What Are Pesticides in Our Fruit and Vegetables

Pesticides have been turned into a natural feature of modern day-life that we take them for granted. We might hear that they are dangerous, but more often than not, we simply
choose to ignore these warnings or conveniently put them at the least of our concerns.

Environmentalists constantly warn us that we need to obey some reasonable restriction, when we use it. They said to kill pests using them on all food crops, including fruits and vegetables such as apples, pears, peaches, grapes, cherries, strawberries, potatoes and spinach are highly toxic and dangerous to our health. In spite of that we pay no attention.


Fruits and vegetables grown with pesticides and insecticides still contain residues even after they are clearly washed or peeled. When ingested, pesticides build up in the fat deposits of your body where they can cause serious harm. Children are more prone to these health risks because their immune systems are still developing.

In fact, residues of the pesticides like malathion and chlorpyrifos are banned for home use. But we still widely use them on a variety of crops. They are still routinely detected in food items commonly consumed by young children as revealed by an annual survey by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Pesticide Data Program. In a study made by 23 elementary students in the Seattle area whose conventional diets were monitored then replaced with organic diets. 

They later returned to their conventional diets, project leader Dr. Chensheng Lu who revealed a very interesting fact that when immediately after substituting organic food items for the children’s normal diets, the concentration of the organ phosphorus pesticides found in their bodies decreased substantially to non-detectable levels until the conventional diets were re-introduced for them.

Pregnant and nursing women who generally consume more fruits and to carry a healthy pregnancy but unknowingly eat those grown using pesticides capass them on to their unborn and nursing children. These can have detrimental effects in the growing child’s nervous and immune systems.

Among these the mention may be made of birth defects, skin and eye irritation, brain tumours, childhood leukaemia, Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, other cancers, hormone or endocrine system problems, nervous system damage, lower body weights and a less developed immune system.

A study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and published in the September 2005 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives shows eating organic foods provides children with “dramatic and immediate” protection from exposure to two organophosphate pesticides that have been linked to harmful neurological effects in humans.
 

Three separate studies recently published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives indicate prenatal pesticide exposure to fetuses negatively impact a child's learning ability. Their IQs tend to be lower. The greater the umbilical cord pesticide blood levels, the lower the child's IQ.

Most effective pesticides contain different types of organophosphates. Organophosphates (OPs) are spinoffs from biochemical warfare research to create nerve gases for killing humans. Scientists soon discovered that the OPs killed bugs too. 

Of course, the usual toxicology index that protects the industry is based on the notion that if you don't drop dead soon after exposure to any chemical agent, it's safe! But eventually, long term neurological deterioration was detected among OP users,even if they hardly used them.
 
The link was made to these organophosphate nerve gas components in chlorpyrifos and diazinon.They were disallowed for home use, but not for agricultural use.

Organophosphates work by poisoning the nervous system in pests. Pesticides effects on humans can include damage to the nervous system, reproductive system and other organs, developmental and behavioral abnormalities, disruption of
hormone function as well as immune dysfunction.
 A new study in Pediatrics has made a connection between exposure to organophosphates – pesticides used on berries and other fruit and vegetable crops – and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children.

So before you pick any fruits or vegetable to eat, make sure that you check that the produce you get is grown organic.

http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/adhd-pesticides-commonly-found-on-berries-and-other-fruits-may-contribute-to-adhd.html

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