Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
we wouldn't let our kids play in a field with a chemical-
spewing cropduster flying overhead, but when that
“airplane” flies into their mouths with a spoonful of
this or a forkful of that, what are we exposing them to?
staples on too many school lunch menus, like hamburgers, ice cream,
and cheese pizza, come loaded with DDT, dioxins, and PCBs. as if that
weren't shocking enough, these other faves have their own grisly
ingredients.
the amount of mercury in fish
is so neurotoxic that 316,588
to 637,233 babies born
annually in the country are
estimated to suffer from
diminished IQ potential because
of their moms' fish consump-
tion. eating just 1 serving of
canned tuna is equivalent to
getting injected with more than
100 vaccines with thimerisol,
a mercury-based preservative.
tuna
fish
retail eggs contain 4 times
more sex steroid hormones
than beef and 24 times
more than milk, raising
concerns that they could act
as endocrine disrupters in
prepubertal children,
affecting their reproductive
development
.
eggs
sex
hormones
mercury
mercury
when we eat chickens, in
addition to DDT, dioxins, and
PCBs, we're also ingesting
arsenic. these birds are fed
arsenic-containing compounds
to boost their growth (i.e., to
reach slaughter faster and
bigger) by helping to wipe out
some of the parasite load,
which results from their
overcrowded conditions on
factory farms.
carcinogenic nitrosamines,
formed by the cooking of
meats cured with sodium
nitrite to maintain the bloody
red color, may be the reason
that children eating 3 or
more hotdogs a week appear
to have twice the odds of
developing brain tumors
and 10 times the odds of
developing childhood
leukemia.
chicken
“fingers”
hotdogs
carcino-
gens
arsenic
almost half a child's daily dioxin allowance in a single burger? A
single slice of pizza? One drumstick or a single scoop of ice cream?
Maybe even 100? No. According to the best data available, a Big
Mac rivals one scoop of ice cream at not 100 femptograms or even
200, but at as many as 49,000 femptograms—that's 400 times
the maximum tolerable dose of dioxins in every scoop and every
burger. It's even worse if parents take their children out for pizza
or KFC, where they may be exposing their children to almost 1,000
times the maximum tolerable dose of toxic waste.
