More Than 90% of Americans Have Pesticides or Their Byproducts in Their Bodies | Hacker News Reader

More Than 90% of Americans Have Pesticides or Their Byproducts in Their Bodies

thenation.com

192 pointshoward941169 comments

Okay, this Environmental Working Group found traces of pesticides on produce. That's not terribly unexpected, given how most produce is, well, produced. What this article annoyingly neglects to mention, is the _numbers_ attached to those traces of pesticides. Where there large amounts of trace chemicals, such that the levels exceed the EPA's recommended safe exposure levels? Were they so high that dangerous levels of bio-accumulation were likely? Absent numbers, it's difficult to tell if the people mentioned in the article are justified in feeling very worried, if it's a bunch of hand-wringing about nothing of significance, or somewhere between.

Well, so here's the other side of the coin-- nobody actually has any idea what's definitely safe.

Do you trust that because the EPA has put a number on a chemical that it can't be wrong?

Why don't you guess what percent of the time when the EPA calls an exposure level safe does it go back and change its mind and decide it wasn't safe after all?

Also, why are you confident the EPA knows all the long-term biological and cross-generational effects of all these chemicals when nobody can even decide yet if coffee is good for me?

> Well, so here's the other side of the coin-- nobody actually has any idea what's definitely safe.

I'm going to disagree with that. I think there is a great deal of information available on what is and is not safe, available to those who will look. I think it is a gross overstatement that nobody has any idea what's definitely safe. Is that data perfect? No. But the data I'm able to find seems to have been workable so far.

> Do you trust that because the EPA has put a number on a chemical that it can't be wrong?

> Why don't you guess what percent of the time when the EPA calls an exposure level safe does it go back and change its mind and decide it wasn't safe after all?

Nope, I don't blindly trust the EPA, they've been wrong in the past, and they're going to be discovered to have been wrong here in the future, because like you and I, they are fallible humans, and sometimes shit slips through. However, I am willing to look at the data available and evaluate for myself whether the declaration of safe or not (and to what degree) is correct, and what to do about it.

> Also, why are you confident the EPA knows all the long-term biological and cross-generational effects of all these chemicals when nobody can decided yet if coffee is good for me?

I'm not necessarily, and I think you misrepresent my point above to insinuate that I do. My protest with the original article is that it is thin on data. That someone is worried about pesticide residues on food is not immediately actionable data for me absent other data which the article lacks. Absent said data, I'm going to stick to my currently successful MO of washing my produce before use, and not worrying about it until given a convincing reason to do so.

Problem is as presidents change , the EPA staff changes as well.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/court-orders-...

And certain pesticides are unbanned.

The EPA also isn’t listening to independent scientists who’s research is showing ill effects even within the current limits.

https://www.ehn.org/when-safe-may-not-really-be-safe-2621578...

The fact that farmers are getting sick from pesticides is what scares me. It’s another version of second hand smoke.

Strokes, heart attack and cancer among young people seem to be on rise ,and doctors seem to be puzzled. Sperm count is getting lower and lower and we have no idea why.

It’s not just pesticides, but we are getting exposed to other carcinogens, pollution, x-rays, contaminated water, Teflon that stays in your body etc etc and we have no studies determine the cumulative effects of everything.

Body is very complex and it could be that this combination could result in a lot more genetic mutations and health problems.

I wish we had something like community farming where one day a week (mandated day off from regular work)the community members help sustain their community farm, which is the farm that supplies food for the community. This way there is more autonomy and knowledge about which pesticides are used etc.

>> I think there is a great deal of information available on what is and is not safe

It's not like the EPA does no testing, but what about the unknowns? For example, men's sperm counts have gone down 50% over the last 30 years and scientists have no solid explanation (despite >1000 journal articles on the topic).

Are you confident that pesticides play no role in this? Or autism? Or immune disorders?

The EPA doesn't even try do testing on long-term exposure to a low-dose of substances, which is exactly what is described in the article.

Calling the EPA "fallible humans" is laughable. The question is - is the EPA process systematically too trusting of new chemicals? I have my answer.

I recommend you start your education on this topic with "The precautionary principle." http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/91173/E8...

This was an enlightening article about how the standards set by the EPA don’t seem to be safe standard according to Harvard scientists: https://www.ehn.org/when-safe-may-not-really-be-safe-2621578...

It seems there are different classes of pesticides: some really unsafe pesticides that should be banned but aren’t.

What can we possibly do in this case? Grow our own food?

Right but chemists can detect things at vanishingly small concentrations so "detected" often provides almost no information without further context.

If you look hard enough you're very often going to find the molecule you're looking for.

Was it detected at 0.1%, 100% or 10000% of an arbitrary EPA limit? This provides at least some quantitative indication of what's going on.

Unfortunately, some these chemicals can also have significant negative effects at vanishingly small doses, we're talking 1 part per billion. This is especially true for developing embryos (which share blood with the mother).

Also worth noting the EWG's reports have been questioned in the past for their bias. Heck, even the type of report this article mentions is commonly criticized: https://www.accountablescience.com/how-dirty-are-your-fruits...

There's another factor that I think the OP fails to account for and that's washing produce before cooking and consumption. It's a habit I've been in for as long as I can recall cooking with produce, which I probably picked up from my parents, and have seen in just about every kitchen I've been in.

As far as I recall, it was less out of a concern over pesticide residue, but more to make sure all soil was removed from the produce before consumption. That latter point is very important! It _sucks_ to bite into a grain of sand when eating a salad because I neglected to wash the lettuce well. And even if the trace levels of pesticides were close to the unsafe chronic threshold, washing the produce to remove remaining trace dirt is, IMO, likely to take those trace levels of pesticides down far enough that I don't need to worry.

Ever heard of systemic pesticides?

"Pesticides can be classified based upon their biological mechanism function or application method. Most pesticides work by poisoning pests. A systemic pesticide moves inside a plant following absorption by the plant. With insecticides and most fungicides, this movement is usually upward (through the xylem) and outward. Increased efficiency may be a result. Systemic insecticides, which poison pollen and nectar in the flowers, may kill bees and other needed pollinators." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesticide

No, I had not. Today I learned a thing. Thank you.

Clearly systemic pesticides will need to be addressed differently from those which simply coat the crop and leave residues, but I remain confident that washing produce before cooking and consumption is enough to reduce the latter to safe levels.

Sadly, it's probably not universally true: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jafc.7b03118

In my country, washing things isn't some kind of oddity some people do so that realizing why they do it makes it some cool new trick. Rather, everyone washes their produce for exactly this reason, but this study suggests it's far from foolproof.

I don't think the final question is how much do we need to avoid. We are protecting ourselves and the things we want to keep alive in the future. We have to then ask, "Will this permanently destroy us or our living space?".

Also, science determines LD50 all the time. What they often do not check is what amount of pesticide needs to be consumed before your health or intelligence drop by 10%. Those would be excellent numbers to have available.

The article doesn't mention meat and dairy as a source of surprisingly high levels pesticides and their byproducts.

[1] https://medium.com/center-for-biological-diversity/does-meat...

That's what happens when you're effectively an apex predator - you eat the things that eat the things with contamination and much of it gets concentrated into you, particularly the things that bioaccumulate over time.

Outside of pesticides but similar, that's why it's important to limit things like tuna consumption particularly from larger species that can build to high mercury levels.

IIRC, there has never been a case of mercury toxicity from normal consumption of commercial seafood recorded in any American medical journal. These larger species you mention could exist outside of that sphere.

I would bet that mercury toxicity is incredibly underdiagnosed, especially if it's not acute.

Fatigue, insomnia, and a host of other symptoms are fairly common and not easy to spot as a part of a bigger problem.

Anecdata: when I went to a large hospital they laughed off my idea that I have heavy metal poisoning and didn't even have the facilities to test for it. Only months later after visiting a naturopath and getting tested did my suspicions get confirmed. This case will never be on any official health records.

https://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Tests/hea...

Naturopathy (like most pseudo sciences) thrives on taking things undiagnosed and giving concrete answers. There likely isn't a person out there that wouldn't test positive for heavy metal poisoning. Go retest with a different naturopath. I'm almost certain you'll still test positive (even though they likely gave you a bunch of vitamins and herbs to cure your poisoning).

> Fatigue, insomnia, and a host of other symptoms are fairly common and not easy to spot as a part of a bigger problem.

Fatigue and insomnia are depression symptoms. I'm not a doctor, but have you considered talking to a therapist?

I'm not sure what you're basing your opinion on, but I wasn't directly tested by a naturopath. You get a urine sample that's later shipped to an accredited lab and they provide you a detailed report with reference ranges, recommendations, and caveats.

I don't know what other NDs are like, though I'm sure many make a living by overselling supplements.

> accredited lab

Accredited by who?

> detailed report with reference ranges, recommendations, and caveats.

I can generate detailed reports. With references and ranges.

My point still stands, if you think what they are perscribing works, go get tested again with a different lab. More than likely you'll have just as negative a report come back with exactly the same recommendations.

Naturopathy is pseudoscience.

Seems like you got an axe to grind, but I'll bite. This is the lab in my case: http://rmalab.com/about-us/accreditation

> Naturopathy is pseudoscience

Agreed. However, many NDs are not exactly "naturopathic", but more like alternative doctors that can fill in the gaps if your conventional MD is not very helpful.

The lab is accredited, and from my limited googling looks like a legitimate accreditation.

However, I question the accreditation standards. This lab offers

Hair element analysis http://rmalab.com/medical-laboratory-tests/environmental/hai...

Which is bunk https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/19343...

and

Nutrigenomix http://rmalab.com/Nutrigenomix

also bunk (or at very least, extremely overselling benefits) https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn2012145

NDs are snake oil sales men peddling placebos. The axe I have to grind is against people offering fake solutions to real problems. Pseudo science medicines, including naturopathy, gets people killed.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephan-meningitis-deat...

> Naturopathy or naturopathic medicine is a form of alternative medicine that employs an array of pseudoscientific practices branded as "natural", "non-invasive", and as promoting "self-healing". The ideology and methods of naturopathy are based on vitalism and folk medicine, rather than evidence-based medicine.

This wasn't my experience. Where my family doctor and other practitioners ignored my thoughts and refused to get me tested out of personal skepticism, my ND listened to me and provided appropriate means of testing.

At no point was I suggested sketchy ancient 'healing' methods.

There are all kinds of branches to alternative medicine. One niche is the "ancient" style treatments you describe. Another is homeopathy. Another is various electrical and medical devices. And still another is an industry trying to sell chelation therapy to people who don't need it. Obviously I'm not a doctor and not familiar with your case, but that might be what others are responding to (e.g. https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/08/08/chelation-therapy-fad-t...)

It's not surprising that they listened to you and provided treatment, the entire brand of naturopathy/alternative medicine is based on making the patient feel heard and then telling the patient what they want to hear, which is "I can help you", whether or not it's actually true.

It's actually common in startup founders who sell their startups and then start eating expensive sushi all the time. My understanding is that several billionaires in silicon valley have mild Parkinson's-like tremors because of this.

High end omakase meals generally come with 1 or 2 .5 oz pieces of tuna. Even at 3x a day it would be comparable to one can of tuna. Of course mercury varies heavily from fish to fish but unless they were living on tuna/swordfish this sounds like an urban legend or could be something else in raw fish like liver parasites or bacteria.

Sushi-grade tuna and I suspect tuna steaks are much more likely to be from the larger tuna species. At the very high end you get the special cases where truly massive fish are sold at auction for absurd prices - the same fish that got to that size by eating a huge number of smaller fish and thus concentrating mercury. Canned "solid" albacore or "white" tuna has the same issue, though I wouldn't be surprised if it was still lower than fish sold for sushi or steaks.

Chunk "light" tuna on the other hand tends to come from smaller species and pretty much as a direct consequence has lower mercury levels.

Based on the numbers in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_in_fish, canned light tuna and skipjack have 1/3 to 1/2 the mercury found in albacore and yellowfin tuna and 1/4 the levels found in bigeye. Notably, those 3 all run 2-10x the size of the smaller species used in "chunk light."

> Even at 3x a day it would be comparable to one can of tuna.

The amount of mercury in the type of fatty tuna used for sushi is several times more mercury than in light canned tuna, which is normally what you'd use for a tuna melt or whatever.

Sushi grade tuna (unlike eel) isn't one of the types of fish you should never eat, but I definitely wouldn't eat it more than once a month.

What was the treatment?

>heavy metal poisoning

Only treatment I'm aware of is some light jazz or R&B.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_detoxification

Dialysis and depending on the metal Chelation. Both suck and neither were likely prescribed by a naturopath.

Define "normal consumption". Some bodybuilders and strength athletes eat large quantities of tuna as a low-fat source of protein; a non-trivial proportion of dieters rely on fish as their main source of protein. These may be unusually high levels of consumption, but they aren't edge cases and aren't prima facie stupid if you're unaware of the risk of mercury toxicity.

A lot of smart, health-conscious people end up with dangerously high levels of mercury precisely because they believe that seafood is a healthy option and aren't aware of the risk of mercury exposure.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12676623/

Literally on the first page of google results for "mercury toxicity from normal consumption of commercial seafood": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4721310/ Cites dozens of studies of cases of adverse effects from mercury from seafood.

This is pretty worthless study. They are doing multiple comparisons without doing Bonferroni correction. Once you do that, there's no significant finding. On top of that, they have stupidly large 95% confidence intervals, their test metrics are pretty weak, and they only have blood levels of Hg of only a fraction of study participants. They seem to attempt to control for confounds, which is commendable, but with their sample being rather small, there's little hope of obtaining significant finding after controlling and correcting for multiple comparisons.

Controling for confounds here is the most important part really. It's like all the studies finding that people drinking wine have better health outcomes -- it turns out that wealthy people both are more likely to drink more wine, and have better health outcomes for reasons other than drinking wine. If you don't control for that, you'll find spurious associations.

My doctor claims to have treated several fishermen in the past for mercury toxicity. This doctor has been practicing in what was historically a “fishermen’s neighborhood” for some 30 years (Ballard area of Seattle) so it seemed plausible.

I have nothing but this weak anecdote to contribute to the discussion. But I’ll ask the doc for details next time I’m in and report back when the topic comes up again.

It is worth noting that the FDA recommends limiting fish consumption to 12 oz a week for mercury-related reasons: https://www.fda.gov/food/foodborneillnesscontaminants/metals...

What does that matter? If we get it from directly from plants we eat or indirectly through meat, you are still getting pesticides.

>What does that matter?

It's actionable information. If you're worried about ingesting pesticides, you might believe that eating fewer vegetables and more meat would be a safer option. The simple fact of bioaccumulation means that this would be the wrong approach.

What if we go to regulate pesticides, and through lobbying and special interest groups, animal feed gets less regulation. It'd be good to know that the pesticides can affect people even if their grains and vegetables don't get sprayed.

Wouldn't it be interesting if we didn't get the same level of pesticides through meat & dairy? I think it's worthwhile information to point out.

The amount of plants a cow eats vs a human is a big difference. You'll be exposed to less pesticides if you just eat plants instead of eating the cow and plants.

I'm talking about factory farming where the cow is fed large amounts of corn and soy.

Watched a great documentary on Netflix called `Stink!` that was about all the crap found in all sorts of products under the hidden phrase "fragrance" (or in some cases, "parfum"). All sorts of chemicals you've never heard of to make those garbage bags smell like apple orchards.

Very informative and, if you're like me and are constantly panicked that everything's trying to kill you, I recommend it.

>All sorts of chemicals you've never heard of

Is that supposed to be a meaningful measure of anything at all?

Not OP, but on a tangent, if I find chemicals renamed, I get extremely suspicious about the other ingredients. Some obvious examples, aqua = water, sucrose = sugar, or one of the many numbered ingredients etc.

It indicates to me that the supplier are deceptive in manipulating the important information for consumers.

Or maybe people with corn allergies feel safe when they see sucrose instead of HFCS?

Not GP, but...

It's just an expression. Not everything has to be technical or technically correct to get a particular point across.

Curious about this part:

> Very informative and, if you're like me and are constantly panicked that everything's trying to kill you, I recommend it.

So are you saying this will help me STOP worrying that everything is trying to kill me? I'm kinda to the point where I feel like if you aren't eating organic broccoli for breakfast lunch and dinner, than you're killing yourself. So I'm not sure I need any MORE information to enforce that.

I hate to be the one to inform you but organic broccoli isn't any healthier than conventional broccoli.

That's because "organic" by the FDA's definition is bullshit. There are all sorts of exceptions. For one thing, it's difficult to find arable land that hasn't been contaminated with persistent pesticides.

Also, some kinds of indirect exposures are allowed. For example, say that you raise "non-organic" chickens. You can feed their waste (after sterilization, of course) to your dairy cattle, and still market the milk as "organic".

If you could find uncontaminated land, you could produce actual contaminant-free food. Well, maybe not "contaminant-free", given all the crap floating around, but much closer.

And I hate to be the one to inform you, that I tend not to take random internet comments to heart. But if you're saying that eating organic food in general has no health benefits vs. conventional food, I'd love to read whatever source you've derived that from. I always keep an open mind.

There have been many studies on the topic. The occasional differences are statistically significant but not significant enough to impact health. Here are a few reviews:

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/92/1/203/4597310?maxto...

> Conclusion: From a systematic review of the currently available published literature, evidence is lacking for nutrition-related health effects that result from the consumption of organically produced foodstuffs.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19640946

> CONCLUSIONS: On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods.

https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/1355685/organic-food...

> Conclusion: The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods. Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Discussion of those papers: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/no-health-benefits-from-org...

Discussion of meat and milk: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/organic-vs-conventional-mea...

There's ~no correlation between nutrient content and levels of toxic contaminants. If one added a lethal dose of botulism toxin to some food, it wouldn't change the nutrient content. But it would still kill you.

I was unclear about this - yes, if you're prone to worrying about everything trying to kill you, `Stink!` will not make that any better. Quite worse in fact, as (assuming you're like me) I now skim all the ingredient lists on deodorants and shampoos and what-not for this "fragrance" offender.

Regarding the broccoli, I'm right there with ya. `Stink!` won't help, but it's not super negative and will simply make you more aware.

The reality of the situation is that living will eventually kill you someday. It's merely a matter of how quickly you get there and how much you suffer along the way.

This is a terrible viewpoint, life should be an enjoyable experience and if people (or pesticide companies) are lowering that enjoyment we as a society should act and throw heaps of regulations to force a better outcome. I have no pity for any profit margin that even comes close to my care for our collective enjoyment of life.

A lot of people value pesticides/herbicides/fungicides because they make food affordable or available. In the past people starved due to lack of pest control [1,2].

Without modern agriculture it’s doubtful if 7 billion humans could survive on this planet and their footprint would be even larger.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagues_of_Egypt [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

The Great Irish Famine is less about potato blight and more about an economic system that saw the majority of crops grown during famine exported for profit, while those who tilled the soil were forced to rely on a single monoculture crop to sustain themselves (the potato).

Irish merchants and farmers had complained and demonstrated against the export ban and closure of ports during a previous famine as prices had plummeted.

It was far more the over dependence on one variety and potatoes being such a large part of diet from tiny farms being so common. Presumably from having been divided too many times on inheritance.

> It was far more the over dependence on one variety and potatoes being such a large part of diet from tiny farms being so common. Presumably from having been divided too many times on inheritance.

Tenant farmers, by virtue of their tenancy, didn't inherit land that could be subdivided. Absentee landlords didn't manage their Irish properties directly, and had middlemen collect rent for them. Middlemen chose to subdivide properties in order to extract more revenue, leaving only small parcels for tenant farmers to feed themselves from.

The Wikipedia article[1] does a surprisingly good job of covering the causes of the famine:

> The middlemen leased large tracts of land from the landlords on long leases with fixed rents, which they sublet as they saw fit. They would split a holding into smaller and smaller parcels so as to increase the amount of rent they could obtain.

>...

> The 1841 census showed a population of just over eight million. Two-thirds of those depended on agriculture for their survival, but they rarely received a working wage. They had to work for their landlords in return for the patch of land they needed to grow enough food for their own families. This was the system which forced Ireland and its peasantry into monoculture, since only the potato could be grown in sufficient quantity.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Causes_...

...I don't know what viewpoint you're projecting onto my statement, because I'm not defending pesticide companies with it.

Parent and GP expressed that they often worried everything was trying to kill them, I'm trying to provide some perspective on that.

Whenever I feel this way, I try to remember that humans have _never_ lived longer, healthier lives than we do now. On balance, we’re doing pretty well.

The smell of an apple orchard is all sorts of chemicals you've never heard of - that's how smell works.

That's a major factor of why I avoid seed (vegetable) oils as much as reasonable... Mostly stick to butter, lard, coconut oil and sometimes nut oils. If it isn't animal derived or cold pressed, I tend to avoid it.

Is it possible to grow enough food in your backyard to live off of (plus chickens as a yard waste disposal) if you also work full time? I can't even eat at a restaurant without knowing if they use organic produce.

I find this comment kind of funny because the incredible byproduct of modern agriculture (including pesticides) is that the vast majority of the human race can now do something besides toiling away at food production.

Has it been proven beyond doubt that we wouldn't be able to produce enough food without the use of pesticides?

We may be able to support our current population without pesticides (I don't know, I'm not really that immersed in the economics of it), but not without backsliding on the advances we've made against global poverty.

I think this is too pessimistic. If governments would stop messing around with subsidizing certain crops at the expense of others (not to mention so many third world governments cashing in on aid without any of it even getting to their people at all), food prices could be considerably cheaper than they are, even with pesticide-free farming methods. The main reasons for poverty today are political, not technical.

"We don't need known, existing solution X if we solve the incredibly complex and old-as-time problem Y" isn't really a compelling argument. Like, I oppose food subsidies as much as anyone, but 1) I'm not under any illusion that they're going away, and 2) I'm not sure how eliminating them would change the underlying utility that pesticides have.

> I'm not under any illusion that they're going away

They never will if everyone has that attitude. I agree they aren't going to be made to go away instantly; but I don't think they're an "old-as-time problem" either.

> I'm not sure how eliminating them would change the underlying utility that pesticides have.

Eliminating food subsidies would improve things whether pesticides are used or not. They're orthogonal issues.

Of course, a pesticide-free market could exist alongside the status quo. The question is how much more expensive it would be. Mounting revelations like TFA are what drive demand for that.

However, I think consumer confusion is the main challenge for such a market. How many people already think buying organic = no pesticides? Or they see your pesticide-free marketing and think "my bases are already covered: I shop at Trader Joe's."

There are lots of examples of intensive farming in e.g. greenhouses and vertical farms that don't involve pesticides. That's in addition to loads of traditional farmers converting to organic farming and managing decent yields as well. So plenty of proof that it can be done and that it is being done. Whether it scales is more a technical challenge than a scientific question IMHO.

The real problem in farming is not cost but the fact that there are a lot of middlemen taking all the profits. Here in Europe, supermarkets sell produce for vastly more than the farmers ever see. I'm sure the same is true in the US. I'm guessing this is a huge factor in some farmers choosing to go for more lucrative organically farmed crops over the capital intensive traditional way of farming one of few staples using GMO seeds, lots of fertilizer, pesticides, etc. Supermarkets seem to love selling organic foods at twice the price. I doubt that the cost is anywhere near a factor 2.

> The real problem in farming is not cost but the fact that there are a lot of middlemen taking all the profits.

No, that's not the problem. The problem (if you view it as a problem) is that food is now produced very far away from where it is consumed, which means that the process of getting the food to the people who are eating it is now much more complicated and requires much more work. When you buy food at the supermarket, you are not just paying the people who farmed it; you are paying the people who got it all the way from the farm to the supermarket, which, these days, could well be a trip halfway around the world. There are indeed plenty of middlemen in this process, but they are adding value since food on a farm hundreds or thousands of miles from the consumer is no good to the consumer.

(This is not to say that there isn't corruption in the food distribution process; there certainly is. I mentioned government issues in another post in this thread.)

> The problem (if you view it as a problem) is that food is now produced very far away from where it is consumed

The "bananas in Alaska" problem. :) https://www.superbeariga.com/shop#!/?id=12413&department_id=...

Most organic farming still involves some pesticides, they're just organic (and sometimes more toxic).

The difference is between the known interaction of chemicals that have existed for a considerable time as an agricultural product and synthetic chemicals that have unknown interactions.

Organic pesticides and their interactions aren't that well known... hell, all around the interactions of most of the foods people eat, gene expressions and even gut flora leave most data almost meaningless.

Eat food you make from mostly whole sources, avoid sugars (especially refined), avoid grains (especially refined), avoid refined seed/vegetable oils... do those things and you're still doing better than most of the population, even if your veg and meat aren't completely clean.

Toxicity and microbial selectivity are not the same. Whole food's positive biotic selectivity benefits could be negated by toxins present. I'm not really sure what "doing better" means bc it depends on the individual. Less likely to have endocrine disruption? Cancer risk? Better cardiovascular health? The optimal diet depends on your risk profile.

Take any 10 people and give them trace amounts of X (whatever X is) over the course of 5 years... they won't respond the same. Some will go through it easier than other. Some may have allergic response, others won't.

As for the general advice to avoid sugars, grains and seed oils. These are all things whose consumption correlates the most to increases in heart attacks, obesity, dementia and many related diseases. They are absolutely not required for anyone and for most of the population consumed in quantities that cannot be justified as healthy or safe.

Eating lots more vegetables (in scale and variety) and some more fruits (keeping sugar manageable) generally corresponds to better health. Regardless of other macro nutrition (though I feel that meat, eggs and fish are fine). "OPTIMAL" historically speaking has mostly come down to cost and availability. Optimal for man, in general comes down to what could be raised, gathered, hunted or foraged relatively locally. That would include regular periods without food, and a few in excess.

from what i understand, pesticides weren't being used in a big way until the 90's, so the "(including pesticides)" doesn't seem true.

We also have 2.2billion or so more people (+41%) than 1990. You can try to argue that we could do it without pesticides, but it is absolutely true that pesticides have been a huge help towards the output of "modern agriculture".

My wife and I are almost to the point where all of our veggies are from our backyard. Fruit is a WIP as we have a few trees and bushes, but they take a few years to start producing.

We both work full time and spend the weekends out in the yard harvesting/planning. With irrigation to water and a little planning, it becomes a passive hobby.

I will say, I think you'll still need to buy stuff, like beans, broths, spices, etc. You can't have it all in your backyard, but you can have the primaries.

Beans keep being mentioned on the list of things not worth growing, when in fact, I've grown all the beans I've ever needed in very little space. Also the nitrogen fixation in the roots is a significant benefit for growing high protein content beans in less soil. (The roots don't require such a far and wide area for nitrogen scavenging.)

There are plants that grown together can help preserve soil etc. Google the "Three Sisters".

Organic produce uses tons of pesticides some of which are really nasty (but hey it's "natural" copper sulfate), so that's not a solution to anything.

This article explains the use of copper compounds for both conventional and organic apple crops is about the same.

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/05/23/a-behind-the-s...

The author solicited input from many farmers. He openly admits the official record keeping is lacking. So in some cases he has to infer amounts.

Author also gives examples of organic crops which are (generally) more damaging than conventional. Such as organic bananas. TIL.

But the general gist is that organic techniques use much less of much less toxic pesticides.

Ok, now you got me scared because copper is associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Depends on the organic produce.

i thought organic by definition meant that it didn't use pesticides.

No it just means that it uses a particular subset of pesticides and follows certain parameters. Many people will argue that its just a nonsense credential while others will say "better than nothing". I personally count myself in the latter

It depends on the definition of "organic". No sarcasm. There are many. And there is definitely a certain amount of deliberate equivocation whereby the product is labeled as "organic" according to one of the "weaker" standards and they expect you to read the word "organic" as one of the stronger ones, like "no pesticides at all".

Organic by definition means carbon-based. So the rule is: "no synthetic pesticides, only organic ones."

The term "organic" only means something in Europe, because EU has much stricter rules regarding food quality and safety. In US it basically is just a marketing term meaning "overpriced food for hipsters".

Really? We get a lot of "EU-ORG" (the leaf of stars logo) stuff that is also "USDA Organic" labelled. I wonder how many of those products do not have the EU-ORG label in the US.

> EU has much stricter rules regarding food quality

And within the EU the standards are also widely different, especially in the non-EU-ORG stuff.

>Is it possible to grow enough food in your backyard to live off of (plus chickens as a yard waste disposal) if you also work full time?

No. I'd advise against trying unless you know what you're doing - the land around your home might be perfectly safe to live on, but it may well be dangerous to grow food in. Large areas of the San Francisco Bay area have horrendously toxic soil as a legacy of the semiconductor industry; the average gardener isn't equipped to test their soil for contaminants.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/lens/the-superfund-sites-...

Yes, it's possible if your lot isn't too tiny or too shaded and your climate isn't extreme. Even a quarter to a half acre space can grow quite a lot, if you're smart about it. But there will be a lot of learning and the summer effort would be a major hobby for you, no doubt. Chickens or rabbits will need to eat significantly more protein than what yard waste provides if you want meaningful chicken or rabbit output, so plan on either external inputs for them or having a large enough area dedicated to growing their additional beans/corn/seeds. If your lot is small and your goal is to be self contained, then you will probably opt for being vegetarian. Study up on Permaculture methods. There is a lot of wisdom there. Corn and soybeans still pack a lot of nutrition for us, if you can grow them and know how to process them for full effect. (Make masa from corn and tempeh from soybeans.) Potatoes are another option for calories.

That depends on how big your backyard is and where you are located geographically. Assuming you have a temperate climate with decent soil... Can you build or afford to buy a greenhouse & a chicken coop? Do you have space for early, mid & late season orchards? (btw, how good are you at canning?) You'll probably also need a big shed or barn to store your tractor since you won't have the time to work the acres by hand.

No it isn't possible. But if you're married (or cohabitating) it is possible for one of you to focus on wealth creation and the other to focus on supplying edibles such that you both have a good quality of life and reasonably self sufficient food production.

The things you can't produce will be flour, sugar, spices (salt, pepper, Etc.) and will need to import, but with a flock of chickens and a dairy cow, and roughly 5 acres of land you can provide everything else. As I recall the Firefox survivalist series gave a pretty complete recipe for what you needed. You can substitute goats for the cow if you are ok with getting your milk, cheese, and meat that way. I don't recall if there was a purely vegetarian or vegan recipe.

What percentage of the world’s population is in a position to buy 5 acres of arable land and have half the couple tend to the farming full-time? 1 in 10,000? Less?

Maybe a lot? Acres of farmland are pretty cheap. I takes only a mobile home to live there. Well, plus a well and septic tank. Maybe $25K?

As a Fermi problem, to try to understand the overall scale, I was intrigued to learn that there’s about the same number of arable acres of land as people in the world. Naturally, neither of these things is evenly distributed.

In the place where my well-paying job is, it would be difficult for us to afford 5 arable acres on one locally top 5% income within a reasonable commute to my work.

You are conflating the terms "possible" and "practical" :-)

There are communication technologies today that have made this more practical. 10 Gigabit microwave links are a thing these days.

That said, there are a lot of variables. Community gardens, barter systems, and others which once you open up the problem to the question "can a community be self sufficient" you get into village design.

[1] https://www.cablefree.net/cablefree-millimeter-wave-mmw/10g/

Likely impossible to be fully self-sufficient while also working full time, but you can be strategic and pick fruits & vegetables that get you the most bang for your buck- e.g. how much it lowers your exposure vs gardening effort per kilo or calorie.

Setting aside labor, it's generally considered that self-sufficient gardening requires anywhere between 0.5-2 acres of land, which is far bigger than your typical backyard.

The basic argument is that you can’t get enough calories from a back yard garden, for a city lot.

You can chose to purchase staple crops and get a considerable variety of produce and herbs from your yard, or you can dedicate every square inch to calories and die of malnutrition.

Or for less work, you can improve your quality of life by focusing on a smaller array of fresh produce and herbs from your yard, and buy everything else.

Without pesticides? As an layman I doubt it. A few friends in my neighborhood started a garden and one of us said we couldn't use any pesticides that weren't organic. Bugs and fungus destroyed most of our crops. We spent hours and hours sitting on our knees rubbing soapy water on the bottom of the zucchini leaves trying to get rid of the squash bugs, to zero effect.

I finally called enough and said we were dusting everything with sevendust. The next day all the bugs were gone. I have no idea how people could farm on the ground, in any quantity, without pesticides.

I don't mean to be haunting your comments, but you might want to look into organic pest control and techniques like companion planting. There's this popuar traditional American Indian one called the Three Sisters Garden, which is a method of growing three specific crops together that all benefit from each other's individual strengths to thrive and better fend off some pathogens.

Regarding your squash bugs, if I remember correctly, some ants will hunt them without hurting your crops. That's maybe a little counter-intuitive, but it might be worth looking into.

People have been farming organically for thousands of years. I'm sure much of it just comes down to knowledge about various crops and the local environment and then applying common sense and creativity.

If you don't know how to grow food, there's this project that will seed and take care of plants https://farm.bot From what I read, this produces enough veggies for a family of four all year round.

Now producing beans, rice or wheat is another matter. I don't think its possible without moving to your own farm

Gonna call bullshit on that claim. I've seen estimates that an acre feeds 2-20 people. Assuming 20 people, that's roughly 2000 ft^2/person, which is 10 times bigger than the 200 ft^2 size of their larger model. Not going to believe packing plants close together is going to give an advantage of 40x more produce.

If the soil is rich enough and the growing season is long enough, then possibly, in that space, you could schedule growing enough salad vegetables and various root vegetables that a family would usually eat in a year. This is assuming that a fraction of their total calories would come from this source and most would continue coming from purchased grain products and meats.

Don't include beans on that list! They are the easiest of all to produce, as long as your summer isn't too terribly cold. Maybe you were thinking of corn?

Presumably the parent is referring to dry beans, which aren't exactly fun to process by hand. I grow them commercially and when we want to thresh even a small amount (i.e. nothing close to what one would want to sustain themselves on) for a moisture sample without having to take the combine to the field, it is a lot of work. Same goes for wheat. Anything that normally goes through a combine, really.

Theoretically there should be nothing stopping one from growing any of those crops in small scale, assuming the right climate and soil conditions. There are small scale separating units that can be used to deal with the above. But it is tough to compete with the economies of scale that commercial operations have. These crops in particular are probably the most efficiently grown farm products of all. The cost of growing them at home will scare away most.

I normally look forward to shelling my black beans by hand as I find it pleasant and relaxing, but yes, it does take some time that way, even for a few cups. However, I've also put loads of the shells into a sack when they were all pretty much dried and vigorously worked it over for less than a minute. Then, nearly all the beans will come pouring out into a pan where a fan or a little blowing will take out the little dry bits of shell. Not much work at all, though wheat is probably a lot tougher to do that way.

A friend asked me why I bother with dry beans, when they are so cheap to buy anyway. I replied that I can control the inputs, resulting in the highest quality beans, and they are so easy to grow, so why not? I'm not growing a ton of them to sell, so I care less about the economies of scale.

Maybe not enough to live off, but you would be surprised by what is possible. Check out https://happenfilms.com/film/the-plummery (free to watch, ~10 minutes).

> I can't even eat at a restaurant without knowing if they use organic produce.

That doesn't make sense. Organic produce isn't healthier than conventional produce. Even worse it requires significantly more water and allows for nastier pesticides and herbicides. Read up on the history of organic farming and look at what certification allows.

No, and this attitude of saving yourself so the rest of us can suffer is a large part of the problem with America. It only is better than the other attitude where you can make others suffer and profit off of it.

If the US government is willing to directly subsidize corporate farms with corn subsidies, the least they can do is regulate them.

totally agree. If subsidies are given then the it should be possible to tell farms to go organic or whatever.

Only 90?? What does the other 10 do to avoid pesticides????

Maybe 1/10 Americans only eat meat and over processed grains. They have different problems.

Meat and grain also have the pesticides in them though.

It's not like that meat doesn't eat processed grains too. They have more problems than just the produce.

Maybe they've mutated to be better at breaking down and ejecting the pesticides from their bodies? Or they live in remote communes where they grow all their own foods.

10% of Americans do not eat their own food exclusively.

I think it’s more likely that 10% buy exclusively organic, and that the organic label is more honest than I thought. But that stretches the imagination too (do these high income individuals not eat out???)

I wonder if organic food is any better. I recall reading they use much more "natural" pesticides on organic produce. Is growing your own stuff in a backyard I don't have really the only way to avoid pesticides?

Most of what I've seen has shown that it is indeed better, although not perfect. E.g. glyphosate is detectable in organic wine, but at much lower levels (5x?) compared to regular wine.

Glyphosate is not approved for organic use so that's an irrelevant point.

Whether total pesticide load (however you want to measure that) is higher or lower for organic vs conventional, varies widely with crop, location and farming method.

There are toxic organic pesticides like copper-based compounds that persist in the soil. And things like strawberry fields are fumigated with methyl bromide regardless of organic or conventional.

There is not perfect data on the harmfulness of many synthetic pesticides, so it's really hard to make a great judgment on whether it's worse or better for you - unless you have general faith that petroleum derived mystery cocktails are pretty much always going to be harmful.

It's all bad when it comes down to it, we should prefer something like permaculture.

> Glyphosate is not approved for organic use so that's an irrelevant point.

Actually it is a pretty interesting point.

Saying "there's less glyphosate therefore less pesticide" is poor reasoning, because glyphosate is replaced with other, generally more toxic, pesticides in organic crops.

It's interesting that organic crops have glyphosate despite it being banned for use with them, but that's a separate discussion.

No it isn't. Glyophosate is broadspectrum herbicide for use with gmo glyophosate resistant crops only, there is no organic analogue to this. Also consider that the concentration used is much higher for glyophosate application and the reduced ability for it to be filtered from ground water creates additional externalities.

There is indeed no organic analog for glyphosate. But there are other pesticides that are routinely applied to organic crops, such as copper sulfate, pyrethrin or rotenone. Both copper sulfate and rotenone are moderately toxic to people, and rotenone is highly toxic to fish.

Rotenone (which has it's usage restricted in omri) and pyrethrin are pesticides, copper sulfate is anti fungal; these non synthetic moderately toxic treatments are replaced with other, generally more toxic treatments in non-organic crops.

Methyl Bromide was nearly completely phased out in the US as of 2005.

https://www.epa.gov/ods-phaseout/phaseout-class-i-ozone-depl...

Fair point however it wasn't fully phased out until 2016. Here is a study of what farmers have done afterwards: http://calag.ucanr.edu/Archive/?article=ca.2017a0017&shareba...

I wonder if wine from the EU is better at having less pesticides?

Lots of small wine producers across Europe differentiate by producing grapes using organic farming. If you are competing on quality, using a lot of pesticides might not be the best idea here.

Competition is pretty strong and super markets tend to have a decent selection on their shelves where I live. Prices are not noticably higher. You can buy some OK organic wines for around 5 euros here in Germany. IMHO having a lot of pesticides in the food chain is probably not a great idea. Even if it is probably fine, why take the chance? Finding out we're wrong might take decades.

The EU has a far shorter list of approved pesticides than the US. Whether that translates to "less pesticides" is unclear but hopefully it at least translates to "less harm."

Human milk could not be sold commercially, because levels of many contaminants exceed legal limits. And ironically, indigenous peoples in the far north have among the highest levels. Because they live in a global cold trap.

Is this supposed to be novel in some way that I'm missing? Of course you have chemicals in your body which are heavily sprayed on your food.

I just see it as a reminder that our food production system is set up in such a way that it is almost impossible not to regularly consume poison. Similar to the occasional article that reminds us, yes, the animals we eat were unnecessarily tortured before they made it to our plate.

At this point it becomes difficult to find a proper control group for testing the absence of these items.

I'm a farmer from the UK and have an agronomist who advises us on pesticide applications.

He visited the USA and said, when he stepped into their spray sheds, it was like going back in time 40 years: all kinds of chemicals that have been banned in the UK were still allowed in the USA (organophosphates etc).

Of course if the article doesn't state the amount of pesticides found, it doesn't tell you anything really, but I wouldn't trust American food standards based on my anecdotal experience, flawed may it be.

Assuming pesticides are widespread and pervasive, it seems rather improbable to suggest that up to 10% of Americans don't have trace amounts of pesticides. Is there anyone who doesn't have, for instance, uranium, in their bodies?

I'll go you one better, 100% of Americans have chemicals in their bodies, such as dihydrogen monoxide which causes certain death if inhaled in sufficient quantities.

Plastics and pesticides

both of which should be illegal. (at least banning plastics for single-use items)

One problem is that we usually take the easy approach to designing pesticides. They tend to be poisonous to a wide variety of animals, instead of just to the specific pests we are actually trying to kill.

Then we have to come up with some way to try to keep things other than the pests from getting exposed. Maybe we try to make it break down into something safe before it gets farther up the food chain. Maybe we make it so it washes off easily so cleaning the food is good enough (and hopefully we do something sensible with the runoff from that washing...).

There's another way, but it takes a lot more work and so it isn't done much. This is to study each specific insect you want to control, to develop a deep understanding of its life cycle. You identify the hormones that are involved in regulating and timing the life cycle.

You then make your pesticide based on those hormones, so that when exposed to it the insect's life cycle gets messed up. For example, suppose you've got an insect that mates and lays eggs during the warmer part of summer, and you find that the eggs need that heat to develop and hatch. Identify the hormones that regulate that, and you might be able to make a pesticide that causes that insect to lay its eggs too early, and the next generation dies out.

The beauty of this approach is that since the hormone your pesticide is based on already occurs naturally in your target insects, whatever is above them in the food chain has already evolved to not be bothered by it. All you are doing is messing with the timing of it in the insect, not its existence. So that hormone based pesticides are inherently much much safer than the general poison based pesticides.

But as I said, this is more expensive. Each species is probably going to require a pesticide specifically for it. This would probably take several PhD entomologists per species working for years.

If you do study a given insect and its life cycle to that extent, you also might be able to learn to control it without pesticides, especially in the case of invasive insects.

For example, lets say you've got an invasive moth that is attacking your crops and devastating them. In its native habitat, that moth's population is kept in check by parasitic wasps that lay their eggs in the moth's larvae. You might be able to deal with the invasive moths by importing those wasps. But you only would want to try that if you knew enough about the wasps to know that they would not become a problem too. If you know that the wasps only lay eggs on the larvae of that one moth species, great...bring a ton of the wasps, they'll wipe out the moths, and then the wasps won't have any place for their eggs and they die too.

Something like this was actually tried once, with an invasion of some Florida pest attacking California citrus groves. They brought in the wasps (or whatever--I don't actually remember if it was wasps, or something else)...and the wasps all died without harming the moths.

Later, they figured out that what they had thought was one species of parasitic wasps was really two very similar species, and only one of those two would control the particular pest they were trying to eliminate. There were only something like two parasitic wasp experts in the whole US at the time, and there are an unbelievable number of different parasitic wasp species so most of them have never been studied extensively.

aka, food. do you eat it?

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