Buyer Beware! Strawberry Season Is Here
“Buyer beware? What gives? They’re just strawberries!!” That’s what you’d think, right? But if you’re buying conventionally grown strawberries from California (and if you’re buying strawberries from your grocery store there’s a 9 in 10 chance that you are), then you’ll be consuming some highly toxic pesticides along with your berries. Yum. The Department of Pesticide Regulation in California (CDPR) recently approved the use of super-toxic methyl-iodide as a pesticide on food crops as a replacement for the slightly less toxic methyl bromide which is highly ozone polluting. Good thing that they’re trying to protect the ozone layer and everything, but here’s the problem: methyl iodide is so consistently and potently carcinogenic that it’s often used in cancer experiments to cause cancer in lab rats. Lab technicians deck themselves out in highly protective gear just to handle minute amounts of this stuff! So I can’t help but slap my forehead at the MORONS who thought this was a good chemical to be used directly on our food crops.
The Environmental Protection Agency first approved methyl-iodide as a pesticide in late 2007, despite pleading requests from dozens of Nobel Peace Prize winning scientists to ban this chemical for agricultural purposes. Initially, the EPA granted only limited use of the chemical, but in the closing months of the Bush Administration the EPA quietly removed all limitations. Awesome. At the moment the CDPR is re-evaluating the use of this chemical and are taking comments until June 29th, 2010, which means that those of you out there who eat strawberries should get on the horn and make yourself heard!
As an alternative to eating pesticide laden strawberries I highly highly suggest you buy from small local farmers, preferably organic. This will highly reduce your exposure to this powerfully toxic chemicals. Thankfully, strawberry season is upon us, which means your local greenmarkets will be overflowing with them, and the pick-your-own fields will soon be bursting with berries. Last year I went with my mother to an organic strawberry farm in CT where I picked close to 20lbs of strawberries! I immediately froze them all and those berries lasted me through the late fall, tasting perfectly fresh and delicious! So much better than junky, old, pesticide laden fruit that traveled all the way from the west coast!! Buy Local! Buy Organic!
