2 min read

Toxins in Our Fruits and Vegetables

Paula Gallagher on
Modern farming method often use lots of pesticides containing toxins.

In Dr. Pizzorno's new book, The Toxin Solution, he outs the amount of toxins found in "healthy food." Fruits and vegetables can be riddled with pesticides and other chemicals that we ingest, that further harm us.

There are three reasons the majority of our food is now ladled with chemicals.

Synthetic Fertilizers: When industrial farming was introduced 70 years ago, farmers started to become dependent on synthetic fertilizers, which exhausted soil to maximize profits. Phosphates, a major ingredient in synthetic fertilizers, can release high levels of cadmium, a highly toxic metal, into the soil. Even worse, the fertilizers do not replace the trace minerals we need. The result is that the soil becomes progressively more depleted. When we eat foods grown in mineral-depleted soil, they more easily absorb metals like cadmium, which is linked to osteoporosis and even to the major killer diseases like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.

Insecticides: Another result of industrial agriculture was that farmers began to spray foods with insecticides on a large scale. Most of these insecticides, such as the organochlorines and organophosphates, are neurological poisons.

Herbicides: Many foods are now inadvertently contaminated with herbicides. This happens because herbicides like glyphosate, used in genetically modified crops, are sprayed on the ground to keep down the growth of weeds. There are many ways these herbicides damage our bodies. They are hormone disruptors and they damage DNA, making cells age faster and become more susceptible to cancer.

To avoid these toxins, consume organic produce as much as possible. Check out EWG's Dirty Dozen™ list to see which produce is the most pesticide laden. Organic produce can be very expensive, so if you are on a tight budget, consider filling your shopping cart with produce that was found to have the least amount of pesticide residue, like avocados, pineapples and cabbage. The EWG has also put out a list of fresh produce with the least amount of pesticide residue. This list is call the Clean Fifteen™.

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