Food Facts
Consumers vote everyday for the type of food they prefer to eat. At every meal, breakfast, lunch and dinner, we each make a choice: to eat pure and wholesome food that is good for us or to eat overly-processed, modified and engineered food.
The best way to good health is to know what we're eating.
| Do you really know what's in your food? | ||
| CHEMICAL | POTENTIAL HEALTH RISK |
FOUND IN |
| BHA / BHT | Cancer Tumors |
Non-organic Pepperoni Non-organic Sausage Non-organic Animal Feed |
| Strychnine (pesticide) | Muscle Paralysis Liver Damage Kidney Damage |
Non-organic Vegetables |
| Arsenic | Bladder Cancer Skin Cancer Lung Cancer IQ Deficit |
Non-organic Poultry |
| Sulfites | Breathing Difficulty Migraines |
Non-organic Wine |
| Chlorpyrifos (insecticide) | Alzheimer's ADHD |
Non-organic Vegetables |
Read more about organic food in PizzaSalad's Newsletters.
Pesticides, Herbicides, Fungicides
We are exposed to dozens of pesticides in the food we eat, water we drink and air we breathe. People working on farms or living in rural areas near non-organic agricultural fields face even higher exposure levels.
Pesticides in Us
Most of us are born with persistent pesticides and other chemicals already in our bodies, passed from mother to child during fetal development. The human health impacts linked to pesticide exposure range from birth defects and childhood brain cancer in the very young, to Parkinsons’ Disease in the elderly. In between are a variety of other cancers, developmental and neurological disorders such as ADHD, reproductive and hormonal system disruptions and more.
Pesticides and Farmers
Farmers and farm workers are some of the hardest working people on the planet. Yet they and their families bear the highest health costs and face the greatest risks of pesticide exposure. Occupational exposure to pesticides in acute cases range from dizziness and nausea to death.
Pesticides in the Environment
Pesticides don’t stay where they’re applied. They drift from their target and are carried in our air, oceans, rivers, groundwater and soil. They contaminate ecosystems and can poison fish, birds and wildlife.
Besides heavy use in industrial farming, pesticides are used in or near playing fields, parks, schools, public gardens, golf courses, grocery stores, offices, apartment buildings, hotels and resorts, airplanes, cruise ships -- the list goes on. Rural communities are routinely contaminated by pesticide drift, while city dwellers may trace pesticide residues on their shoes to public parks and even their apartment’s common areas.
Eat Organic, Avoid Pesticides
Does eating organic make a difference? When researchers compared the levels of pesticide breakdown products in the bodies of children who eat organic and conventional diets, they found children who eat mostly organic foods carry fewer pesticides in their bodies. The good news is that some of these pesticides break down fairly quickly, which means increasing your consumption of organic foods can have an immediate impact on your pesticide exposure levels.
By eating food produced organically or without pesticides, not only will you be reducing the amount of pesticide in your body, you will be helping create a better environment for other people, the planet, and future generations.
Irradiation
Irradiation is the process of exposing food to ionizing radiation to destroy microorganisms, bacteria, viruses, or insects that might be present in the food.
Irradiation damages food by breaking up molecules and creating free radicals. The free radicals kill some bacteria, but they also bounce around in the food, damage vitamins and enzymes, and combine with existing chemicals (like pesticides) in the food to form new chemicals and toxins.
Irradiated foods can lose 5%-80% of many vitamins (A, C, E, K and B complex).
Almost all foods including beef, pork, lamb, poultry, wheat, wheat flour, vegetables, fruits, shell eggs, seeds for sprouting, spices and herb teas are irradiated in the United States.
Irradiation damages the natural digestive enzymes found in raw foods. This means the body has to work harder to digest them.
Raw foods that have been irradiated look like fresh foods, but nutritionally they are like cooked foods, with decreased vitamins and enzymes. These foods are still labeled “fresh” even though they are equivalent to cooked food.
GMOs – Genetically Modified Organisms
Genetically modified (GM) or engineered (GE) foods are foods derived from genetically modified organisms. Genetically modified organisms have had specific genes inserted into or deleted from their DNA by genetic engineering techniques. This is done to either rid an organism of an unwanted trait or to add a desired one.
For example, the first commercially grown genetically modified whole food crop was a tomato (called FlavrSavr), which was modified to ripen without softening. It was welcomed by consumers who purchased the fruit at a substantial premium over the price of regular tomatoes. Currently, there are a number of food species in which a genetically modified version exists including:
- Soybeans
- Corn
- Cotton
- Alfalfa
- Papaya
- Tomatoes
- Potatoes
- Rapeseed
- Sugarcane
- Sugar beet
- Rice
Genetically Modified foods have not been tested for long-term effects to human beings and may pose a health risk. Since GMOs entered the food supply in1996, chronic diseases and food allergies have doubled. As a result, some associate GMOs with this increase in unwanted health issues.
Nothing “Natural” about Organic
| Trust certified organic | ||||
| Certified Organic | Grass-fed | "Natural" | Conventional | |
| Antibiotics used? | NO | ?? | ?? | YES |
| Growth hormones used? | NO | ?? | ?? | YES |
| Unsafe pesticides & fertilizers used? | NO | ?? | YES | YES |
| Harmful herbicides & fungicides used? | NO | ?? | YES | YES |
| Nitrates & nitrites added? | NO | ?? | ?? | YES |
| Color & flavor enhancers added? | NO | ?? | ?? | YES |
| Preservatives & stabilizers used? | NO | ?? | ?? | YES |
| Irradiation used? | NO | ?? | ?? | YES |
| Treated sewage sludge water used? | NO | ?? | ?? | YES |