emma_in_dream (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
emma_in_dream) wrote2011-10-13 06:46 pm
emma_in_dream) wrote2011-10-13 06:46 pm
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My great big post about strawberries. And kids. And pesticides.
It’s Spring and I am feeling inspired about strawberries. I love the sweetness, the plump redness. It really is the taste of the fresh, summer season. I love the sight of Ruby clutching them in her chubby fists and stuffing them into her mouth with such joy.
But that’s not what’s inspiring me.
Sadly, what is moving me is a great book by Sandra Steingraber about parenting in our age of environmental toxins.(1) She talks about the need to take action to save our kids from environmental toxins, and she writes compellingly about how small issues link up to the bigger environmental issues.
One of the examples she uses is strawberries which, in the US are grown with the use of a fumigant called methyl bromide. Methyl bromide is a known ozone depleter. These berries may have the taste of summer but their growing contributes to global warning. The fumigant is a neurotoxicant and as a bonus it causes climate change, so your concern about your child ingesting pesticides segues into your desire for your child to inherit a safe world.
Steingraber speaks movingly of the need to take action, the need to say to our kids - ‘It’s OK, I’m working on fixing these problems’.
So, OK, I am moved. I will start here.
Why will I begin with strawberries?
The issue of toxic residues on food compels my attention because a fair amount of my time is spent getting food into two children. Pesticides are essentially neurotoxins; their brains are growing. The evaluation of the full effects of neurotoxins on humans is not complete, and may never be complete, but there is strong evidence that pesticides accumulate in the bodies of those who eat conventionally grown food and some evidence that once there they do what they are designed to do, which is to interfere with the brains and central nervous system (and thus cognition).
Strawberries rank high in the dirty dozen of the most frequently and extensively contaminated fruits and vegetables.(2) A 2008 Australian Choice survey of strawberries from Coles, Woolworths, an organic fruit shop and a grocer found(3):
* one sample contained a pesticide residue at a level that exceeded the maximum residue limit.
* another contained a pesticide that the regulations don’t allow Australian growers to use on strawberries.
* one sample of strawberries grown in Victoria contained a pesticide that, according to the pesticide manufacturer’s label, is permitted for use on strawberries only in Queensland and Western Australia. However, Victorian farmers are in fact allowed to spray crops “off-label” with any pesticide that’s not a Schedule 7 poison — provided that when the food’s sold the pesticide level is below the maximum residue limit (as it was in the sample tested).
* another two were under the Australian limit for captan, but contained more of this fungicide than is permitted under more stringent EU regulations.
* seventeen of the conventionally grown strawberries had residues of more than one pesticide.
* four of these came with a cocktail of no less than four different chemicals, though all below the maximum residue limit.
* one of the four organic samples contained the fungicide pyrimethanil. However, the level was less than 1% of the maximum residue limit, so it may have been from residual environmental contamination, or sprays blown across from an adjoining property.
Strawberries are thin skinned so they easily absorb pesticides. They are the delicate Victorian maidens of the nursery garden, afflicted with blights, cankers and rots and, in conventional gardens, helped out with pesticides.
What have I found out?
I began by looking into the situation in Australia, and there is, I think, some good news.
Methyl bromide is not the go-to fungicide that it is in the US. Under the Montreal Protocol, the use of methyl bromide has been phased out for general use. There are exceptions, and one of them is the propagation of strawberry runners (the stock from which the plants come) but once in the nurseries methyl bromide is not used routinely.(4)
The most common fungicides are:
* chloropicrin alone;
* 1, 3-dichloropropene and chloropicrin ; and
* methyl iodide and chloropicrin.(5)
Chloropicrin - When I opened the Pesticide Action Network database and saw the skull and cross bones sign, I felt like crying. A simple, visual sign is so chilling.(6)
Chloropicrin was originally developed as a chemical weapon but is now used as a fungicide. It is a possible carcinogen and known to be toxic in acute amounts.
1, 3-dichloropropene and chloropicrin - Evidence for the carcinogenicity of 1,3-dichloropropene in humans is inadequate, but results from several cancer bioassays provide adequate evidence of carcinogenicity in animals. The American Environmental Protection Agency has classified 1,3-dichloropropene as a probable human carcinogen.
Methyl iodide Methyl iodide is a known carcinogen. It can be (and is) used in labs to give cancer to lab rats. Its use in the US was protested by 49 scientists, including 5 Nobel Laureates. It destroys thyroids.
There’s a trial of its use going on in Victoria.
This data is, in a way, useless to me. I have no background in science. I can’t evaluate it in any meaningful way. I can’t suggest lobbying Strawberry Australia (the peak body) to veto X when, for all I know, Y is just as bad.(7)
I chose strawberries as an issue to explore because strawberries are yummy, and because I thought it would be a no-brainer to lobby for the removal of methyl bromide. I mean, we all want an ozone layer, right? Well, kudos to the strawberry growers for getting there before me. But what now?
All this knowledge does is lead me to the conclusion that my kids are better off avoiding commercially grown berries altogether. We can currently afford organic fruit and I am experimenting with freezing strawberries.(8)
But, of course, this doesn’t solve the basic problem. Green advice is often to buy organic, at least for the dirty dozen. This puts the onus on the consumer, and it ignores what happens to those who lack the knowledge and the money to buy the much more expensive organic options. Also, it ignores the fruit growers and pickers who deal every day with a substance so strong that Work Safe have drawn up regulations to deal with its use.
What I shall do, I think, is write to Strawberry Australia to tell them that I, as a consumer, am choosing organic fruit and thanking them for their existing efforts such as the the use of rain shelters to reduce the use of fungicides.
Still, this is not much of an action, is it? What do I say to my kids? I’m stimulating the demand for organic fruit, dear Pearl and Ruby, so don’t you worry about that. The environment is totally saved!
What else can I do?
Well, firstly, I can distribute this information. (Hello, Internet!)
Green guides would suggest growing your own. I’ve had zero success in growing anything in my shady, shady garden. Like geraniums die, lemon trees die. I seriously doubt strawberries would grow and I refuse to waste money trying.
Green guides would also suggest a community supported agriculture group (CSA). These seem to be common in the USA but I’ve had trouble finding one in Western Australia.
And I am open to other suggestions, people, especially from those of you who actually understand science.
(1) Sandra Steingraber, Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis (2011). You can find out about her at: http://steingraber.com/
(2) http://green.yahoo.com/blog/daily_green_news/332/the-new-dirty-dozen-12-foods-to-eat-organic-and-avoid-pesticide-residue.html
(3) http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/food-and-health/food-and-drink/safety/strawberries/page/about%20our%20test.aspx
(4)http://www.horticulture.com.au/admin/assets/library/annual_reports/pdfs/PDF_File_103.pdf
(5)http://www.environment.gov.au/atmosphere/ozone/publications/pubs/critical-uses-update-2010.pdf
(6) http://panna.org/
(7) http://www.strawberriesaustralia.com.au/
(8) Not only is organic fruit way more expensive but the books on eating sustainably bang on and on about deep freezing and storing food. In order to do that you have to have enough space for a deep freeze (also money) so this advice irritates me greatly. My experiment is with one punnet. If it works, one day when I live in a space with more space I’ll freeze on a larger scale.
But that’s not what’s inspiring me.
Sadly, what is moving me is a great book by Sandra Steingraber about parenting in our age of environmental toxins.(1) She talks about the need to take action to save our kids from environmental toxins, and she writes compellingly about how small issues link up to the bigger environmental issues.
One of the examples she uses is strawberries which, in the US are grown with the use of a fumigant called methyl bromide. Methyl bromide is a known ozone depleter. These berries may have the taste of summer but their growing contributes to global warning. The fumigant is a neurotoxicant and as a bonus it causes climate change, so your concern about your child ingesting pesticides segues into your desire for your child to inherit a safe world.
Steingraber speaks movingly of the need to take action, the need to say to our kids - ‘It’s OK, I’m working on fixing these problems’.
So, OK, I am moved. I will start here.
Why will I begin with strawberries?
The issue of toxic residues on food compels my attention because a fair amount of my time is spent getting food into two children. Pesticides are essentially neurotoxins; their brains are growing. The evaluation of the full effects of neurotoxins on humans is not complete, and may never be complete, but there is strong evidence that pesticides accumulate in the bodies of those who eat conventionally grown food and some evidence that once there they do what they are designed to do, which is to interfere with the brains and central nervous system (and thus cognition).
Strawberries rank high in the dirty dozen of the most frequently and extensively contaminated fruits and vegetables.(2) A 2008 Australian Choice survey of strawberries from Coles, Woolworths, an organic fruit shop and a grocer found(3):
* one sample contained a pesticide residue at a level that exceeded the maximum residue limit.
* another contained a pesticide that the regulations don’t allow Australian growers to use on strawberries.
* one sample of strawberries grown in Victoria contained a pesticide that, according to the pesticide manufacturer’s label, is permitted for use on strawberries only in Queensland and Western Australia. However, Victorian farmers are in fact allowed to spray crops “off-label” with any pesticide that’s not a Schedule 7 poison — provided that when the food’s sold the pesticide level is below the maximum residue limit (as it was in the sample tested).
* another two were under the Australian limit for captan, but contained more of this fungicide than is permitted under more stringent EU regulations.
* seventeen of the conventionally grown strawberries had residues of more than one pesticide.
* four of these came with a cocktail of no less than four different chemicals, though all below the maximum residue limit.
* one of the four organic samples contained the fungicide pyrimethanil. However, the level was less than 1% of the maximum residue limit, so it may have been from residual environmental contamination, or sprays blown across from an adjoining property.
Strawberries are thin skinned so they easily absorb pesticides. They are the delicate Victorian maidens of the nursery garden, afflicted with blights, cankers and rots and, in conventional gardens, helped out with pesticides.
What have I found out?
I began by looking into the situation in Australia, and there is, I think, some good news.
Methyl bromide is not the go-to fungicide that it is in the US. Under the Montreal Protocol, the use of methyl bromide has been phased out for general use. There are exceptions, and one of them is the propagation of strawberry runners (the stock from which the plants come) but once in the nurseries methyl bromide is not used routinely.(4)
The most common fungicides are:
* chloropicrin alone;
* 1, 3-dichloropropene and chloropicrin ; and
* methyl iodide and chloropicrin.(5)
Chloropicrin - When I opened the Pesticide Action Network database and saw the skull and cross bones sign, I felt like crying. A simple, visual sign is so chilling.(6)
Chloropicrin was originally developed as a chemical weapon but is now used as a fungicide. It is a possible carcinogen and known to be toxic in acute amounts.
1, 3-dichloropropene and chloropicrin - Evidence for the carcinogenicity of 1,3-dichloropropene in humans is inadequate, but results from several cancer bioassays provide adequate evidence of carcinogenicity in animals. The American Environmental Protection Agency has classified 1,3-dichloropropene as a probable human carcinogen.
There’s a trial of its use going on in Victoria.
This data is, in a way, useless to me. I have no background in science. I can’t evaluate it in any meaningful way. I can’t suggest lobbying Strawberry Australia (the peak body) to veto X when, for all I know, Y is just as bad.(7)
I chose strawberries as an issue to explore because strawberries are yummy, and because I thought it would be a no-brainer to lobby for the removal of methyl bromide. I mean, we all want an ozone layer, right? Well, kudos to the strawberry growers for getting there before me. But what now?
All this knowledge does is lead me to the conclusion that my kids are better off avoiding commercially grown berries altogether. We can currently afford organic fruit and I am experimenting with freezing strawberries.(8)
But, of course, this doesn’t solve the basic problem. Green advice is often to buy organic, at least for the dirty dozen. This puts the onus on the consumer, and it ignores what happens to those who lack the knowledge and the money to buy the much more expensive organic options. Also, it ignores the fruit growers and pickers who deal every day with a substance so strong that Work Safe have drawn up regulations to deal with its use.
What I shall do, I think, is write to Strawberry Australia to tell them that I, as a consumer, am choosing organic fruit and thanking them for their existing efforts such as the the use of rain shelters to reduce the use of fungicides.
Still, this is not much of an action, is it? What do I say to my kids? I’m stimulating the demand for organic fruit, dear Pearl and Ruby, so don’t you worry about that. The environment is totally saved!
What else can I do?
Well, firstly, I can distribute this information. (Hello, Internet!)
Green guides would suggest growing your own. I’ve had zero success in growing anything in my shady, shady garden. Like geraniums die, lemon trees die. I seriously doubt strawberries would grow and I refuse to waste money trying.
Green guides would also suggest a community supported agriculture group (CSA). These seem to be common in the USA but I’ve had trouble finding one in Western Australia.
And I am open to other suggestions, people, especially from those of you who actually understand science.
(1) Sandra Steingraber, Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis (2011). You can find out about her at: http://steingraber.com/
(2) http://green.yahoo.com/blog/daily_green_news/332/the-new-dirty-dozen-12-foods-to-eat-organic-and-avoid-pesticide-residue.html
(3) http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/food-and-health/food-and-drink/safety/strawberries/page/about%20our%20test.aspx
(4)http://www.horticulture.com.au/admin/assets/library/annual_reports/pdfs/PDF_File_103.pdf
(5)http://www.environment.gov.au/atmosphere/ozone/publications/pubs/critical-uses-update-2010.pdf
(6) http://panna.org/
(7) http://www.strawberriesaustralia.com.au/
(8) Not only is organic fruit way more expensive but the books on eating sustainably bang on and on about deep freezing and storing food. In order to do that you have to have enough space for a deep freeze (also money) so this advice irritates me greatly. My experiment is with one punnet. If it works, one day when I live in a space with more space I’ll freeze on a larger scale.