Pesticides, hormones and antibiotics, oh my

If you’ve already read part 1 of this series, you'll know I’m on a quest to find out whether I have to spend the bucks and buy organic if I want to be not only sugar free but healthy. It’s going to cost us 33% more. We don’t have 33% more. But I’m going to try and answer the question anyway and then work out what to do if the answer is yes- maybe sell my firstborn or start making all our clothes myself out of bin liners or something.

By the way I missed an obvious question in my last post when I was considering whether organic means ‘organic’ or not. I decided yes, as long as it’s certified (otherwise any old crap can be packaged as organic, since no one checks it). But the other question is whether, in this environmentally polluted world, any food can ever be completely organic (e.g., pesticide free)? So here’s the quick answer: no. In 2003, Australian testing showed that around 15% of organic produce had pesticide residue. And this US study looked at residue in organic and inorganic produce and found that over 20% of organic produce had residual pesticides. Around half of these were banned pesticides which were sprayed long ago but persist in the soil (such as DDT). On the other hand, pesticides were found in over 70% of regular, run-of-the-mill produce.

Which brings us nicely to today’s topic- how many nasties does your in-/non-/un-organic food contain and will these do us any harm if we eat them?

To get us started, here’s a quick run-down on hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and genetic modification used in producing inorganic Australian fresh food.  In case you are wondering, this information is unlikely to apply to any other country- policies and practices in farming, preparing, packaging and transporting, not to mention testing and policing standards, vary hugely. So much for globalisation. But anyway, here’s how we do it in Oz:

Dairy: Australian dairy cattle are not treated with hormones. Dairy cows can be treated with antibiotics if these are prescribed by a vet for the cow’s health, but there is a moratorium on the milk from that cow while on the antibiotics and for a period afterwards. 

Meat: Australian beef and pork may be treated with hormones such as oestrogen or testosterone to increase growth (note that Coles non organic beef is hormone free- thanks Curtis!). Australian chicken and lamb are hormone free. 

Antibiotics are used in all meat industries to treat disease in animals. However, red meat industries are required to withhold animals treated with antibiotics from the market for a defined period, and the Australian Government's National Residue Survey monitors our meat. The chicken industry have demonstrated that no antibiotics remain in chicken meat.

Fruit and vegetables: Australian non organic produce may contain any of 300 pesticides registered for use in Australia. Testing of produce for residual pesticides is conducted by the industry itself, and by state and federal government. Industry tests are the most comprehensive (but not the most independent). State testing is highly variable- ACT and Tasmania do not test for pesticide residue, while Victoria tests locally produced fruit and veg, but not fruit and veg imported from overseas. The Commonwealth government tests apples, pears, blueberries and onions for local consumption, as well as fruit and veg going overseas. 

Wheat: Australian wheat is treated with pesticides and may be genetically modified. The level of pesticides remaining in wheat for consumption is regulated and monitored by the Australian National Residue Survey. All genetically modified foods have to be declared on the labels of Australian foods.

Huh, better than I expected, in some ways. On this analysis, pesticides appear to be the biggest concern for the nonorganic shopper, especially in the categories of fruit, veg, wheat products, and (since animals eat pesticide-treated products) meat and dairy. In other words, all of the above. Darn it.  

Maybe pesticides are like salt, though: a little just adds an extra tang, a lot is unhealthy? This website gives a calculator for the number of servings of a fruit or vegetable that you can eat without ingesting an unsafe level of pesticides.  Apparently, I could safely eat 529 servings of apples, 10,877 servings of lettuce, or 7379 servings of potatoes in a single day without the pesticide residue having an effect on my body. The numbers are based on the No-Observable Adverse Effect level, which is the highest dose that fails to kill or observably harm experimental animals. It’s not really that reassuring, to be honest. And there’s very little published research out there examining cumulative effects, the combined effects of multiple pesticides, or the possible long term impact of even tiny doses on human body systems. We still have so much to learn. The alarm about the harmful effects of BPA, which was commonly used in plastics since 1957, was only sounded in 2007. A chemical like BPA is different to a pesticide, but can we really say that we know all there is to know about the man-made chemicals we are potentially putting into our bodies via what we eat, even if they have been used for decades? Short answer: heck no

Importantly, especially for someone who is relatively convinced but hasn’t found her food budget increase magically while she was researching this (ie, me), some foods may be more worth the extra dollars to buy organic than others. The US Environmental Working Group (a non-profit organisation) provide a ‘Shoppers Guide to Pesticides’ which they developed based on government data on pesticide levels in foods. They list twelve fruits and veg which were found to have the worst levels of pesticides (and they recommend to buy these organic) plus fifteen which are low in pesticides. Nice. Innocent old no-calorie celery was the worst on this list. Well shucky darn.

I couldn’t find a similar list for Australia so I made my own, below. I’ve done this using the results of the Victorian Produce Monitoring Program report from (2008/9). Some caveats for the below: it is based on the VPMP's testing of limited samples (sometimes as little as one sample) of Victorian grown produce. (I did look in other states but I couldn’t find individual data about produce). I’ve interpreted the data to show ‘low’, ‘moderate’ and ‘high’ risks of pesticides based on the proportion of fruit and veg samples which showed pesticides in these tests, plus I’ve highlighted (in bold) those which had at least one sample fall above the level considered safe in Australia.

 

Low risk of pesticides  No samples showed detectible levels of pesticides	Moderate risk of pesticides Less than 50% of samples contained pesticides	High risk of pesticides More than 50% of samples contained pesticides
Fruit: Blueberries Tangelos Honeydew Rockmelon Watermelon Dates Olives Persimmon Kiwifruit Pomegranate Veg: Asparagus Beans Broccolini Brussels sprouts Capsicum Chilli Eggplant Mushrooms Sweet corn Pumpkin Bok choy Lettuce Salad mix Silverbeet Garlic Onions Fennel Fennel leaves Beetroot Potatoes	Fruit: Plums Grapefruit Oranges Veg: Artichokes Celery Cabbage Cauliflower Cucumber Broccoli Tomatoes Peas Squash Zucchini	Fruit: Boysenberries Mandarin Pears Nectarines Apples Strawberries Apricots Peaches Grapes Lemons Blackberries Raspberries Veg: Carrots Spinach Horseradish Celeriac Parsnips

I’m going to summarise this all in my final post in this series (if I ever get there). I’ll have to leave answering the final organic question- does it taste better and is it better for you- until then.

I'm off to enjoy a nonorganic apple before all of the above sinks in fully...