BARELY A WEEK SEEMS TO GO BY without a major food scare hitting the news, confusing parents about what to feed their babies, and worrying pregnant women. Major supermarkets are caught selling foods with unacceptably high traces of pesticides - many of them from illegal chemicals, and some containing up to seven different residues. Baby
food jars are found contaminated with toxic pesticides, some of which are known to cause adverse reproductive effects, and four in five UK-grown pears are found to contain an illegal growth regulator. Imported chickens, dairy products and pork are pulled from shelves as they are found contaminated with cancer-causing dioxin chemicals, and plastic softeners and genetically modified (GM) ingredients are detected in infant formula milks. Farmers are caught using banned toxic chemicals and hormones on vegetables and livestock grown for supermarkets, and livestock feeds are found to have included GM cereals for several years Another E. coli bacteria poisoning outbreak hospitalizes both young and elderly; the artificial sweetener aspartame, commonly found in children's food and drinks, is found to cause brain tumours in laboratory rats and be made with GM ingredients; and salmonella bacteria contaminates millions of supermarket chickens and hams. 

Instead of being nourished by their daily food, our babies-who are especially vulnerable to toxins-stand a very good chance of being poisoned by it. Our daily diet has officially been found to contain an average of thirty pesticide residues, and a third of our fresh fruit and vegetables to have detectable residues; so every day we're unwittingly feeding our families a man-made chemical cocktail on the surface and in the flesh of our fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans and grains. Most of these pesticides can't be peeled or washed away (and most won't be destroyed by cooking). These chemicals are stored in our body fat and concentrated in our breast milk, ready to be handed on in increased toxic concentrations to our precious babies. We're eating residues of antibiotics, hormones and other drugs routinely given to livestock and farmed fish (not to mention the chemicals, GM ingredients, and even the odd case of engine oil, slurry or dead stray dogs in livestock feeds), along with thousands of artificial chemical additives used in food processing. And as if that's not enough, new toxins are feared in food made with GM ingredients, which accounts for over 60 per cent of all groceries-and most of which remains unlabelled, despite new EU legislation. 

The government says there are no risks to human health from eating these (as it did during the BSE fiasco), but there are. Even very small amounts of individual chemical residues have been found to have profound health-damaging effects, and nobody knows the precise effect of eating multiple chemical residues (a cocktail of just two chemicals can hugely magnify their toxicity), nor the effects of eating GM foods. Over 60 pesticides, many of them used in the UK and on imported foods, have recently been named (based on international research) by the London based Pesticides Trust as causing adverse reproductive effects, and six UK environmental groups have just launched a campaign to ban one of them: the organochlorine lindane, which is sprayed on UK fruits, vegetables and cereals, and believed to be a cause of breast and other cancers. Eating intensively farmed food grown with such toxins is like playing Russian roulette-you never know when you, or your baby, are going to get a nasty surprise. 

Experts around the world who have seen the continued rise in terminal cancers, infertility, reproductive disorders, declining sperm counts, birth defects, miscarriages, stillbirths, behavioural and developmental disorders, and diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's (all of which have been linked with the use of pesticides and other chemicals used in intensive farming), can only fear the worst for our children. There is growing scientific evidence that many diseases and susceptibility to illness in later life stem from exposure to toxins and poor quality food in childhood. 

So what is safe to eat, who can we listen to, and who can we trust? And most importantly, just what is safe to feed our babies? 

ORGANIC (INCLUDING BIODYNAMIC*) WHOLEFOODS offer the answer: they are the safest, healthiest, most natural, and arguably the most nutritious foods you can give your baby. They are grown without toxic artificial pesticides, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and the many other routinely used agricultural inputs and practices which spawn the regular food scares. Organic groceries are also free from the thousands of unnecessary chemical additives used in conventional food processing, many of which have been found to cause or aggravate allergic reactions and contribute to hyperactivity in children. 

In several studies in the UK and US, organic foods have also been found to have more vitamins and minerals than chemically treated foods. With organic food now readily available and becoming increasingly affordable, you'll know exactly what you're eating and serving up to your family at mealtimes, and where it comes from. More details on the many benefits of going organic are given below. 
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A major US study released in 1998, thought to mirror the situation in the UK, found that every day, nine out of ten American children aged between six months and five years are exposed to combinations of thirteen different neurotoxic organophosphates pesticides in the food they eat, one million of them consuming unsafe levels of organophosphates which have been shown to cause long-term damage to the developing brain and nervous system. 

Conventionally produced commercial baby food was one of the main sources of unsafe levels of these pesticides, exposing about 7,000 infants aged six to twelve months to unsafe levels in apple juice, apple sauce and meals containing pears and peaches. Conventional apples and their products exposed more than 400,000 children under five to unsafe levels. 

In Britain, organophosphates are used on about a quarter of food crops, are still used in sheep dips despite severe farmer poisonings (and the sheep swallow and absorb the pesticides into their flesh, which humans then eat), and are commonly used on imported foods. Multiple pesticide residues have been found in UK-made non-organic baby foods (see below). 

Latest residue tests confirm concerns over pesticides in our food 

Government test results published in September -1999 in the Working Party on Pesticide Residues (WPPR) Annual Report confirm concerns over pesticides in our food. All supermarket and shop-bought non-organic oranges, and most pears, lettuces, yams and chocolate were found to contain residues, including some from chemicals whose use is prohibited in the UK. 

One third of fruit and vegetables tested had pesticide residues-many containing four or five residues, and some up to six or seven. 

3 per cent had residues above the government's acceptable limit (one banned chemical in lettuce exceeding the limit by over one hundred times).  

27 per cent of the full range of tested foods had residues-among them cancer-causing DDT (also banned in the UK), which was found in beef slices, corned beef and lamb's kidney, and 2,4-D, which was found in over half the oranges tested, and has been shown to cause adverse reproductive effects. Oranges, pears, lettuces, chocolate and apples had the highest number and level of residues. 

All oranges tested had residues: 68 per cent from three or more chemicals, and 40 per cent from four or more. Many had five or six. 

96 per cent of pears contained residues; nearly half from three or more different pesticides (29 per cent had four or more). Residues of the illegal chemical chlormequat (which causes tumours in animals) in imported pears exceeded the acceptable limit. 

84 per cent of lettuces, which are typically sprayed 11 times, had pesticide residues (almost half from three or more different chemicals and with residues which either exceeded the government's acceptable limit or contained an illegal pesticide-one contained seven different chemicals). 

75 per cent of chocolate samples contained the pesticide lindane (believed to cause breast cancer), which was also found in mushrooms. 

68 per cent of apples had residues: 15 per cent from chemicals shown to cause adverse reproductive effects. 

One in eight baby food jars - or over 12 per cent - of regular UK fruit and vegetable baby meals had residues. Of these, nearly a third contained several known to cause adverse reproductive effects (in Heinz, Cow & Gate and Sainsbury's babyfoods). Several Heinz meals had five residues. 

The WPPR reported that results are generally being understated by 20 per cent, which means there are actually higher levels of pesticides in our food. Its programme was criticized by food and health groups as the worst in Europe for its limited range of tested foods, small sampling and the fact that many foods go untested for several years. It also tests for fewer pesticides than any other European country.
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* Biodynamic agriculture is based on the principles of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Planting and other farm activities follow a calendar based on the movement of the moon, the planets and the stars, and involve the use of special natural soil and plant preparations. The certifying body, Demeter, is an internationally approved organisation, like the Soil Association. 

Excerpt from “The Organic Baby Book – How to plan and raise a healthy child” by Tanyia Maxted-Frost.

Published in October 1999 by Green Books Ltd, UK. ISBN: 1 870098 79 X. 

Thank you to Tanyia for her kind permission to reproduce this article from her inspiring and enriching book.