Posted Jan 30, 2011
If new research holds true across the wider population, one mouthful out of five that children eat is tainted with pesticides.
A new report has found that more than a fifth of the food eaten by two small groups of U.S. children was tainted with pesticides. Of the food containing pesticides, about one quarter contained more than one kind. All totaled, the researchers testing it found 14 varieties of pesticides.
In the past, pesticide exposure in children had been estimated, but never directly measured. In this study, parents of 46 elementary school children in Georgia and Washington mirrored the meals their children ate over the course of two or three days. They prepared identical servings – same amount, same food, prepared the same way – which were then sent to the researchers for analysis.
As such, it was more of a snapshot than a thorough study, but the results are worrisome all the same.
The results were published in the peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Health Perspectives. The authors were from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Emory University in Atlanta and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org), a nonprofit that looks at the “body burden” of various environmental contaminants, has been following this issue. Their Shoppers Guide to Pesticides (www.foodnews.org) lists a “dirty dozen” fruits and veggies that they say are most likely to be contaminated, and a “clean fifteen” that are not.
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