Natural and Organic Food

Here are some rather shocking facts about pesticides that Natural and Organic Food blog has unearthed:

UK Government tests have suggested that one in every four items of food that you buy contains traces of pesticides. No less than one hundred and fifty of the most commonly used pesticides are potentially cancer causing. Some pesticides cannot be washed off with water, as has been previously believed.

Around 31,000 tonnes of chemicals are used annually by farmers in the UK to kill weeds, insects and other pests that attack crops. In 2004, around 40% of the fruit, vegetable and bread samples tested in the UK contained measurable amounts of pesticides.

There is very little control over the way these potentially dangerous chemicals are used and in what quantities or combinations in the non-organic farming sector.

The Food Standards Agency now recognises that the vast majority of people do not want pesticides in their food.

Modern pesticides have a devastating effect on the environment. Added to that are the very real uncertainties about the actual effectiveness of official safety regulation of pesticides. Yet unbelievably their use is allowed to continue unabated despite the fact that some of the enormous risks to human health are virtually unknown.

By way of a comparison with modern, intensive farming methods, where a cocktail of pesticides are used on arable land and the crops that we commonly eat, organic farmers with the Soil Association are allowed to use (and then only as a last resort) a mere four of the 350 pesticides that are in use. Although two of these chemicals are strictly controlled, the Soil Association wants to take this further and are actually phasing out one of these completely.

All the more reason for everybody to stand up and say a resounding “NO MORE” to non-organic produce and force governments and the farming industry into changing the way they operate completely, before it’s too late.

Terry Didcott
Natural and Organic Food

It doesn’t take much, but there are several small things that everyone can do that will go a little way to helping the environment.

First, I notice a lot of people don’t think when throwing stuff away. I don’t mean they become stupid the moment they throw something into the garbage, I mean they don’t think about what impact their action has when you multiply it a few thousandfold as everyone else does the same thing.

Landfill sites are bursting at the seams because people throw away so much stuff. A lot of it needn’t even go into landfill, it’s just that people don’t realize they can dispose of things in a different way that will have a huge impact on the rate at which landfills get filled up.

Here are a few things that just a tiny bit of extra thought will make a difference.

Plastic bottles. If there is no recycling bank near you, then the next best thing you can do is at least reduce the volume of the waster that you dump. That means squeezing up the bottles when they’re empty to make them as small as possible. That will in itself save a huge volume in landfill if everyone did this.

Milk and juice cartons. These shouldn’t be chucked in the bin whole either. It doesn’t take much to fold them into a small block and reduce their volume by 90%.

Paper and cardboard – don’t even throw it out. Why would you? If you have a garden then you should have a compost heap. If you have a compost heap, rip up paper and cardboard into manageable pieces and mix them into your heap. It all biodegrades with the rest of the composting material.

Kitchen waste. Again, if you have a compost heap, you should be throwing all peelings and unused leafy and vegetable material onto the compost heap. Some gardeners don’t like throwing potato peelings on the heap because they have a tendency to grow in the heap. What are they worried about? As the things grow, just turn them in and let the composting process break the additional plant matter down!

Incidentally, if you don’t have a garden or a compost heap, surely you know a friend, relative or neighbour who has and could be convinced to take your compost-able material for their own heaps.

These are just a few things you can do to help make a difference.

For one person to do these things the effect will be barely noticeable, but for a thousand people to do these things an impact will be felt!

I’ll post more ideas like this in future posts.

Terry Didcott
Natural and Organic Food