Chlorpyrifos: Pesticide tied to brain damage in children
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Oftopic but related, In Morocco, too, strawberries are irrigated with sewage water, and several times this year consignments of strawberries contaminated with hepatitis virus have been detected, but unfortunately they have also entered the EU.
The point is that if health is at risk, then it should be banned at each of its sources, importation included.
Morocco is preparing a major import hub through the Canary Islands, which is expected to "un-label" the source of products, I guess.
Is aware the EU about this?
The legislation is pretty clear imho. Raw food needs to be labelled when it comes to the origin. Even processed food needs to state the origin of their main ingredient.
Good point on moroccan stuff, will try to avoid it in the future.
For instance to circumvent the embargo of fruit trees in Russia, Dutch farmers use Belarus to relabel the origin their products and continue selling. This was before the war, but probably still going on.
Olive Oil is also a fun one: "Operation Golden Oil (2008, Italy): In March 2008, 400 Italian police officers conducted “Operation Golden Oil,” arresting 23 people and confiscating 85 farms after uncovering a large-scale scheme to relabel oils from other Mediterranean nations as Italian ."
https://ilcircolo.eu/unveiling-the-truth-combating-olive-oil...
Citation please!
Hepatitis A contamination of frozen fruits happens from time to time all around the world, but I thought it was usually linked to the picking process and processing plants. Not that irrigation can’t be blamed, but some single digit hours of sunlight exposure should inactivate viruses (even the non-enveloped kind).
Maybe US recommends more because the people making the recommendations know they won’t have to pay for it and take the lowest-risk approach regardless of cost.
Largely you didn’t need it if your food handling/hygiene standards are good, but when you flash freeze foods from anywhere, you dial up the freshness and risk.
Yes, of course the EU is aware of this. Health and Food regulations apply to the products grown inside the EU. There may be partial import restrictions on GMO products and hormone-boosted meat, but other food products are generally allowed in.
This is even more true with organic products, that are subjected to stringent norms and checks in the EU, but absolutely no checks when coming from outside the EU.
So when buying organic bananas, from say, Africa, the probability of them actually not being organic is close to 1. Organic olive oil from Turkey? Well, let's say you can be happy if it is olive oil at all. Honey from China? Hmm.. Well.. Let's say that with 150'000 tons exported a year, their counterfeiting labs are better funded and equipped than the fraud-detection labs on the EU side.
So, if you want a quality product with a relative certainty you're not being defrauded (or worse, poisoned), you buy European. Anything else? You're on your own.
> which is expected to "un-label" the source of products
That is not legal. But, of course, fraud exists everywhere, unfortunately.
At least in Spain, it's common to see strawberries with unmarked origin or, even worse, "Origin: Spain" but it happens to be a Spanish company that brings them from Morocco and only does the packaging.
(BTW, not sure if each of these things is legal or not. But the fact is that they happen. I would be happy with actually enforced laws that mandated specifying the actual origin of everything).
They still need some of the product to come from the EU to be able to claim "EU", but if they don't go through the effort to write on the packaging which parts come from where, the product is possibly mostly non-EU, yes.. :-P
And you can put your money on it that they have lobbied hard so as not to have to put the exact countries of origin on their packages. All under the "That would make the packaging confusing for consumers" guise. Or the "Our product chain is too complex, and that would be very inconvenient" guise..
Blueberries, same thing, but they are free from the forest.
Of course, strawberries won't be whole and firm once they are frozen with some sugar, but the taste of summer is there.
Depending on your location there's a decent list of plants you can grow for practically zero maintenance that will produce more of that food than one family can consume, forever. Some of them are way more work to remove than introduce.
Its harder and harder, but if one really cares in Europe, you have to focus on well-known brands (or whole supermarket chains if you have those) that have long term reputation to uphold.
Here in Switzerland its a bit easier (and EU food products are generally viewed as subpar), but you pay, and you pay a lot.
At the end, you get what you pay for, and there is not that much room for too-good deals which are not scams in some way. And prepare to just don't buy stuff if you don't find suitable things, and replace with something else. And focus on seasonal local stuff as much as possible (I guess residents of say Trondheim are casting a dark look on this)
However, in spite of the blandness and the working conditions problem you mention, I do trust Spanish fruit to generally not have hepatitis A or EU-banned pesticides, so I'd still take it over Moroccan imports any day, at least if I am given the information to choose.
(Not that you can trust any small fruit store either... but some are good).
https://www-consumer-es.translate.goog/seguridad-alimentaria...
If by chance you go to an street market and you don't see or trust labelling you can go or ask. Any other place origin is properly labeled. Of course not only for vegetables and fruits but also for fish, seafood and meat.
In practice, the supermarket where I typically buy (because it's closest to home) is hit and miss. Sometimes they specify the origin, sometimes they don't. I'm sure if I asked they would tell me, but the process would probably involve an overworked cashier asking an equally overworked manager, plenty of waiting, making other customers wait as well, and being seen as the nitpicky guy who is always asking. Ideally it's what we all should do, but in practice I and most people I know have no time or willpower for that.
On the other hand, in small fruit stores and markets, the overwhelming majority of the fruit doesn't specify origin. I can ask and at those places I will probably get an immediate answer, of course. But then I have to trust the word of someone whose primary motivation is to sell me the fruit. My bet is that many wouldn't acknowledge it's from Morocco. And it's not like I can check.
If it were so easy, newspapers wouldn't be publishing "tricks" to try to identify Spanish fruit:
https://www-elespanol-com.translate.goog/cocinillas/actualid...
https://www-larazon-es.translate.goog/sociedad/asi-puedes-co...
Tricks that sadly aren't even guaranteed to work, because a Spanish company selling fruit from Morocco can use a Spanish barcode.
Apples, peaches, grapes and oranges are also high up on that list..
The import switch trick exists, but is nonetheless illegal. So is mislabeling food origin (even from within the EU). For instance, I know that the health authorities in France go to open-air markets and road-side stalls to check that produces have labels, and that the country of origin is correct. (EU onions, as an example, is not an appropriate labeling. Nor is labeling Italian onions as regional onions..)
Of course, the local authorities might not have the will or incentives to strictly enforce your consumer rights..
All this news are linked directly, with the current farmers protests. Farmers that are being manipulated very obviously by political agents on parties that in turn are puppets supported (and probably directed) by "outer group" in a divide-and-conquer mode, with their own agendas to promote".
So French farmers were incited to destroy Spanish fruits, and then Spanish farmers where wipped up against Morocco farmers; and then angry Polish farmers started to destroy Ukrainian grain exports (a incredibly stupid move for Poland interests). All at the same time, veery curious.
Good if they solve part of the problems, but this path is a double-edged sword. We like it or not, we live in a globalized world. "Qatar announce that will not export diesel for Spanish tractors anymore", and the Morocco strawberries will became a "clean as snow" new superfood overnight. Trust me.
What you are suggesting is to use coaction, blackmailing, to stop analyzing imports into the EU, or to hide the results, that cross the EU's southern borders.
Don't you think that we are extremely tired of seeing French vandals --again-- assaulting and destroying Spanish fruit trucks while the gendarmerie just watch the cargo burn?. This people is attacking legal EU companies and the French police act as necessary accomplices that allow it. French government couldn't care less; they even do jokes on TV about it. Is the same stupid stunt since 70's, each time they need a scapegoat to divert the attention.
Do you think that this will increase the appetite of Spaniards for French products in the near future?. I seriously doubt it. Each action triggers a reaction
Second. Quality controls on EU is not a new thing. A lot of people works detecting and stopping dangerous products since decades. Thousands of this products are silently stopped and removed each year so, why do you think that this is suddenly breaking news? Have you heard about the recent scandal of Spanish strawberry farmers stealing water and sucking dry the Doñana National park?
Buy a kilo of flour from a seller in Morocco, and he probably was storing that flour on the street. Directly on the street - not on a plastic bag or anything. He'll literally shovel the flour from his pile on the street into your bag.
Is there a possibility that if things could have been more optimal for the delicate balance of different life forms on Earth, nature would have done it all by itself?
Is there even a way to get back to natural state of things? Can the food we produce be considered "natural" at all, or we have altered the chemistry of the whole chain so much that we are now all doomed on this planet to shuffle diseases around different social classes and species ad eternum?
Good morning, all!
Realistically, never, because these chemicals are solving real problems for us. We would need to be willing to leave problems unsolved for decades to do this.
Back to when 75% of the population worked in the fields many of them as slaves? Surely you don't want that back.
'We'? Maybe never, maybe a successor civilization will, maybe we'll figure out simulation and organ on a chip well enough to do those long term studies in only a year or two
Not for the scale we operate at, at least for our current level of ecological mastery. I presume you're gesturing at different planting techniques that reduce reliance on pesticides. Not endorsing the paradigm.
Yes and no. Yes, because we are in a state of nature - we are nature. No, because we've been modifying our environment for thousands of years, you might not even recognize the precursors as food. The chemistry isn't altered, the organism is.
..shuffling diseases.. around different social classes? Huh. What a suspicious thing to say
I'm not saying we can't get better at predicting the side effects of things we introduce into the system. But I do think regarding the cat and mouse game as "industry vs nature" is reductive dualism and shallow thinking. We are nature. Considering humanity as apart from nature was one of our more misguided ideas.
Industry is a part of nature, an active participant, not in opposition to it. We were doomed to shuffle diseases around long before industry. There is an explosion of novel chemicals that we have introduced into the environment, and they will no doubt change things. Humans evolved in a world that is not the world we are creating, and we very well might not be fit for the future we're creating. But let's not call what we're doing "unnatural." That just serves as a kind of denial that we are active participants, and reinforces a subtle idea that we are Gods apart from "Nature."
This is precisely what people mean by saying what we are doing is unnatural.
But let's not call what we're doing "unnatural."
But most people believe this is the right word to use. I don’t think they will change their minds.
I think it tends to be easier for people on HN to get caught in this kind of “but it’s technically true” fallacy. We’re trained to constantly look for patterns and generalize the crap out of things so it’s a natural inclination.
I can't say how accurate that theory is, but I know that one way or another, we're going to need an Earth 2 if the species is going to survive so I'm glad we've got people funding space exploration. NASA sure as hell isn't getting the budget to do it.
And this contemporary use of the word isn't really in accord with the traditional meaning, if we can say that, certainly not the traditional philosophical view. Nature concerns the nature of the thing. Thus, the nature of water is to be wet and transparent in its liquid state, but equally, the nature of certain plastics is to be flexible within certain conditions. And we can extend this to organisms: the nature of human beings is to be rational; the nature of lions is to hunt prey and consume their flesh; the nature of synthetic water is identical to the nature of water found in a puddle; the nature of corn is to grow to produce the fruit that we happen to eat.
Now, in a traditional philosophical context, we may speak of creation, that is, all that is, metaphysically speaking, contingent, that which did not need to exist, or that which cannot account for its own existence, not just in time, but here and now. This draws the distinction between creation and creator, that is to say, that cause which causes things to be and which itself is not a thing, not contingent, and does not require a cause, as it is that cause. But this has nothing to do with distinguishing between things we already find in the world, and things made by human beings, like pesticides or artifacts or synthetic objects. Everything that is is creation in this sense, man-made or otherwise.
Also according to this traditional metaphysical view is how human beings differ from other embodied living things, and that is the capacity to reason and the capacity to choose (either in accord or against reason, effectively). And these faculties of intellect and will, dependent as they are on the physical to function, but inexplicable as physical phenomenon as such, mean human beings are a unity of the physical and immaterial. It is not my intent to prove this claim here (it has to do with the act of abstraction and matter as the principle of individuation, if you're interested; you might find this video of use [0]). The point is to show a sound basis for making certain distinctions, none of which conform to the woolly, contemporary notion of "nature".
What we might say is that the pesticide in question, because of its nature, is harmful to human beings, because of our nature.
Consumers are to blame too. They won't accept blemished produce, but a potato with some insect larvae in it, is really not that much of an issue. You just remove around the larvae and cook as per usual, and that is much healthier than dosing your produce with pesticides, that cannot easily be washed off.
So as long as the potato isn’t rotted you wouldn’t even have to remove it.
Biggest risk might be, ironically, if the insect contained pesticides.
I really hope this happens.
Why is not everybody doing this at scale? Mostly I think because it requires advanced, state of the art knowledge and goes against current practice in some ways. We are only just finding out how plants actually take up nutrition (which is wild to me), and barely have uncovered the life in the soil. A lot of farmers are old, and their teachers espoused the view that soil life is literally irrelevant to farming and everything comes down to soluble fertilizers + pesticides, herbicides, fungicides. Crudely simplified it is the agricultural equivalent of putting someone on an intensive care bed, feeding them liquid food with a tube and killing every germ with antibiotics. It works and is not too hard, but the results aren't that good actually. Now try becoming a healthy person overcoming illness in the wild, its a bit more complex than feeding through a tube and taking antibiotics.
Creating healthy food in a healthy way requires much more knowledge and sometimes (not always) a bit more labor, and a lot of it is going against what people know. Agriculture doesn't like to take risks. A lot of money depends on things staying as they are. A couple of big failures and you are out. Its not as easily disrupted as software.
Take a look at the work of John Kempf if you want to find out more: https://advancingecoag.com/
There's research being done, for example by the bionutrient institute, that tells us nutritional values vary a lot. The exact same crop can have a 5 to 300 times difference in some nutrients (like vitamines) between lowest and highest performing crop.
The chemicals plants use specifically to repel insects, (secondary metabolites), are especially important and healthy for us to consume.
here's a list of stuff that's in/on food nowadays, you're probably an outlier if your gut is undamaged at 40
Herbicides https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/high-rates-of-sui...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39383739 Chlormequat in food and urine from adults in the United States from 2017 to 2023
Fungicides
Insecticides
https://usrtk.org/pesticides/chlorpyrifos/nematicides
Ripening agents https://extension.umd.edu/resource/ethylene-and-regulation-f...
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/ethylene-propylene-glycol/toxicological_effects.html
from the atsdr article: ethylene glycol can be converted into oxolate, which is an Anti Nutrient that binds to calcium
https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/agns/pdf/CXS_193e....
Those are all good ideas! If I had a magic wand to wave to create that world, I would. But, in the world as it exists, it's really, really difficult to persuade enough people to change behavior (and legislation) enough to make all that happen quickly.
Barring disaster, of course. Which may be where "conventional" agriculture is taking us.
I find the whole subject, and many others of modernity, depressing: we know what has to be done, but see no way of achieving it.
Anyone have anything cheerful to tell me?
Current legislation and politics doesn't help, but true regenerative ag (not greenwashed) will also outperform conventional ag in the free market eventually. This is beyond just organic, making use of the latest scientific insights, on plant sap analysis and being data driven.
The notion that we need to have a fraction cheaper foodstuffs at the expense of poisoning the environment and ourselves is already dead, the job now is primarily to document the havoc and point to viable solutions.
Not just for the farmers, but also for the agrochemical industry, which has a lot of cash flow and invested capital to lose from the success of regenerative farming techniques.
Permaculture may require more in certain forms of labor costs, but it's offset by a reduction in costs spent on crop treatment. Money that would go to labor instead of capital, that reduces negative externalities (and in fact exudes positive externalities, because it has the potential to make farms a carbon sink) should be seen as a win, societally. Unfortunately, those varieties of reversal are often presented as a technological step "backwards" – be wary.
That chemistry, like fertilizers, is why we can feed 8 billion people.
I am not saying not use anything. But have long term studies paid by producers of said things (with oversight of government) and then let it on your crops. Currently its exact opposite and government reacts after SHTF, utter stupidity if you care about more than just immediate profits.
They think like this: as long as there is an absence of evidence of harm in the initial science, then that means evidence of absence. Long-term, higher-order effects & unknown unknowns are ignored in Scientism, and this ignorance is status quo.
It's the same mentality underpinning the approach to GMO foods & insects, dropping agent orange in Vietnam, and killing sparrows in Mao's China. It's the very spirit of modernity.
You're painting with far too broad of a brush. I personally see a lot of push back on HN against those "philosophies".
Genetically-modified foods are fine: the main problem is when GM plants are wind-pollinated. And even that's largely due to patent law[0]: the harms of wind-pollination from monoculture is there regardless of where the genes come from.
Genetic modifications to insects are only to wipe out populations, as far as I can tell – it doesn't hugely matter what the long-term side-effects are, in that case, because there won't be any organisms around to experience them. There was a lot of research done into the effects of anti-mosquito gene drives before the (very recent) releases into the wild, because we have learned from the Four Pests campaign.
[0]: https://www.iatp.org/news/monsanto-the-seeds-of-dispute
There’s no optimum, only trade-offs. But under capitalism, the problems all reduce to “make more X with less”. If GDP is increasing, we’re doing great - doesn’t matter if life sucks.
Everything is optimized until it all turns into shit.
It's a curious question, how many eff-ups humanity needs to learn what's the optimal way to do something that's fairly new.
Do we need to introduce and be forced to withdraw tens of substances? Hundreds? Thousands? How many failures until we can learn from them how to do this properly?
How long did it take for aerospace industry?
> The chemical is not allowed on organic crops.
Phew.
It's really sad because it doesn't seem like there's anything any individual can do about it. I think these issues are honestly far more serious than global warming. They are causing serious problems RIGHT NOW everywhere. I think within the next 20 years even we're going to see many consequences related to these issues. I'd like to believe we can bioscience our way through this mess but I really think that won't be the case.
Fundamentally, I think proactive decision making takes a lot of time, energy, and work both on the individual and collective scales. I think it almost boils down to a physics problem where that just ends up being overtaken by the negative trend caused by exponential growth + the environmental equivalent of technical debt.
You can't solve the big thing, but there's some control over lifestyle imho.
Otherwise, I concur.
If we ate locally grown food and prioritized food that's not heavily processed, that would probably help. Throw in a plant based diet and your gut will probably be pretty happy overall.
The point which I want to make is that many effective chemicals have been discovered long ago but are not in the interest of the industry because the patents expired already.
1. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13762-015-0899-6
I tried to build a vision system to at least identify wax on apples, but even that is too hard. There was an Israeli startup couple of years ago that built some device but it looks like it was a flop.
So, not that hard to avoid depending on where you live. Apparently corn, soybeans, wheat, fruit trees are some of the most common crops it's used on.
https://www.apvma.gov.au/resources/chemicals-news/chlorpyrif...
Europe shipping banned pesticide linked to child brain damage to Global South https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2023/03/28/eu-banned-pestic...
A quick search seems to indicate that imported food can still have been grown with chlorpyrifos: https://www.eurofins.de/food-analysis/food-news/food-testing...
Since we import a fair bit of vegetables and fruit during winter, we may still consume it here in the EU area.
Also, Ascenza Agro and Industries Afrasa that sell chlorpyrifos based products recently tried to overturn this ban, but luckily were not able to: https://www.env-health.org/victory-for-health-european-gener...
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications...
Soybeans: For controlling various insects such as aphids and beetles.
Fruit trees: Including apples, oranges, and stone fruits to manage pests like codling moth and citrus thrips.
Vegetables: Such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and other leafy vegetables to combat caterpillars and other insect larvae.
Almonds and nuts: To protect against a range of insect pests. Cotton: Used for bollworms, aphids, and other pests affecting cotton crops.
The word "organic" is largely a marketing gimmick.
/biochemist,fwiw
If you read the Organic Standards (linked on this page https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/organic-certification/orga...) you'll see it's an earnest attempt to deal with a really complicated subject.
I don't trust industrialized agriculture, especially not here in the US.
personally, I grow as much of my food as I can (lots of fruits trees and very large garden), especially from the dirty 15. and those that I can't grow, I buy organic though that doesn't always save you completely.
Don't think we will get a well thought out argument given the user's comment history, a bit of a loony with a taste for hot takes with weird hyperbole.
> Dr. Kathleen Jamieson [professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania and author of a recent article on conspiracists’ exploitation of uncertainty in COVID-19 science] argued USRTK’s work deserved scrutiny because of its funding and affiliations. But she also noted that the organization’s published research stopped short of open conspiracy theorizing on the virus’ origins.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/us-right-to-know-fave-mainstre...
Is there something specific you'd like to point out?