Comments on: World’s Largest Producer of Toxic Chemicals, MNI, Continues to Contaminate the Entire Food Supply

By: Long Term Effects of Toxins in the Body: What We Know | Sustainablog

Long Term Effects of Toxins in the Body: What We Know | Sustainablog — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:02:54 +0000

[...] they are trying to “avoid all toxics” in their life. That is actually impossible. Almost all the foods we eat contain naturally toxic chemicals that are made as defense mechanisms by the plants or animals in question. These toxins are [...]

By: connie chenko

connie chenko — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 02:06:24 +0000

Well, i invested in a crop and i lost my dog, they had pesticides in them. I am just saying not to invest in crops if you have and animals including fish. Even my pet rock died:(

By: connie chenko

connie chenko — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:11:06 +0000

You guys are wonka nerds

By: connie chenko

connie chenko — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:09:25 +0000

See pesticides are like latin. They eat you and your local library. Like steve Savage says, Dont do drugs and reuse, reduce and recycle. I love ping pong and wii and school, and ching chong, and airplanes, and fireflies, and steve savage

By: Why Pesticides Are Actually Important for Agricultural Sustainability : Eat. Drink. Better.

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 15:01:10 +0000

[...] invested in a crop would be compromised or lost. Not all pesticides are the same (They actually differ rather dramatically in terms of their particular risk factors or lack therof. All meet rigorous EPA-determined risk [...]

By: Steve Savage

Steve Savage — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 06:09:44 +0000

Bryan,
You make excellent points. I agree that balance and moderation are the key issues. I’ve just been doing a review of old, OP and Carbamate, pesticides and their registrations have been mostly canceled. The process works.

By: Bryan Luukinen

Bryan Luukinen — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 02:28:18 +0000

RE: only about 200 chemicals have been tested by the EPA.

On the contrary, there are currently approximately 1,000 pesticide active ingredients that have been reviewed by the EPA in the process that Steve described, and many many more chemicals have been reviewed by government regulatory offices. This number pales in comparison to the ~80,000 chemicals out there (or more) which are produced by industry. However, as far as pesticides go, they are actually more tightly regulated than any other class of industrial or natural chemicals (thyme oil and oil of wintergreen are pesticide active ingredients from MNI). If you look at the pharmaceutical industry or the chemical industry (paints, solvents, fuel, etc.), pesticides are very well regulated. Disinformation and fear often cloud the view of people who are “anti-chemical” or “anti-pesticide”. Chemicals are a fact of life – we humans are made entirely of chemicals. Pesticides, which are vilified in the media and otherwise, are used in organic food production (not widely known) and may be responsible for some increase (though this has been debated) in food production over the last 1500 years. Irresponsible use of pesticides is a tragedy. Just like in everything, balance and moderation is key.

By: Why Most Food Could Never Be “Local” : Eat. Drink. Better.

Why Most Food Could Never Be “Local” : Eat. Drink. Better. — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:28:17 +0000

[...] options for these new local farmers that are as safe or safer than the Organic options, but few people realize that. The other thing that would help is “protected culture.” These are ways of farming [...]

By: Steve Savage

Steve Savage — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:47:23 +0000

Colin,
Your comment didn’t address any particular issue that I raised in the blog post. My point was that foods naturally contain toxins and many of them are far more toxic than things that people worry about because most people don’t realize that even pesticides can differ in toxicity by orders of magnitude and many are of extremely low mammalian toxicity.
You say that “only about 200” chemicals have been required to get tested for safety. I wonder where you find such a statistic. Every chemical that is registered by the EPA as a pesticide goes through extensive safety testing which takes years and costs $50-100million. Many more than 200 pesticides have been tested that way and many retested over time as regulations shift. There is also a long list of chemical pesticides that has been banned. For instance, even the “Organic” insecticide rotenone was eventually banned.
I will stick with discussing pesticides because that is the regulatory process with which I am most familiar. In that area, the manufacturer is definitely the one who has to prove safety.
The interview with the EDF folks was interesting, but hardly relevant to a discussion of natural toxins. I find that most people have no idea that there are toxic chemicals in food that have nothing to do with human intervention. That is why I wrote the blog.
Steve

By: Steve Savage

Steve Savage — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:53:03 +0000

Colin,
I do have a real job so I only check for new comments every hour or so, particularly when I don’t have any very recent posts. I’ll read your lengthy comment after I attend a play tonight. I’m perfectly willing to “talk”, but I would appreciate a little less hostility. My blogging is a completely independent effort on my part. Even so, this issue is not about me or about you. This post was simply an effort to give people some perspective about relative toxicity

Steve