Chemical cocktail: how safe is your food?

Every week, millions in the UK pick-up everyday staples from bread, fruits, to vegetables which they trust are safe to eat.

Recent studies have found pesticide residues nestled in these products, whose long-term health effects remain poorly understood.

Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK) found that three-quarters of fruit, and a quarter of vegetables tested by the government contain a cocktail of pesticides.

Scientists detected 123 different pesticides across 17 products. These include chemicals linked to cancer, and others known to disrupt human hormones and fertility systems.

The least suspected but worst offender? Grapes —  by far the most contaminated with residues from 16 different pesticides.

The ‘invisible’ cocktail effect

Shoppers are repeatedly told that chemical residues in their food are “within safe limits” which deceptively apply to one chemical at a time. We rarely consume just one.

The rules that exist presume that single chemicals, if used correctly, are unlikely to cause harm. However, scientists and campaigners argue that this system fails to account for the cumulative and long-term effects of chemicals consumed over  decades.

Nick Mole from PAN UK warns that this blind spot in regulation leaves us dangerously exposed:

Safety limits are set for one pesticide at a time, completely ignoring the fact that it’s all too common for food to contain multiple chemicals. The truth is we know very little about how these chemicals interact with each other, or what this exposure to hundreds of different pesticides is doing to our health in the long term.

We do know that pesticides can become more toxic when combined, a phenomenon known as ‘the cocktail effect’. Given how high the stakes are, the government should be doing everything it can to get pesticides out of our food.

The top offenders

The new Dirty Dozen list catalogues the produce most exposed to chemicals. Grapefruit tops the list, followed by grapes and limes. They appear regularly in supermarket promotions emphasising freshness and wellness – yet behind the marketing, contamination is widespread.

PAN UK looked at the test results to figure out which Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) showed up the most. Two fungicides topped the list: imazalil and thiabendazole. They found these in 9% of samples, mostly in fruits like bananas, grapefruit and melons.

These chemicals are used to stop mould from growing during storage and transport, however, their safety is a growing concern. Both are suspected of disrupting hormones and may even be linked to cancer.

Even our most trusted ally — bread — is contaminated. Testing by the British government revealed that almost every loaf contained chlormequat, a developmental toxin that scientists warn could harm babies and children.

More than one in four bread samples contained glyphosate, the UK’s most used herbicide, repeatedly associated with cancers and other chronic diseases.

While regulatory bodies claim that the chemical levels in our bread are below the thresholds. We still don’t fully understand the long-term impact of the toxicity in our food.

The public health issue on our plates

A particularly troubling detail nestles deeper in the data. Nearly one-third of pesticides detected aren’t approved for use on British farms.

Crops grown overseas which use UK-banned chemicals can still appear in our supermarkets. The government’s advisory bodies have warned that this unfairly hurts UK farmers who work under stricter rules and, and far worse, exposes consumers to costly and possibly irreversible risks.

The very chemicals considered too dangerous for our farms our ingested by millions nationwide…where’s the sense in that?

PAN UK is calling on the UK to rethink its new pesticide-reduction strategy, with focuses solely on grains. They argue that fruits and vegetables, which have the highest chemical residue levels, must be accounted for by the current plan. And the only way forward is to significantly reduce overall pesticide use.

Most families don’t have the luxury of filling their baskets with organic alternatives. They shouldn’t have to pore over chemical lists when doing their weekly shop, nor worry about the food they plate-up. Farmers who often claim that the system pushes chemical use onto them, are also struggling to earn a fair living and stay competitive.

Food should nourish, not damage our bodies. Wanting food that doesn’t come with a side-order of chemicals shouldn’t be seen as radical, it’s a basic right.

Featured image via Unsplash/Engin Akyurt