Pesticides and Toxins in Foods: A Guest Post by Nick Palmer

Ames Test

This was originally posted on Facebook, but it was very interesting and I asked Nick for permission to put it here to get a wider audience. As the "news" is out that there is no safe level of wine consumption, it is worth looking at the toxins in ordinary foods, and also considering that we have to weigh up risk against benefits. That wine can be beneficial is also established, but the recent study in the media focuses only on the risks.

Guest Post by Nick Palmer

There was a recent poll here which asked the apparently simple question "Should we ban Roundup in Jersey?" There is a lot of 'fake news' being spread about pesticides locally, which badly libels our farmers, although it's not surprising that people have become so confused, what with the long term misinformation consistently spread by the rhetoric of such as Greenpeace.

I have a view, based on the real science, stripped of the pseudoscientific hysteria, that some of the ways Glyphosate is used nowadays should be modified or eliminated for significant reasons other than alleged human carcinogenicity, about which there is a lot of confusion and deceit.

The fact is that the strongest science nowadays, trumpeted by activists, only says that Glyphosate is a PROBABLE human carcinogen. This is actually quite a weak classification and should not worry anyone, and here are the reasons why.

Carcinogenicity of substances is worked out using scientific tests, the most well known of which is the Ames test, which is done in laboratories using bacterial cell and rat cultures. Using the Ames test, 50% of ALL chemicals tested whether natural or artificial, whether created by industry or nature are 'carcinogenic'.

Where activists are deceitful or, at the very least, ignorant is that they do not tell people that these substances are only carcinogenic - as in actually might cause cancer - when there are enormously greater quantities present than those due to residues etc. 

The concentration of any chemical is the key to attributing any real toxicity to it. In toxicology circles there is a very old rule of thumb -'the dose makes the poison'. There is a reason why activists have to turn a blind eye to this to spread their agendas.

Prepare to have your preconceptions blown away. First one has to realise that there is no real distinction between natural substances and 'chemicals'. 

Using the very same tests that they used to establish the 'probable' carcinogenicity' of Glyphosate and other modern pesticides and fungicides it becomes clear that, in reality, a plate of broccoli, a kale smoothy, a tomato salad or just about everything cooked on a BBQ or fried on your hob is way more carcinogenic than any residues from pesticides in the food. 

This is true of perfectly organic vegetables too. This surprising truth is because of a little known fact - most, probably all, plants make their own natural pesticides and fungicides - toxins - to kill or dissuade their fungi, insect, and animal predators. Even less well known is that many of these natural substances are hundreds of times more carcinogenic, when tested, than even the 'bad' pesticides, let alone the very benign Glyphosate.

Human dietary intake of nature’s naturally created pesticides is about 10,000 times higher than the human intake of synthetic pesticides that are proved rodent carcinogens - the proof is this seminal 1990 paper by the very same man who invented the main test for carcinogenicity - Bruce Ames.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ames_test
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/87/19/7777.full.pdf

Ames estimated that Americans consume 5,000-10,000 different natural pesticides in their diets.

Here is a short list of the natural carcinogens present in vegetables and herbs and a few other foodstuffs- they contain proved (not just probable...) carcinogens. Also these substances are present in much larger quantities, therefore are even more carcinogenic. The full list is a whole lot longer - if you like it, it's probably on the list...

• Carrots – aniline, caffeic acid
• Cherry Tomatoes – benaldehyde, caffiec acid, hydrogen peroxide, quercetin glycosides
• Celery – caffiec acid, furan derivatives, psoralens
• Cream of Mushroom Soup – hydrazines
• Mixed Roasted Nuts – aflatoxin, furfural
• Green Salad – allyl isothiocyanate, caffiec acid, estragole, methyl eugenol
• Prime Rib of Beef with Parsley Sauce – benzene, heterocyclic amines, psoralens
• Broccoli – allyl isothiocynate
• Baked Potatoes – ethyl alcohol, caffeic acid
• Sweet Potato – ethyl alcohol, furfural
• Red Wine, White Wine - ethyl alcohol, ethyl carbamate
• Coffee – benzo(a)pyrene, benzaldehyde, benzene, benzofuran, caffeic acid
• Catechol – dibenz(a)anthracine, methylcatechol, hydrogen peroxide
• Tea – benzo(a)pyrene, quercetinglycosides

Naturally occurring mutagens and carcinogens found in foods and beverages;

• Acetaldehyde (apples, bread, coffee, tomatoes) – mutagen and potent rodent carcinogen
• Acrylamide (bread, rolls) – rodent and human neurotoxin; rodent carcinogen
• Aflatoxin (nuts)- mutagen and potent rodent carcinogen, also a human carcinogen
• Allyl isothiocyanate (arugula, broccoli, mustard) – mutagen and rodent carcinogen
• Aniline (carrots) – rodent carcinogen
• Benzaldehyde (apples, coffee, tomatoes) – rodent carcinogen
• Benzene (butter, coffee, roasted beef) – rodent carcinogen
• Caffeic acid (apples, carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes, coffee, grapes, lettuce, mangos, pears, potatoes) – rodent carcinogen
• Hydrazines (mushrooms) – mutagens and rodent carcinogen
• Hydroquinone (coffee) – rodent carcinogen
• d-limonene (black pepper, mangos) – rodent carcinogen
• 4-methylcatechol (coffee) – rodent carcinogen
• Methyl eugenol (basil, cinnamon and nutmeg in apple and pumpkin pies)- rodent carcinogen
• Psoralens (celery, parsley) – mutagens; rodent and human carcinogens

And yet vegetables, and the others mentioned, consumed in ordinary amounts, do not cause cancers even though they have plenty of carcinogens in them - indeed, many can protect against some cancers.

The reason is that even though these natural pesticide chemicals are away more carcinogenic when tested than artificial agricultural or horticultural 'chemicals', and they are present in much larger quantities, the total concentrations they are in plants is still much less than the minimum levels needed to spark off or exacerbate cancers. 

It follows logically that the much lower levels of much less carcinogenic chemical pesticide residues are vanishingly insignificant in our diets and that all those who campaign against pesticides because of their purported dangers to humans are mostly misguided. In short, wrong.

Once one fully understands this, there are some surprising consequences. 

Modern vegetables are often said to lack flavour and, compared to 'heritage' varieties, this is often true. Plants have been bred to grow faster and larger and more appealing to the eyes of the majority of supermarket shoppers and sometimes this has ended up 'diluting' the taste. 

An irony of popular belief is that, in real measured terms, organic heritage varieties have more carcinogenic potential than standard watery supermarket veg. Heritage varieties are usually more naturally resistant to pests and this is because they still have more of the natural pesticides in them, which have been bred out in mass produced vegetables.