The choice of foods available in shops, local markets and supermarkets, and now, online groceries shopping and food deliveries, have never been more diverse. In fact, we are spoilt for choices!
However, there is a price to pay for the choice of modernisation: in the form of intensive farming, and heavily refined and processed foods. This means that it is more challenging to know exactly what we are buying and ultimately, eating.
Modernisation and intensive farming may enable farmers to grow food in larger quantities and at a faster rate. Thus, enabling quicker turnover but it leaves crops more susceptible to pests and diseases.
To control the pestilences and their hazards, farmers use pesticides, all of which are toxic to some extent. Modern agricultural farming approaches are just one of the ways which toxic chemicals end up on our plates.
For examples, most fruits and vegetables are regularly sprayed with a range of insecticides and fungicides.
Crops like potatoes, upon harvested, are often sprayed with chemicals to prevent or slow down sprouting. One common sprout-suppressant, Tecnazene, has been found to have co-relations to skin problems in farm workers and growth defects in laboratory animals.
As a result, we are advised to cut or peel off the skin of our foods before eating them. But in doing so, we are also throwing away many of the valuable nutrients and fibre that our bodies need to stay healthy.
Peeling and trimming does not solve the problem. Experts find a fifth of the pesticide residue still remains.
The use of agrichemicals does not halt with spraying of crops. Other chemicals used in farming include systemic pesticides that are applied to the soil and end up in the flesh of the plant. This type of chemicals cannot be washed off or trimmed away.
Some experts comment that the chemicals would have disappeared before we eat the food. But time and again, excessive levels of pesticides have been reported in salad produce, like lettuce.
Chemicals are also used to prolong shelf lives of fresh produce. Citrus fruits are sprayed with chemical preservatives to guard against spoilage during transport and storage. Unlike systemic chemicals, these remain on the skin. In some countries, shoppers are informed that the fresh produce has been treated with chemical preservatives.
Antibiotics are used to treat animals, and growth hormones which are used to increase milk production, and growth of animals. Most chickenfeed contains antibiotics. Studies have found that antibiotics entering the human food supply chain can compromise medical treatments for illnesses. This means, our health is inevitably affected.
Modern food production processes food which is treated, bleached, coloured, dyed, enriched, purified, preserved and flavoured with synthetic additives – all of which can impair our health, and these are toxins to our bodies.
So each time we fill our shopping baskets or trolleys, we should be aware that the so-called ‘safe’ levels of chemicals that are found in our foods – plants and meat, even when they are responsibly used, are adding to the total toxin load that our bodies have to process.
These ‘safe’ levels are based on exposure to each specific substance, not on the cumulative effect of ingesting multiple pesticides. Many of these ‘safe’ chemicals have been found to be harmful to our bodies and many are still in common use.
External toxins are found everywhere but this does not mean we have to live in fear.
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