I recently wrote an article “Cleansing our body of the Dangerous PFAS CHEMICALS” and related how giving blood reduces the amount of Forever Chemicals in our body. In this article, I want to show how we can reduce the amounts of Pesticides in our bodies. I am not just pulling this information out of thin air. What I will be relating to you comes from authoritative sources and if you want more references, you can go to my website Edens Acre for a page just for References. You will find that the referrals I use are to trusted pages with many from our own government sources.
“The term pesticide is generally used to identify agrochemicals such as bactericides, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, or rodenticides [1]. Pesticides are a group of chemicals, and sometimes microorganisms (e.g., viruses), that are used for the eradication of insects, weeds, fungi, and bacteria”
Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute,
A study found that 9 out of 10 US citizens have pesticides in their urine. They are everywhere. Whether it is the water we drink, the food we eat or even the air we breathe, pesticides are introduced to our body. We may think of farmers as being the source of our pesticides, but our governments use them to control weeds. Railroads use a very strong pesticide to keep the weeds down. We use them to keep insects from our homes and on our skin to prevent mosquito bites. Of course, don’t forget that we keep our yards dandelion free with pesticides.
Sometimes, the applied pesticide will vaporize and may spread for two or three miles. I wrote an article, “Herbicide drift on my garden” and in it I detailed how spray for dandelions had killed my peas, killed my earthworms, and prevented seeds from germinating. It took me over two years of hauling in new compost and treating my soil with organisms to bring it back into regular production. I don’t know where the spray drifted from. I have a recent addition of houses with beautiful dandelion-free yards and even further away, a golf course. What I think of is that enough herbicide drifted onto my garden to cause major damage. What did it do to me as I worked outside and breathed in this toxic air?
We can eliminate some of the pesticides from our body! We need to because it not only affects us as adults, but also children. From our own government (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5813803/ ):
Pesticide Exposure in Children
Exposures From the Food Supply
“In the general population, the food supply represents the most important source of exposure for organochlorines and OPs... The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates exposure to pesticides in food by setting “tolerances,” which are the maximum amount of pesticides that may legally remain in or on food and animal feed. The US Food and Drug Administration is responsible for enforcement of these tolerances, which includes a modest monitoring program, which analyzed 7234 total samples in 2003. Among the domestically produced samples, 49% of fruit, 29% of vegetables, 26% of grain products, 24% of fish/shellfish, and 0% of milk/dairy tested had detectable but legally allowable pesticide residues. Only fruit and vegetables had residues above the legal tolerance (approximately 2% each). Overall, the detection of residues in the samples from imported fruits and vegetables tested were less, but the exceedances of legal tolerances were greater (5%–7% of imported fruits/vegetables sampled)... “
We are supposed to encourage eating fruits and vegetables, but then they went on:
“Consumption of organic food may lower pesticide exposure, as demonstrated by a study in which children were placed on an organic diet for a period of 5 consecutive days. A rapid and dramatic drop in their urinary excretion of metabolites of malathion and chlorpyrifos OP insecticides during the organic diet phase was observed.”
Note in the following how the pesticides influence pregnancy:
From Science Direct:
Endocrine Disruption by Organophosphate and Carbamate Pesticides;
“The potential effects these chemicals may have on human health and ecological well-being include reproductive tract cancers, reduced fertility, and abnormal sexual development. Reproductive toxicity is expressed as alterations in sexual behavior and performance, infertility, and/or loss of the fetus during pregnancy.”
And also from Science Direct:
Reproductive Toxicity of Organophosphate and Carbamate Pesticides;
“The potential effects these chemicals may have on human health and ecological well-being include reproductive tract cancers, reduced fertility, and abnormal sexual development. Reproductive toxicity is expressed as alterations in sexual behavior and performance, infertility, and/or loss of the fetus during pregnancy.”
This is not the only way it affects the preborn child. From Natural Grocers; The Toxic Burden We Carry:
“ Pesticide residues have also been found in breast milk and umbilical cords, showing that pesticide residues are passed from mother to child.”
Have you ever wondered why we have so many diseases that we didn’t seem to have in earlier days? The author from Natural Groceries addresses this subject:
“Chronic exposure to pesticides has been linked to a myriad of health issues, including cancer; neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s; autism and attention deficit disorder; low birth weight in babies and neurodevelopment delays in children; asthma; hormonal dysregulation, which can lead to infertility and other reproductive issues; type-2 diabetes; and gut dysbiosis, an imbalance in beneficial and pathogenic bacteria which can negatively affect the central nervous system via the gut-brain axis…The list goes on, but I think you get the point.”
No one knows for sure at what level in our bodies that problems develop. From my experience, I began applying pesticides at the age of 17 in 1959 and in the 60 plus years since then, who knows how many different kinds and how much interaction each one has with each other. We don’t know for sure the minimum level to worry about, we just know that we drink water, eat food, and breathe air that has pesticides in it. We do know that we can do two things to help remedy the situtation.
Number One:
Eating Organic for One Week Can Reduce Pesticide Levels. From Foodtank.com;
“A new study done at the University of California found that eating organically-grown food for just one week can significantly reduce the levels of pesticide within the body. Researchers found the levels of toxins decreased by an average of 60.5 percent after six days of eating organic food.”
You will note that a government article listed above, mentioned a five day study. I don’t know if the organic food itself actually causes the pesticides to leave the body or if the body plurges itself and because the people in the study were not adding more chemicals to their body, the level of pesticides decreased. There are lots of reasons to eat organic besides reducing ingesting of pesticides. The actual level of vitamins, minerals and other important ingredients of food can be measured and is more than non-organic food.
Number Two:
Pesticide use on farm crops can be reduced and in many cases, eliminated. Our federal government is, not only willing to help, but has provided the money to do what is necessary. I wrote an article, “Cover crops, Biden and Government Help” and I will post part of what I wrote;
“President Joe Biden’s administration has also earmarked $30 billion to help pay farmers to implement sustainable practices and capture carbon in their soil. McKinsey estimates that the market for carbon credits could be worth more than $50 billion in 2030.”
In another article, they enhance their efforts with this: “Biden’s USDA Secretary of Agriculture nominee, Tom Vilsack, who has vowed to help meet Biden’s broader plan to reach a net-zero economy by 2050, said the money could go toward creating new markets that incentivize producers to sequester carbon in the soil.”
In order to provide these services there is from Farm Progress:
“ ...a virtual smorgasbord of government and state programs.
The alphabet of programs – EQIP, CSP, SARE, MRBI, GLRI and more – offer qualifying growers $20-50 or more/acre in assistance. They are available through the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and some state entities and are especially a hit on no-till and strip-till operations. (Program descriptions and application instructions are available at the NRCS website: www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs.)”
But there are private industry efforts also occurring. For example From CNBC: “Indigo Ag, a start-up that advocates for regenerative farming practices, said corporations like Barclays, JPMorgan Chase and Shopify have committed to purchasing agricultural carbon credits that help growers with transition costs.
Chris Harbourt, global head of carbon at Indigo Ag, said the company is working with growers to address financial barriers during the transition and provide education on implementing regenerative agriculture practices, like planting off-season cover crops or switching to no-till farming.“
As you can see, there are a lot of help out there, but progress has been slow. Let me explain why this program is important. For a farmer to convert to organic farming requires that the land will not have Pesticides, artificial fertilizer and GMO crops grown on the land for ten years. The lost income from those years is more than most farmers are willing to chance. But, with regenerative agriculture practices, especially utilizing cover crops, there are many instances of farmers having the same amount of production the very first year. In addition, they have a much lower expense for seed, fertilizer, and pesticides. Added factors are improvement of their soil and better crops during drought seasons.
Where the government comes in is with the contribution of money to implement this process. The government will furnish enough money to pay for the cover crop seed and pay for the expense of an airplane to sow the seed. No labor, no cost!! In addition, farmers of many crops such as corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton have access to a subsidized insurance program just for farmers. T.his takes out much of the costs and even reduces the amount of labor. And as you can see from the connected article, there are even private organizations who will make investments in this process.
I don’t understand the reluctance of farmers to enage this program.. Farmers are one of those groups that have more exposure to pesticides and the illnesses that occur from that exposure. You would think that they would be concerned about their health as well as their families. I have always thought of farmers as stewards of the soil and to be able to stop putting poison on their land would seem to me to be a worthy goal.
In summary, we can remove some of the toxic chemicals from our body by eating organic. In addition, food that is raised with cover crops and with regenerative agriculture practices also have less, if any, pesticide residual.