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Protecting Our Children
 
  "Eat your vegetables!"  We say that over and over again to our children.  After all, we know that vegetables and fruits are the key to good health and we want our children to be healthy.  We want to protect them from harm.  Some of us make changes in the way we eat and the chemicals we use around the house once we become pregnant or have the new one in our home.  Some of us are not as concerned about organics as long as our children eat some fruit and vegetables because we know that fruits and vegetables are the key to good health.  But it turns out, children's biggest exposure to pesticides is from the conventional produce (fresh, yes, and dried which concentrates toxins, like raisins) and (quantity of conventional) fruit juices they consume! 

The Environmental Working Group has concluded that the biggest factor in our risk of cancer from pesticide residues occurs in childhood.  What happens to us as children impacts our future.  We know that from a spiritual perspective and work to create a healthy self esteem and strong will in our children, but we don't always think about the physical effects of daily exposure to chemicals and the build up of toxins and pesticides in little growing bodies. 

Children are particularly susceptible to pesticides in foods.  Relative to body weight, children eat more than adults.  Therefore, children consume more pesticides than adults.  To compound it, since kids are usually picky eaters and may only eat a few specific fruits or vegetables, they are likely ingesting one pesticide in larger amounts.  Because children are growing and changing, their cells are dividing rapidly, the impact is more significant.  And, since children's detoxification systems aren't fully developed, they accumulate chemicals over a longer period of time and in greater amounts.  This can turn into toxic levels rather easily in a small body.  The long term effects on the compounded exposure and how it will effect their growing bodies is not known.  We don't know how the combination of these pesticides or chemicals will react in our bodies or the bodies of our young growing children.  We don't know how exposure to pesticides and chemicals (especially in the great amounts relative to their size and the significant amounts of the same chemicals) will affect our children's nervous system, hormonal balance, or immune system.  We don't know how this will affect their future health.  We do know that the pesticides are showing up in their bodies in amounts that exceed what is considered safe (can you believe we live in a world where there are acceptable levels of poisons?).

So how much is too much?  Are you sitting down?  Just one serving of certain conventional fruits (an apple, for example) or vegetables may exceed safe levels in our children!  There is such a significant difference that a change to organic, particularly to those conventional fruits and vegetables with the highest levels of pesticides, will make a difference in the health and future of a child.  A change in diet can move a child from exceeding acceptable levels (some children already have levels of pesticides in their bodies that would be toxic even to an adult!) to levels well within the "safe" zone.  Children who eat primarily organic foods have far less pesticide levels in their system, as much as nine times less. 

Taking your child strawberry picking on a conventional farm?  You are exposing your little one to pesticides that are carcinogenic walking around on a beautiful day together.  Imagine the impact on the children of the farm workers who play in the yards, work in the yards, and hug their parent when they come home from working in the yards?  There is a high rate of birth defects in conventional farming communities.  Many of the children of conventional farmers far exceed safe levels of pesticides and poisons in their system.  They are in and out of doctor offices.  Many of them clearly have pesticide poisoning.  Rates of cancers are high.  Their fate and future health is unknown.  Yes, making a decision to buy and eat organic food impacts our own children.  It also impacts the children in farming communities and our world.

Pesticides are approved and then taken off the market, sometimes without much fanfare.  The long term effects of these chemicals are not known.  We do know that chemicals and pesticides accumulate in our muscles and fat tissue.  We know that many cause risks of cancer and other disease, and that should be obvious since they were created to kill (bugs and pests).  Many are linked to growth, hormonal, and neurological problems in human beings.  They may cause stomach and digestive problems, brain cancer, asthma, Leukemia, learning disabilities, reproductive dysfunction, and more. 

As parents (grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc.), we can take simple steps by choosing organic foods for our families to help reduce the risk of future disease.  As stated in the Environmental Working Group's study "Consumption of organic produce represents a relatively simple means for parents to reduce their children’s pesticide exposure."  With all the choices in organic foods nowadays, it's the easiest step we can take to set our children up for a healthy future.  They no longer need to feel deprived at birthday parties; there is an organic option in just about everything!  And by making them aware of everything they eat, we are teaching them responsibility for their bodies and the world.  We turn eating into a thoughtful process and a learning experience to share instead of a mindless act that we take for granted.

Remember that unprocessed foods are always more nutritious and we must be careful to read labels on all packaged foods so we know what food (and nonfood) we are feeding our children.

Organic foods promote good health for our environment too and a stronger Mother Earth.  Less toxins wash into our streams and therefore we protect our delicate ecosystem and the very source of food for us to survive.  Ah, the circle of life.  Precious life.  Big companies focus on their bottom line, but what is the point of all that money without life?  We can let our voices be heard with our pocket books, the only thing they seem to listen to anyway.  Choose organic and make a significant impact on your health, the health and future of your children, the lives of farming children, our earth, and the future generations and health of our planet.  Your decision has a serious impact on your family and the world.  Each one of us makes a difference.  Your choice today impacts yourself, loved ones, people you don't know, and our future.  We are proud to be a part of the solution and work hard to promote the health of our future.
 

  
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The Crazy Makers

Carol N. Simontacchi.

      
 
     
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Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of  Delicious Organics, Inc., unless otherwise noted. Articles are synopsis of our opinions based upon research we've done on these issues and we retain copyright to all information and articles contained herein.  We've provided links for further research and encourage you to make your own opinions based upon the information we provide as well as any information you find contrary to our opinion.  We see this site as an easy summary of the many issues we research and a good starting point for you to use.  We encourage each of us to continue researching and learning more about how we can live a better and healthier life in a cleaner and stronger world.  We DO it for ourselves, our children, our environment and our future.		  

 

Recently, a series of PubMed searches made clear that virtually all common toxins invoke glutathione pathways as a means of detoxification.  The more pesticides per fetus, infant, child, or adult, the more his or her detoxification processes may be overwhelmed, thereby exacerbating adverse effects of toxins.

Teresa

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Going Organic Can Shield Children From Pesticides
A study finds benefits are 'immediate' and suggests that youths are exposed to the chemicals primarily through food, not spraying of homes.

By Marla Cone
LATimes Staff Writer
September 3, 2005
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-organic3sep03,1,2287240.story

Switching to organic foods provides children "dramatic and immediate" protection from pesticides that are widely used on a variety of crops, according to a study by a team of federally funded scientists.

Concentrations of two organophosphate pesticides — malathion and chlorpyrifos — declined substantially in the bodies of elementary school-age children during a five-day period when organic foods were substituted for conventional foods.

The two chemicals are the most commonly used insecticides in U.S. agriculture. More than 2 million pounds were applied to California crops in 2003, according to records of the state Department of Pesticide Regulation.

The health effects of exposure to minute amounts of pesticides found in food are largely unknown, especially for children. Some research, however, suggests that the residue may harm the developing nervous system.

For 15 days, a team of environmental health scientists from the University of Washington, Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested the urine of 23 elementary school-age children in the Seattle area.

During the first three days and last seven days, the children ate their normal foods. But during the middle five days, organic items were substituted for most of their diet, including fruits, vegetables, juices and wheat- and corn-based processed items such as cereal and pasta.

Average levels of both pesticides in the children "decreased to the nondetect levels immediately after the introduction of organic diets and remained nondetectable until the conventional diets were reintroduced," the researchers reported Thursday in the online version of the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

When they ate organic foods, the children on average had zero malathion detected in their urine, with a high of seven parts per billion in one child. But when the children returned to eating conventional foods, one child had as much as 263 parts per billion and the average increased to 1.6 parts per billion.

For chlorpyrifos, the children had less than one part per billion when they ate organic foods, but the average increased fivefold as soon as they returned to their previous diet.

The findings suggest that children are exposed to organophosphate chemicals mainly through food, not through spraying in homes or other sources. In 2001, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned most residential uses of chlorpyrifos but has left most agricultural uses unrestricted. Three other organophosphate pesticides that are not widely used on farms and are more highly restricted by the EPA were undetectable in most of the children, according to the study, directed by Emory's Chensheng Lu.

"In conclusion," the researchers wrote, "we were able to demonstrate that an organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposure to organophosphorus pesticides that are commonly used in agricultural production."

Margaret Reeves, a staff scientist at the Pesticide Action Network North America, based in San Francisco, said the findings were "not surprising because we know that food is an important source of [organophosphate] exposure. Also, we know that these pesticides don't last very long … in the body, and you can have a relatively quick response" to a diet change.

Pesticide manufacturers say that while low levels of residue are detectable on many products, there is no evidence that children are harmed by them. They say that pesticides, which are the most highly tested and regulated chemicals in the United States, are vital to providing an affordable and plentiful world food supply.

But Reeves said the children's study "is a pretty strong argument that [organic food] is a good way to go, if you have access to it and can afford it."

Organic foods can be expensive and sometimes difficult to find. But parents can minimize their children's exposure if they substitute organic products for those that contain the most residue. Experts advise parents to wash produce and peel skins if they buy conventional foods, but for foods that cannot be peeled, such as grapes and strawberries, organic may be a wise choice.

In the late 1990s, U.S. Department of Agriculture data showed that about 75% of foods sampled from conventionally grown crops contained pesticide residue, compared with 23% for organic products.

The Consumers Union reported in 2000 that peaches, apples, pears, grapes, green beans, spinach, winter squash, strawberries and cantaloupe had the highest levels of pesticide residues. Those with few residues included bananas, broccoli, canned peaches, canned or frozen peas, canned or frozen corn, milk, orange juice, apple juice and grape juice.

Thirty-five percent of peaches sampled by the USDA in 2003 contained traces of chlorpyrifos, and 26% of the celery in 2002 had malathion residue, according to the new study.