Food Crops Often Exposed to Toxic Poisons
Food shipments are often found exceeding the legal limits of toxic chemical pesticides and are seized. But this isn’t the whole sad story of food poisoning. First of all, only shipments destined for interstate commerce are checked, and only a small fraction of the country’s total produce ever comes under the scrutiny of an inspector.
Many tons and truckloads of lettuce containing pesticide residues “in excess of legal tolerance” will stay within the state or community where they are grown and not be checked at all! As far as shipments across state lines, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration will be the first to admit that, because of limited manpower, only a fraction of the fruit and vegetable shipments in interstate commerce are checked.
The frightening truth is that a high percentage of the field crops you are eating have been sprayed with a wide variety of deadly poisons! These include chlorinated hydrocarbons, pesticides, toxic fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, and other phosphorus and toxic compounds that are used in growing. The contamination of salad vegetables doesn’t stop with spraying the leafy portion of the plant. Medical researchers have discovered that many chemicals such as fertilizers and weed killers applied to the soil can remain there for a long time and are then absorbed by succeeding crops grown in the fields. The poison finally ends up in the pulp of the vegetable itself. It becomes part of it and cannot be washed off! Please start demanding organic produce!
No doubt it has occurred to you that if the vegetables in your salad are contaminated you should make some effort to get rid of this poisonous residue before you eat too much of it. You might feel that peeling off the skin of a tomato or removing the outer layer of the lettuce will do the job. It won’t. Some of the residue will be removed, certainly, but there will be more in lower leaves and in the pulp itself. The chemicals cannot even be broken down by cooking! The poison is part of the plant and is there to stay. So eat organic and don’t panic!
