Require labeling food with pesticides used to grow it

Health
1

We label whether food is GMO, even though there have been no studies showing GMOs are bad

Meanwhile, we’re all consuming food grown with pesticides (both organic & inorganic ones) & there’s not a single label

Food should be labeled with what pesticides were used to grow the raw ingredients, as “organic” vs not means very little if it’s doused with organic pesticides

A long list of pesticides would hopefully result in a hit to corporate profits & incentivize them to get better quality ingredients

See also my related policy suggestion on GMOs:

7 Likes
2

We should move to ban harmful pesticides instead.

2 Likes
3

That would be ideal, certainly

Trouble is that “harmful” can get really tricky - you look at every scientific study on Roundup, for example

Just about every study claims it’s not harmful - I don’t buy it (although I do agree the GMO corn is not harmful, I would bet the pesticide is)

The theory of why it might be harmful is how it affects gut bacteria

Really, really hard to demonstrate in a study how this is harmful

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4

I like this idea. Let the informed market decide.

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6

@mrs.mojica It would hard to determine “harmful.” Poison and toxins levels are based off the dose of the chemical. There are some like DDT that even a small amount is toxic, but others like ethanol (drinking alcohol used as an algicide, disinfectant, and sanitizer) can be safe in small qualities, but become dangerous at higher levels. How would you determine that things like ethanol are in low enough concentration not to cause issues?

7

Labeling the products with which chemicals were used in or on it seems like a good idea, but dose is what makes something toxic. How would the general public know the difference between a low dose that would be considered “safe” and high dose that would be considered “toxic.” We also do not always have good long term low dose studies, which would be the biggest concern.