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> Grow and dry your own. That might be a particularly good idea if you use a lot of basil Growing your own food to avoid heavy metals is actually horrible advi
by donatj 5y ago
> Grow and dry your own. That might be a particularly good idea if you use a lot of basil
Growing your own food to avoid heavy metals is actually horrible advice. To be done safely you need to get your soil tested; especially in more urban areas your soil is often just as bad or worse than the soil these were grown in.
Remember, burying used motor oil after an oil change rather than recycling it was common practice late into the twentieth century.
- nimih 5y agoTesting your soil is relatively inexpensive[1] and pretty straightforward to do. Further, if the goal is to grow herbs, you can easily stick to gardening in containers or raised beds, where you get to completely control the growing medium. If you're in an urban area, those are probably the most realistic options for you anyways. [1] https://www.sites.google.com/site/healthygardeners/testing-labs-results https://www.sites.google.com/site/healthygardeners/testing-l... reports that costs range from $10-$200, depending on the accuracy and range of tests you're interested in.
- donatj 5y agoSpending potentially a couple hundred dollars to grow a couple dollars worth of spices is a big ask.
- nimih 5y agoLuckily, you can spend a couple dozen dollars instead. Or do the other thing I mentioned where you don't worry about soil contaminants at all. Of course, we're on a tech forum full of highly paid professionals, talking not about living frugally, but about avoiding heavy metal ingestion. Spending $200 up front to replace a weekly $2-10 recurring expense (i.e. buying those same herbs fresh from a local grocer) seems eminently reasonable for this audience if it's in the service of improving overall health.