Do You Need to be More Vigilant about Pesticide Exposure?

According to doctors with the American Academy of Paediatrics, family wellness is under threat to daily pesticide exposure, and this is more dangerous to children than it is to adults. Pesticides are used to kill unwanted insects, plants, moulds, and rodents, and children are uniquely susceptible to their potential toxicity as even low-level exposure can lead to paediatric brain cancer and leukaemia, decreased cognitive function, and behavioural problems.

Your child’s wellbeing is most at risk to these toxic chemicals through his diet, though he also encounters pesticides daily in air, dust, soil, surfaces, household insecticide use, application to pets and agricultural product residues. However, on a day-to-day exposure basis, food is probably the most prevalent source of pesticides as researchers who placed children on a diet of completely pesticide-free foods found that there was a drastic and immediate decrease of pesticide metabolites in their urine.

According to paediatrician Dr. Jim Sears, you should consider buying organic produce if your want to keep pesticides out of your meals, but as the costs of this can add up, it might be wise to prioritise purchasing pesticide-free versions of the foods with the greatest levels of toxins that you include in your family meal plans. The top 12 toxic foods often have thin skin and are hard to wash, which is what makes it more difficult to remove pesticides. These foods are celery, peaches, strawberries, apples, blueberries, nectarines, bell peppers, spinach, kale, cherries, potatoes and grapes.

However, if there is a ‘toxic 12’, there’s also a ‘clean 15’ that have thicker skins, are more resistant to pesticides and are easier to wash. According to Dr. Sears, it’s probably fine to buy non-organic versions of this produce, though this will not always equate to lower levels of pesticides. These foods are onions, avocados, sweetcorn, pineapples, mangoes, sweat peas, asparagus, honeydew melons, cabbage, aubergines, cantaloupes, watermelons, grapefruits, sweet potatoes and kiwis.

Finally, you can reduce pesticide exposure by aiming to control pests in your home and garden in the least toxic ways. Keeping rubbish in containers with lids, eliminating plumbing leaks and using the least toxic insecticides, such as boric acid, in cracks and crevices, can control cockroaches, for example. You should also avoid using lawn products that combine pesticides and fertilizers because use of these products tends to result in over-application of pesticides.