Food Crops Often Exposed to Toxic Poisons

Food shipments are often found exceeding the legal
limits of toxic chemical pesticides and are seized. But
this isn’t the whole sad story of food poisoning. First of
all, only shipments destined for interstate commerce are
checked, and only a small fraction of the country’s total
produce ever comes under the scrutiny of an inspector.
Many tons and truckloads of lettuce containing pesticide
residues “in excess of legal tolerance” will stay within
the state or community where they are grown and not
be checked at all! As far as shipments across state lines,
the U. S. Food and Drug Administration will be the first
to admit that, because of limited manpower, only a
fraction of the fruit and vegetable shipments in interstate
commerce are checked.
The frightening truth is that a high percentage of
the field crops you are eating have been sprayed with a
wide variety of deadly poisons! These include chlorinated
hydrocarbons, pesticides, toxic fertilizers, herbicides,
fungicides, and other phosphorus and toxic compounds
that are used in growing. The contamination of salad
vegetables doesn’t stop with spraying the leafy portion
of the plant. Medical researchers have discovered that
many chemicals such as fertilizers and weed killers
applied to the soil can remain there for a long time and
are then absorbed by succeeding crops grown in the
fields. The poison finally ends up in the pulp of the
vegetable itself. It becomes part of it and cannot be
washed off! Please start demanding organic produce!
No doubt it has occurred to you that if the vegetables
in your salad are contaminated you should make some
effort to get rid of this poisonous residue before you eat
too much of it. You might feel that peeling off the skin
of a tomato or removing the outer layer of the lettuce
will do the job. It won’t. Some of the residue will be
removed, certainly, but there will be more in lower leaves
and in the pulp itself. The chemicals cannot even be
broken down by cooking! The poison is part of the plant
and is there to stay. So eat organic and don’t panic!