Avoiding Exposure to Food Toxins

Enjoy your food, by all means. But environmental toxins place stress on our bodies, too. So if you can, try to have a safe food supply. Your weekly groceries probably contain residues from pesticides and other toxins, hormones in meat products, and a number of extras you may not have bargained for, but that were fed to your meat when it was still alive. These extras include feed additives, antibiotics, and tranquilizers. Meanwhile, most packaged foods contain dyes and flavors from a variety of chemical concoctions. The quality of the environment also affects the quality of our food. Airborne contaminants, waste, and spills enter the water and soil, which, in turn, become part of virtually everything we ingest. In addition, when one species becomes unable to reproduce, the food chain is interrupted. Eventually, this comes to our kitchen tables. Cleaning up the food chain is all part of creating a healthy, contaminantfree diet for ourselves. So, before your next trip to the grocery, investigate the following questions:

• What did your food eat? Was it injected with anything? To find out, call the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) information line: (202) 720- 2791.

• What waters did the fish on your dinner plate swim in? The USDA information line should also have this information. For example, every time you eat fish that comes from one of the Great Lakes, you’re being exposed to persistent toxic substances, particularly PCBs. The problem is that fish don’t respect borders; so while Michigan fish advisories may ban one kind of toxic fish, an Ontario fish advisory may allow the sale of that same fish.

• Can you buy food that is organically grown? Look for a supply at local farmers’ markets, naturalproduce supermarkets, and in displays at your conventional supermarket.

• What was your produce sprayed with? To learn more about chemicals applied to conventionally grown fruits and vegetables, call the USDA information line.

• What are the produce-buying habits of your supermarket? You can find out by contacting your supermarket’s head office.

Routes of Contamination

How do environmental contaminants get into our bodies? Here are the ways it can happen: • Food. We know this because of tests done on feces, urine, saliva, breast milk, and other bodily secretions and excretions.

• Drinking water. We can check through bodily excretions and secretions.

• Milk. We can check through bodily excretions and secretions.

• Skin (dermal exposure). Absorption through the skin can be checked through sweat and hair samples.

• Inhalation. Inhaled contaminants can be measured with breath tests and all other bodily secretions.

Organic Growing

Organic growers are committed to ethical farming practices. According to many horticulturists and organic growers, the future of farming is called sustainable farming. This isn’t anything new but, rather, centuries old! Sustainable farming creates a sustainable vegetation system or web that keeps rebuilding upon itself for decades to come. Planting in this way helps to renew and protect soil, allowing the diverse range of organisms—some even pests—to coexist within the food chain. When the food chain is left intact, parasites are taken care of by their natural predators or natural repellents.

Organic farmers therefore may practice companion planting, which is simply ethical biological pest management by arranging crops so that one type of crop can help another by protecting it from pests. Companion planting may confuse insects, repel them, or trap them. Companion planting is also used to make crops healthier. For example, one herb or vegetable may produce an odor that repels a beetle that is eating a certain crop, or it may be a more tempting treat for that beetle. Planting it near the crop provides protection, as well as possibly a second crop. Sometimes a farmer can even protect crops by allowing the growth of weeds with these beneficial properties. At the end of the season, the farmer harvests the crop and picks the weed, which can then be composted. In addition, certain vegetables, for reasons not completely understood, seem to thrive when grown near certain companion plants.