One of the questions I’m asked most often by clients and cooking class participants, after I’ve advised them to centre every single meal on fruits and/or vegetables, is
“Should I still eat a diet high in fruits and vegetables if I can’t afford organic produce?”
This question, which of course reflects their concerns about pesticide exposure, just about breaks my heart. Why? Because the vast majority of dietary toxic chemical exposure comes from animal product intake, not from fruits and vegetables!
I don’t mean to dismiss the concerns people have about eating pesticide residues on fresh produce, and I’m a huge supporter of organic production methods, but really, these should be the least of your worries when it comes to toxic chemicals in your food.
Take dioxins as a prime example. Dioxins are a group of compounds formed through various industrial processes – such as smelting, chlorine bleaching of paper pulp and the manufacturing of some herbicides and pesticides – and dispersed through the atmosphere. They come under the umbrella of ‘persistent environmental pollutants’, or POPs.
Be warned: these are not your friendly-old-man type of Pops. POPs (commonly known as the ‘dirty dozen’ of dangerous chemicals) resist being degraded by all the normal chemical, biological, and photolytic (light-driven) processes that usually break down chemicals in the environment.
Instead, they persist for decades to centuries, hitching rides on ocean and wind currents so they can travel all over the world, building up in the tissues (mostly fatty tissues) of animals – including humans, bioaccumulating up the food chain, and significantly impacting human health and the environment.
Dioxins are highly toxic. They are known to cause
- Reproductive and developmental problems;
- Impaired immune function;
- Disruption to the endocrine (hormone) system and
- Cancer; along with an increased rate of
- Cardiovascular disease and
- Diabetes.
Over 90% of human exposure to dioxins occurs through food, primarily meat and dairy products, fish and shellfish.
Eggs are also a significant source of dioxin exposure. If you think you’re safe because you only eat organic eggs, think again – studies have found that dioxin levels are higher in eggs from organic production facilities, because the free-roaming hens had more access to soil, worms and insects which were contaminated by atmospherically-distributed dioxins. The authors of this study noted that
“Plants appear to be relatively unimportant as a source of dioxins.”
But since dioxins accumulate in animal tissue, the worms and insects that consume and inhabit the soil have a higher concentration of dioxins than plants; the hens that eat the worms and insects have a higher concentration again; the eggs that the hens produce have a higher concentration again… and the humans who eat the eggs really get the booby prize!
Speaking of booby prizes, when new mothers produce breast milk, 60% of the fat in their milk comes from their own body fat stores. And when that fat is mobilised, the fat-soluble toxins such as dioxin are liberated too, ending up in higher concentrations in breast milk than in the mother’s bloodstream.
The developing fetus and newborn baby are particularly susceptible to the toxic effects of dioxins because their organs are still developing. The chart below, which comes from this study, shows concentrations of dioxins and related compounds (including PCBs, which are not dioxins but are known as ‘dioxin-like compounds’ because they have similar properties -and health risks – to dioxins) in various foods, including human breast milk.
Note that a vegan diet has negligible concentrations of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds. Does this translate to lower levels of dioxins in the bodies of vegans? Yes! This study looked at levels of organochlorines (of which dioxins are one type) in vegans and omnivores, and found that vegans were
“significantly less polluted than omnivores”
Previously, researchers found that breast milk from vegetarian mothers had lower organochlorine levels than omnivorous women, with milk from mothers who regularly consumed fatty fish being the most contaminated.
The take-home message is that eating low on the food chain – a wholefood, plant-based diet – is hands-down the best way to minimise your exposure to toxic food-borne chemicals. Never skimp on your fresh fruit and veg, even if you can’t afford to buy organically-grown produce.
And if you’d like to keep your intake of toxic pesticides and insecticides to a bare minimum, but your budget doesn’t stretch to an all-organic diet, check out the Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen lists produced by the Environmental Working Group. Although these lists are drawn up from analysis of US produce, they provide a good general guide to the most and least contaminated conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables.
Would you like expert guidance in constructing a diet that provides optimal nutrition and minimal chemical toxins? Become an EmpowerEd member today!
Leave A Response