Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
we make sure to get it in fortified foods such as the soymilk we
drink every day (which, incidentally, is fortified with vitamin D, too).
What about pesticides? Parents are so vigilant about keeping
kids away from poisons and toxins, but what about the pesticides
that can collect in one's body and have been linked with a number
of different cancers? What people don't tend to realize is that pes-
ticide residues can build up in the bodies of animals as well, and so
we can get a lifetime of pesticide accumulation with every bite of
a fish, a chicken, or other animals seen as food. Animal products
can have more than ten times the pesticide levels of plant foods.
This is another area where vegetarians shine. There was a report
in the
New England Journal of Medicine
that found that the lev-
els of pesticides in the breast milk of vegetarians were far lower
than the national average. Looking at the levels of a number of
pesticides and industrial pollutants, the researchers concluded
that “vegetarian levels were only 1 to 2 percent as high as the av-
erage levels in the United States.” Other studies have shown the
same trend: Vegetarians have the lowest levels of toxic chemicals
like pesticides and PCBs in their breast milk, whereas mothers eat-
ing fatty fish were found to have the highest.
This is separate from the concern over the levels of toxic heavy
metals in aquatic animals. The Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) estimates that annually in the United States, up to 600,000
children are born at risk for lower intelligence and learning prob-
lems due to mercury exposure because their mothers ate fish. This
led to the current EPA warning that cautions young children, preg-
nant and breastfeeding women, and even women just planning
to get pregnant, to severely limit the consumption of many types
of fish and fish products, like canned tuna, and to stay away from
some other types of fish completely.
Unborn children and breastfeeding infants are especially sus-
ceptible to the toxic effects of pollutants. The most powerful
