Part 1: Introduction - Read Full Article
Part 2: Pesticides - Some Definitions - Read Full Article
Part 3 : Pesticides in Indian Agriculture and Food - Read Full Article
Part 4 : Some Common Pesticides Used In Our Favourite Vegetables
Part 4 : Some Common Pesticides Used In Our Favourite Vegetables
In
this last and final part of our series on Pesticides, let us put ourselves to a
simple test. And not to worry - you will be answerable to none other than your
own conscience.
Below
are a few images of the vegetables as you would encounter in the market. What
would you choose? Take your pick – and choose wisely.
For it is our choice
unfortunately that has been skewed by the Green revolution – the phase when
food grown using chemical inputs was shown to us to be bigger and therefore
better, healthier.
Are we still
following the same criteria for judgment when we go out to shop for our fruits
and vegetables? Do we still think that the bigger the better; the more uniform
the better;
Do we still equate wittedness’
to staleness?
As a personal
experience, we have found that organically grown vegetable shows signs of
limping & wilt sooner than those grown with chemical additives. The logic
probably is similar to having fresh fruit juice after a few hours which
develops an off taste as compared to fruit squashes to which chemical
preservatives have been added.
And while we still
come to terms with our habituated choices, let us also dabble a bit into
statistics.
Most people often get
carried away with statistics and cite statistical examples as evidence for
their beliefs.
But statistics can be
as misleading as percentages.
For instance – as per
statisticians, the average depth of River Narmada is 13 feet. So is it safe to
believe that nobody can ever ‘sink’ in the Narmada – even at the mouth…..
Similarly, if the
govt. claims that the pesticide residues tested on each vegetable are well
within permissible limits, does this mean that it will not affect any of us in
any which way? And individually if each vegetable has a certain pesticide ‘well
within permissible limits’ – so to say; what happens when we have a complete
meal comprising of certain salads, a variety of vegetables and cereals and
pulses, each being individually sprayed with certain pesticides?
10 items each having
a residue of 0.01% - which is the prescribed norm – cumulatively add up to
approximately 0.1% per meal. And for two meals + breakfast + snacks will mean
we are consuming nearly 0.2% of toxins per day as against the stipulated 0.01%
per day.
And understanding
this in perspective of the previous articles where we learnt of Bio-
accumulation and Bio-magnification, what ghastly possibilities conjure up?
All this with an
assumption that what the manufacturing companies are writing and the govt.
testing agencies are saying is the whole truth.
Read further
for some horrifying facts…
