Eat organic and don’t put your health at the mercy of pesticide farming
It may be ‘cheaper’ to spray our food with chemicals specifically designed to be hazardous to living systems or to import food from half way around the world, laden with chemicals to keep it fresh, and using fossil fuels in the process, but what about the cost to our planet and ourselves? Instead, our economic system should be adjusted so that agri-chemicals are heavily taxed while reducing the tax on the labour necessary for organic farming.
We live in a society where our health is held hostage to an economic system that does not know the real meaning of cheap.
Pesticides are designed to be hazardous to living creatures, and recent concern in relation to the artificial sweetener, aspartame, highlights our uncertainty in relation to the many chemicals to which we are exposed in our daily lives.
We still do not know the long-term impact on health arising from exposure to these low-dose chemicals, many of which are fat soluble and consequently accumulate in body fat. These chemicals are tested singly, but most often consumed in combination.
Commonsense would dictate that we reduce our exposure to such chemicals as much as possible. Eating fresh, locally produced, organic food is a positive step for good health.
Dr Elizabeth Cullen
Irish Doctors’ Environmental Association
Thomastown
Kilcullen
Co Kildare
