4 ms·
Am I the only one to think it is crazy to integrate pesticides in the plants that end up in our food?
by raphinou 14y ago
Am I the only one to think it is crazy to integrate pesticides in the plants that end up in our food?
- zenon 14y agoI don't think it's crazy in principle. The average person eats 1-2 grams of naturally occurring plant pesticides every day. They've always been in our food, and our bodies are pretty good at dealing with them (if anything, we're getting less of them now than historical norms, since we tend to breed low-toxin plants). In practice, it may be difficult to test the safety of any particular integrated pesticide, for example because of political pressure on the researchers [1]. (But then again, people are allowed to sell foods containing evolutionary novel toxins like gluten, peanut agglutinin, and canavanine, with no safety testing.) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pusztai_affair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pusztai_affair
- Symmetry 14y agoWell, it's not that much more pesticide than was on the surface of the plant before we integrated it. And now it isn't ending up in our rivers, which is a huge environmental win.