"The Food We Eat"
The David Suzuki Foundation has released a report titled "The Food We Eat: An International Comparison of Pesticide Regulations." It reveals that Canadian standards for pesticide amounts on our food is hundreds to over a thousand times the amount allowed in Europe. This article posted on Sympatico/MSN (October 5, 2006) offers a frustrating rebuttal from Alain Charette of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
He said for the past two decades there has been a 99 per cent compliance rate for pesticide use and quick action taken on the one per cent that has an excessive amount of pesticide.
"Sample comparisons done by the Suzuki Foundation have compared our testing results with the (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)," Charette said.
"The proper comparison should have been done with the (Food and Drug Administration). The foundation is comparing apples to oranges."
What, exactly, constitutes "excessive"?
Let me share with you something I just read about the Food and Drug Administration, about approvals. From The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine Are Destroying Your Health, by Randall Fitzgerald:
Many people want to believe that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration protects them from anything dangerous in our drug or food supplies. The fact is that when the FDA approves a new drug for public use it has not studied that drug's safety. The agency relies upon safety information from the drug manufacturers to make its apporval decisions. Nor does the FDA test the safety of ingredients in cosmetics and personal-care products.
It just does not make sense to me that any amount of pesticide use could be deemed safe. It's chemicals. They're not supposed to be in our bodies. Even banned substances such as DDT are turning up in kids years after the substances were banned. What do these chemicals, even in small amounts, do together when they build up inside our bodies?
The Suzuki report describes Europe as being light-years ahead of us in terms of protecting consumer health. They don't allow GMOs over there. I wonder what their cancer rates are like?
Download the report in PDF from the David Suzuki Foundation website.
