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Organic Insider

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Another Reason to Eat Organic — Decrease Pesticide Exposure by Up to 95%

If you read in the media or someone tries to convince you that organic doesn’t matter, do not believe them.

It does.

And it could potentially save your life.

In a just-released, peer-reviewed study, four families across the country were fed both an organic and non-organic diet, and the ones who ate all organic saw their pesticide load drop by as much as 95%!

THE STUDY

Led by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, four families from cities around the U.S. — Atlanta, Baltimore, Oakland and Minneapolis — were fed both an organic and non-organic diet, each for six days.

What the results showed were that an organic diet rapidly and dramatically reduced exposure to pesticides in just one week. Levels of all detected chemicals dropped an average of 60.5% with a range of 37% to 95%, depending on the compound.

There were several differences between this study and similar studies that were done before:

1) Greater rigor in the administration of the organic diet versus the ones in other studies. Research assistants shopped for the families, and certified chefs prepared dinners during the organic phase to guarantee 100% organic — down to the oils, spices, beverages, etc.

Prior studies only substituted some categories of food such as fruits, breads, cereals, vegetables, dairy, eggs, juices, and snack foods.

2) This was also the first organic diet intervention study to monitor the impact of an organic diet among both children and adults. Given their different metabolisms and dietary patterns, this provides a useful comparison.

3) This study addressed an important data gap around exposure to neonicotinoids and the potential of an organic diet to reduce these exposures.

What are neonicotinoids? They are now the most widely used insecticides in the world and are among the most commonly detected pesticide residues in baby foods. Neonicotinoids are also associated with endocrine disruption and changes in behavior and attention, including an association with autism.

Additionally, most people probably recognize neonicotinoids as the main reason for Colony Collapse Disorder.

WHAT TO DO

What this study clearly indicates is that eating organic does matter, and people can incorporate the results of this study into their lives in two different ways.

First, you should feed your family as much organic as possible. Be sure to read my post Should you ALWAYS Eat Organic? which talks about the priorities of eating organic.

Two, we very much need your support on the policy level in Washington, D.C., and our elected officials must hear from us.

As someone who has written about the organic food industry for more than a decade, I am sad to report that our federal government is still pushing a GMO, industrial food agenda while trying to marginalize organic as much as it can.

In fact, there are some politicians who want to wipe organic completely off of the map and are trying to water down organic rules as quickly as possible. (This is one of the key topics that I write about in Organic Insider.)

Please call your members of Congress and ask them to support organic agriculture. You can also sign Friends of the Earth’s e-petition HERE.

The truth is that the harmful pesticides that they spray on much of the food supply are poisonous and have absolutely no business being on our dinner plates or in our bodies.

When it comes to protecting your health, organic is the only choice.

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Organic Insider

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These Two GMO Experiments are Beyond Frightening

With the ag-biotech industry having made incredible progress brainwashing consumers and politicians into thinking that GMO foods are perfectly safe, the fact remains that no independent, long-term safety studies of these foods have ever been conducted on humans.

And because the general public has been falsely convinced into believing that GMOs are safe and government oversight has been minimal, scientists are pushing genetic engineering into other areas that could spell potential disaster for our planet and our survival.

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Organic Insider

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Why We Should be Very Worried about GMO Contamination of Alfalfa

Many people are under the impression that organic crops will just “always be there”.

Meaning, we don’t have to worry, we’ll just go to the local farmers market or Whole Foods, they’ll always have organic. These people will figure out any potential problems.

Yet, if you look behind the scenes and learn what is happening with alfalfa, a main source of feed for animals in the organic meat and dairy industries, you’ll quickly realize that the situation for organic is very dire.

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Living Maxwell

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Why Conventional Spinach is NOT a Smart Choice

The next time some expert tells you that the most important thing to do for your health is to consume large amounts of fruits and vegetables, regardless of whether they are organic or not, you may want to educate this person about the latest scientific research and government data.

As I wrote about the other day, a study out of Harvard found that women undergoing infertility treatment in the U.S. — and who were also consuming fruits and vegetables with high amounts of pesticide residue — were associated with a lower chance of pregnancy and a higher risk of pregnancy loss.

Men are equally as impacted by the harmful effects of pesticides.

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