This is part of the reason I really want to move out of the U.S. Other countries are much more strict with what they allow in their food. I understand that I can pay more for organic produce and meat, but for a supposedly first-world country, you'd think decent produce would be a given.
be careful: organic may still allow a ton of things that are bad for you, such as copper sulfate in the EU.
While the idea of organic produce is great, the implementation is deeply misleading: tell people petrol derivatives are legit in "bio" fruit and enjoy their confusion :)
why not shop at produce-prioritizing grocers like Sprouts (if it's available where you are)? they are VERY much aligned with your priorities, and, in their focus, are cost efficient.
So you'd rather everyone pay more for food based on your personal preferences? Even though there's a lot of evidence that these foods are entirely safe...
> So you'd rather everyone pay more for food based on your personal preferences?
The counterpoint here is "so you'd rather everyone pay more for health care decades from now to save a few bucks on groceries now?"
> Even though there's a lot of evidence that these foods are entirely safe...
The US requirement for a lot of chemicals is "generally recognized as safe", which, in practice, means "we don't know that it's not safe yet". When we find something's unsafe, industry frequently switches to something similar that's still GRAS (because no one's been using it) but likely has the same issues. Europe takes a stricter approach.
Example: BPA in plastics, which has now been replaced with BPS and BPF.
The only assumption is is that in low doses pesticides are not harmful, but there is no deep knowledge of years and years of low dose pesticide exposure. And those limits might differ based upon weight, gender, age, genetics and luck.
But there are also other risks. For instance with Strawberries they might have limits of one pesticide, but they max out different ones, so you get a cocktail of chemicals that used together exceeds the allowed limits of one.
> The only assumption is is that in low doses pesticides are not harmful
In case you haven't noticed yet, the world mostly runs on assumptions people pretend/parrot as facts and even defend their assumptions as if they actually were facts.
Common sense dictates that less harmful dosages are still harmfull, but less so. Your body repairs the damage quicker than it can spread, which works fine until the internal repair rate starts slowing down and that's not even considering any potential long term side effects.
I find it very scary that this study even exists. This is just common sense in Austria. Pesticides are bad, period.
This is a pure strawman argument, the parent comment said none of those things. Regarding entirely safe, this is a comment thread on a study that says they're not entirely safe.
Yes, it's perfectly safe to spray poison, which is meant to kill living beings, onto food. Absolutely. Common sense is wrong, of course. Poison is safe. Any evidence suggesting otherwise is obviously just fabricated.
Gasmasks, used when applying insecticides manually, are just for show. Laws outside of the US, which prohibit certain use of chemicals, are just random.
This is a strawman. Nobody wants to eat pesticides.
"Common sense" was that you don't eat the poison. You remove it from the food first. You also remove any soil on the food, and if the food is sold in a box or can, you don't eat that, either.
The thing I want to learn, because I'm more interested in learning than I am in reveling in how right I am, is whether common agricultural poisons can be rinsed off with a bit of tap water, or if they're too sticky or too easily absorbed for that to be sufficient. Apparently they can't be washed off this easily, which is annoying, because I rather like buying my apples without worms in them.
Oh yeah. Well in Europe one reason the food tastes so good is there's running water there. In USA you only get brine unless you're on a farm, or collecting rainwater.
I can't imagine ever going back to an office after working remotely for so long. I changed careers mid-pandemic and now work for a fully remote company. The thought of having to add those extra two hours of getting fully dressed, accounting for traffic, parking, etc. to my workday sounds awful to me. I know some people genuinely prefer working in an office, but I really like my home setup.
In theory this makes sense, but I just don't see it sticking here in the U.S. Or, if it does stick, my concern would be that it would come with a pay cut, much like how some companies have wanted to reduce worker pay for employees who wanted to continue working from home after the mandatory lockdowns.
The end result would be to ratchet down the work week in labor law once the evidence is irrefutable that moving from 40 hours to 32 hours per week can occur without a significant decline in productivity.
