A client of mine called me yesterday from a grocery store to ask if this bag of kale salad was a healthy choice to buy for dinner. She texted me the picture. I saw immediately that it wasn’t organic. So I asked her, “Did you know that kale was ranked #3 in fruits and vegetables laden with toxic pesticide residues, according to the EWG’s Dirty Dozen list?” And she replied, “But is says on the label: ‘100% free from artificial ingredients,’ isn’t that a good thing?”
Well, pesticides are not actually artificial ingredients added to food, so the label is correct in one respect, but it’s still an unhealthy choice to consume non-organic kale as well as non-organic spinach, which was ranked #2 on the list.
Non-organic kale is ranked #3 in fruits and vegetables laden with toxic pesticide residues on the EWG’s Dirty Dozen list. Non-organic spinach is ranked #2.
Pesticides harm health
A growing body of evidence in scientific literature shows that pesticide exposure can adversely affect endocrine, neurological, immune, and respiratory systems in humans, even at very low levels.
I’ve been testing my clients for their environmental toxic burden to find the root cause(s) of their chronic inflammatory and digestive issues, via a simple urine test. Almost 100% of them have high levels of glyphosate — the main ingredient in the weed killer Roundup, one of the most widely used herbicides in the US.
Glyphosate is being sprayed to improve agricultural yields, manage forests, ripen fruit and kill dandelions on our lawns and golf courses. It’s also being sprayed on the grounds of our parks, school athletic fields, hiking trails, freeways and even irrigation ditches. And, it’s being sprayed, after harvest, on non-organic grains like wheat as a drying agent! (Maybe some people who are allergic to wheat are actually reacting to the glyphosate?)
Studies, in the US, Canada and Sweden, have linked glyphosate exposure to cancer, and, in 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer found glyphosate to be a “probable” cause of cancer in humans. This chemical is also shown to negatively impact our gut biome and immune system, as well as our thyroid and endocrine systems!
I’m part of a detect and detox project, with several functional medicine doctors and health practitioners. After the urine test results come back and show high levels of pesticides and/or chemicals found in our everyday products, as well as mold, I show my clients how to do a systemic detox. Email me if you’d like more information about this. I’d love to help!
To your health,
Beth
Beth Greer
Personalized Healthy Home Assessments & Consultations | Speaker and Author
SuperNaturalMom.com