Pesticides in Our Food

A few weeks ago I covered a topic similar to this. In that post I discussed the difference in monetary cost of various different organic vs. non-organic foods. In this post I want to look at some of the reasons why organic would essentially be better for your health.

Last year in Malaysia there were massive fish deaths which caused a forced closing of the water treatment plant in Cameron Highlands. Upon testing of the water it was discovered that the cause of these deaths was excessive quantities of pesticides in the water. These pesticides can cause irreversible damage to human health as well as the environment. Pesticides are so freely used that they are essentially found in every living thing today. In this area in Cameron Highlands it was found that some farmers were even using pesticides that had been  previously banned. These pesticides affect human health through acute effects, chronic effects and sometimes both. Although farmers claim to be within the pesticide restriction set in place it is believed that these restrictions need to be amended because even with these limits set in place there are still traces of pesticides in almost all of our food.

If these pesticides are fatal to fish how is it even conceivable that they could be harmless to us? Yes, a fish is generally much smaller than a human however, if these pesticides are causing mass deaths among fish who is to say what they are doing to our bodies. Not only can a dose of pesticides cause immediate health problems that you would be able to notice right away but continually ingesting these chemicals can cause long term health problems that will be much more difficult to treat. Obviously treating any illness, whether short or long term, can cost a significant amount of money. Looking at this article and other ones similar to it I will leave you to draw your conclusions on whether or not it is really worth it to spend the extra money on organic foods, but it's as they say 'better safe than sorry.'

 

Idris, Mohamed. "Dangerous Residues in Our Greens." New Straits Times [Malaysia] 9 Mar. 2012: 19. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. <http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/>.

"So Huge A Bignes"

Song of the Dodo

In the third chapter of his book Quammen introduces the idea of an "insular menu" of attributes that seem to be common to species that live on islands. He divides the list of attributes into those that apply to individual species and those that apply to island communities as a whole.

 

The species attributes he lists are as:

- Dispersal Ability

- Size Change

- Loss of Dispersal Ability

- Endemism

- Relictualism

- Loss of Defensive Adaptations

- Archipelago speciation
- Adaptive radiation

 

The community attributes he lists are:

- Disharmony

- Impoverishment

   

 

During this section of the reading Quammen's writing style becomes slightly confusing. It appears as though he is directly writing his thoughts down on the paper. It is a little disjointed and jumps around often, but this is kind of what I imagine his thought process to be and therefore although it is a bit difficult to follow at times I find it interesting.

Going back to the reading I think that dispersal ability is at the top of the list for good reason. This is the ability of a species to move from place to place and in island biogeography, especially on newly formed or re-populating islands, this is incredibly important. Without good dispersal ability a species would not be able to spread itself out and therefore would become more vulnerable to extinction. In the reading they use the Krakatoa eruption as one of the best living experiments to take observations from. The first organisms to arrive on the islands were ones with excellent dispersal ability such as spiders, mosses and ferns. It seems like no matter where you go you can never get away from those pesky spiders. The animal with a great dispersal ability that surprised me the most was the elephant. Elephants have been observed to swim great distances and have been found on many islands. I would have thought that such a large animal would have a hard time covering such large distances, especially when not on dry ground. This just goes to show that you can never rule something out even if it seems far fetched.

 

The Anthropocene

Unlike other eras the anthropocene means age of man, and this means that in order to solve the problems that the Earth is currently facing the solutions will need to come solely from man. The problem with this is that most people, particularly in more well developed countries will not step up and take responsibility for their actions. For the first time scientists are considering man to be a geological force, causing more destruction and erosion than any force of nature. It means instead of thinking of humans as observers of the natural world we have to think of ourselves as fundamental pieces of it.

A fundamental question of anthropology is “what does it mean to be human?” The generally accepted definition of what it means to be human has significantly changed over the last hundred years or so and is still changing today. The old ways in which we thought about humanity was that as men we were above nature; that we could control it but were not exactly a part of it. The new idea is that we need to see ourselves as an important and fundamental part of nature that is required to keep things moving. Not only are humans part of nature, as a whole, we are also powerful forces of nature that are contributing to the constant change of the surface of the earth. The problem is that in order to make any type of effective change we must come together as a whole population and change our way of thinking, but there are always those that refuse to see the light and remain stuck in their ways.

Are the health benefits of organic food worth the monetary cost?

This is a question that I was discussing with a friend recently and so I decided that I would do this blog post to go over some of the main points.

 

"Food Safety: On What Organic Foods Should You Spend Your Money?" Boston Examiner 27 Jan. 2012, Boston Environmental Health Examiner sec. America's Newspapers. Web. 8 Feb. 2012. <http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=NewsBank&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=13C897B1957295D8&p_docnum=2&p_queryname=2>.

In this article the main ideas that are expressed are about which foods are actually worth spending your money on to go organic. They start with explaining that there is a list that comes out every year of the top twelve fruits and vegetables which have been tested and proven to have the most pesticides in them. They also say which ones have the least. Although buying organic food is not a one hundred percent foolproof way in which to avoid chemical contamination, it certainly helps.

This article helped to support the idea that I want to prove during the conversation that I was having because it shows that it is not necessary to buy everything organic. There are some foods that it is worth splurging for and spending a little extra money on. This would help to defer some of the costs and make the overall deficit not quite as extravagant. In the article they give a specific example and say how there was a test that showed strawberries containing 13 different kinds of pesticides within them. Not only are these foods being contaminated with one type of chemical but they are being infected with many different types. This idea could absolutely help to answer my question because once you realize how much of a difference it makes for certain foods when you buy organic as opposed to non organic it can be quite shocking and this inevitably shows that buying certain organic food is much better for your overall health and is worth spending a little extra money on. Personally, as a broke college student I do not have money to pay for excess amounts of organic food but especially after reading this article there are certain foods that I will be trying my hardest to buy organic.

 

 

"Doomsday' Seed Vault Opens in the Arctic"

In this podcast we learned of The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, nicknamed "the doomsday seed vault" by some, aims to preserve samples of seeds from around the world to protect the planet's crop diversity. The frozen vault has begun accepting seeds for storage. The vault was dug into the side of a mountain and is surrounded by permafrost and thick rock.

I think that this concept is simply incredible. One of the things that we worry about when it comes to our future is loss of resources; loss of food, water etc. This seed vault seems to be a way to safeguard at least one of our basic needs. The way I think of it is that say we had a massive crop loss in one area of the world. To repopulate and re-cultivate this would take a significant amount of time if we had to wait for seeds to be collected and transported from various corners of the world. However, if there was one central place where we were able to go and collect every type of seed that we needed and collect them in mass quantities it would drastically cut down on the recovery time.

I also think that the area in which they chose to build this vault is interesting but also ingenious. It would be simple to build a large structure and enforce it with mass layers of steel and other man-made substances but using durable natural resources could prove to be their best idea. The protection that a mountain could provide is likely unmatched by any man-made barrier and the layers of permafrost and thick rock would just provide extra protection. Asides from the protective aspect I personally like when any type of conservation effort is backed up in a more natural way as opposed to a man-made method.