Fearmongering or Reality? Are We Poisoning Ourselves?

Fearmongering or Reality? Are We Poisoning Ourselves?

We have to eat and breathe, right?

Anthony Lawrence (Pcunix)

POLLUTION

DALL-E 2 image by author of witch offerig a poison apple

A few weeks ago I posted this at another site:

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, assuming that you can wash off all the pesticides, but that takes a twelve minute soak in vinegar or a baking soda solution and you won’t do that, so forget it.

That made someone quite angry because they mistakenly assumed that I was promoting organic produce. They accused me of “fearmongering” and insisted that organic produce can be dangerous because of pathogenic contamination from inadequately composted manure.

I wouldn’t be surprised at that. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some “organic” produce is thoroughly doused with pesticides by dishonest vendors.

And even if none of that were true, I have often pointed out that organic is likely impossible today because our land, our air, and our water are already contaminated. The land we grow crops in, the water that irrigates them, the air the plants us for photosynthesis. All polluted.

And our food animals eat that produce just as we do.

Do we get less exposure with honest organic food? Maybe, probably, I don’t know. If I wash my apples, does it matter if they are organic or not, and does what’s on the skin even matter when we think about our thoroughly polluted environment?

Is my 30 seconds of rubbing with baking soda paste and rinsing at least removing the external crap? Apparently not. I’ve read that I’d need to soak produce in salt water, diluted vinegar, or a baking soda solution for 15 to 20 minutes to remove some pesticides.

Well, heck, I’m not doing that. Would you?

There’s lead in carrots and other produce and lead and cadmium in dark chocolate. Healthy eating!

Oh, and then there is the plastics and microplastics issue.

So, our air, our water, our food, is all contaminated. Is it hurting us?

We don’t really know about plastics yet, but I wouldn’t bet against it. Pesticides and other pollutants are definitely a problem, and we are seeing evidence of that in cancer rates.

The “birth cohort effect” was among the additional factors researchers investigated. Researchers observed in the data that people born in the same decade had a higher risk of cancer than in the previous decade. For instance, individuals who were born in 1960 experienced higher cancer risk before they turn 50 than people born in 1950. Source https://www.health.com/news/cancer-under-50-rising-globally

What are we doing about this? Oh, we’ve switched to paper straws, and we are putting all the plastic crapola that arrives with almost everything we buy into recycling bins. Oh, I’m sure that’s helping a lot!

This is all caused by greed.

Greed from the growers, manufacturers, and sellers of things we buy. Cheaper, harder to steal, less shipment damage.

Greed from us: cheaper, more convenient.

Though I’m not finding that my own daughter’s struggle against an extremely aggressive nasal mucosal melanoma convenient, you know?

Should we ban plastics? Should we ban pollution and poisoning of of our soil, air, and water? Of course not! That would cost incredible amounts of money, and we’d all have less to eat. Some products would have to disappear because of their environmental dangers. We can’t have that, certainly not in ‘Murica, the land of free-dumb!

Nope. We aren’t going to fix any of this. Not pollution, not global warming, not the obvious dangers of wealth concentration, none of it.

So people will die young or be disabled, disfigured, whatever. Who cares?

Nobody.

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