unable to detoxify some chemicals and you begin to understand just how vulnerable early childhood development is.”


The Dangers of Toxins for even the Unborn

In In the News, Toxins and Pesticides,
  • Posted on June 7, 2010
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CNN recently did a special with Sanjay Gupta, M.D. on “Toxic America.” (Click here for the main articles). In the article Toxic chemicals finding their way into the womb, Guta informs us that , “A growing number of studies are finding hundreds of toxic chemicals in mothers’ and, subsequently, their babies’ bodies when they are born.” The studies are alarming, “The Environmental Work Group study found an average of 232 chemicals in the cord blood of 10 babies born late last year.”

“For 80 percent of the common chemicals in everyday use in this country we know almost nothing about whether or not they can damage the brains of children, the immune system, the reproductive system, and the other developing organs,” said Dr. Phil Landrigan, a pediatrician and director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Although it is more comforting to not be informed of our everyday goods effect on our lives, it will matter when we find out the reasons we have certain health problems. We would have wished we had known better. Some small steps you can take now are to keep your house dust free since “many toxic chemicals are conveyed in dust,” purchase more organic food (especially the fruits and veggies I listed last week), and only buy green cleaning products (beware of greenwashing goods though!). Sanjay Gupta also did a special on the 5 Toxins that are everywhere that you need to steer away from when buying your everyday household goods.


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