Sola dosis facit venenum. It's not about that its there, its about how much there is. My guess is not enough to warrant the effort it took to write this article.
Yes and no. In the intentional absence of published studies on the impact on mammals of most pesticides, we're left with little to go on except presence. Yes, I do mean to imply that there are studies on potential health impacts that are privately funded and conducted by manufacturers that we will never see, much as there were studies of smoking done by tobacco companies and studies of global warming done by oil companies.
A cautious person would assume that lack of proof (or more accurately, lack of information proving or disproving) doesn’t mean lack of harm.
If you live to 85 and get cancer, by all means try and figure out how to deal with the cancer, but a positive mindset would also appreciate that you lived to 85.
Bodies had no time to evolve to deal with modern pesticides. Any idea what time evolution takes to do what it does?
> a positive mindset would also appreciate that you lived to 85.
I think that's besides the point. Because that does not rule out that getting older i.e. losing from a disease later in life is not in some other way advantageous.
What if, consumers can add 5 years on average to our lives by eating exclusively organic produce, and we can also show that organic production harms nature significantly less, should we not move on use this wisdom to kill off some cash cows for an ugly-ass "agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation"?
Sure, some people can't handle lactose, they have different responses to booze, etc.
But, broadly, our bodies have much more general mechanisms to deal with contaminants, which is why our DNA is vastly simpler than plants that can't simply get up and move but must be able to survive in whatever toxins or pests are around them.
> I think that's besides the point.
> What if, consumers can add 5 years on average to our lives by eating exclusively organic produce...
Say it's smoking, since that probably is on the order of 5 years. No doubt, the smart thing to do is to quit. If you thought organic farming made cows happy, that's a good reason, too. If you think you benefit or you're doing something to make the world better, go for it, that makes sense.
What I noticed is you say "eating exclusively organic" and the GP wrote (sarcastically) "everything is perfect in modern food industry".
I think that binary view indicates an underlying assumption that our bodies must be pure, which dates back to the oldest religious practices; halal, kosher, etc.
That's not crazy, we should obviously keep ourselves clean and avoid poisonous stuff. But your body is a host to all kinds of relatively benign parasites, your own stomach ferments a tiny bit of alcohol, you're stuck eating and breathing in all kinds of crap.
And I think that's my dispute: the world isn't pure, nature isn't pure, our bodies aren't pure.
Which is why I'm more inclined to focus on the time I am alive than worry about a few extra years I could have squeezed out if I'd jumped on the latest health craze.
> ... should we not move on use this wisdom to kill off some cash cows for an ugly-ass "agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation"?
If we can get the prices on organic food down to where we can feed cities without famines, sure.
That different from evolution. When those that can handle smth (booze, lactose) better produce more offspring, that selective breeding. Evolving to be better off with lactose-all-life-long or booze takes a lot (A LOT) longer. Non of that is demonstrated for either lactose or booze.
> And I think that's my dispute: the world isn't pure, nature isn't pure, our bodies aren't pure.
So lets create all kinds of molecules that the have never been seen before and spread them in the food supply to increase yields/sales, because we serving the holy purpose of impurity.
I prefer I have the choice as a consumer. And I think give the choice at equal cost most people will choose poison-free.
> If we can get the prices on organic food down to where we can feed cities without famines, sure.
Easy, but it comes at a cost. For instance "no more animal products", this will open up enough land and subsidy budget to make organic plant-based for everyone viable.
Animal product another ugly-ass industry right there.