The Indelible Bonobo Experience

Despite the USDA results, the EWG shopper’s guide urges consumers to buy organic fruits and vegetables, which generally have lower levels of pesticides, but are not necessarily pesticide-free, as we’ve reported before. By eating organic products, consumers can lower their exposure to pesticides, the guide says. That’s a much more general and modest claim than the group made back in 2010, when it said consumers could reduce pesticide exposure by 80 percent if they avoided conventionally grown products on the “dirty dozen” list. (via Why You Shouldn’t Panic About Pesticide In Produce : The Salt : NPR)

• Look beyond the fearful rhetoric, says Joseph Schwarcz, director of the Office for Science and Society at McGill University in Montreal.
• Take apples, Schwarcz says. They occupy the top spot on EWG’s “dirty dozen” list of the most contaminated fruits and vegetables (followed by celery and red peppers). The group notes that nearly all apples contain detectable levels of pesticide residues.
• But it’s a mistake to “equate the presence of a chemical with the presence of risk,” Schwarcz says. “Where is the evidence that these trace residues are dangerous?”
• Results were similar for fruits and vegetables in baby foods, which were tested by the USDA for the first time this year.
• The agency found traces of pesticide residues in baby foods containing green beans and pears. But the amounts were extremely small, and no baby food samples exceeded permissible levels of pesticides.
• Despite the USDA results, the EWG shopper’s guide urges consumers to buy organic fruits and vegetables, which generally have lower levels of pesticides, but are not necessarily pesticide-free, as we’ve reported before.
• By eating organic products, consumers can lower their exposure to pesticides, the guide says.
• That’s a much more general and modest claim than the group made back in 2010, when it said consumers could reduce pesticide exposure by 80 percent if they avoided conventionally grown products on the “dirty dozen” list.
• A 2011 study by two food scientists from the University of California, Davis found that swapping organics for conventional produce wouldn’t make people any healthier.
• The study, published in the Journal of Toxicology, also stated: “Our findings do not indicate that substituting organic forms of the ‘Dirty Dozen’ commodities for conventional forms will lead to any measurable consumer health benefit.”

According to court records, in 2008, Scotts distributed 73 million packages of bird seed coated with the insecticides Storcide II, containing the active ingredient chlorpyrifos, and and Actellic 5E, containing the active ingredient pirimiphos-methyl, intended to keep insects from destroying the seed. The company continued to produce and market the insecticide-coated seeds despite being alerted to toxicity dangers by a Scotts staff chemist and ornithologist. (via Grist)

• In addition to the bird seed, Scotts is in big trouble for selling chemical-loaded gardening products without first obtaining registration from the EPA. The federal government alleges that a Scotts manager even went so far as to fabricate documents and correspondence with the agency. It seems they find forgery easier than just not poisoning wildlife.
• The judge hasn’t decided what, exactly, Scotts’ punishment will be yet, but the company has proposed paying a $4 million fine and donating $500,000 towards wildlife conservation. Maybe all the house finches, sparrows, and mourning doves Scotts has poisoned over the years will file a class-action lawsuit and push for a lot more than that.