Thursday, July 9, 2009

Worried about pesticides in fruit and veggies?

I am always worried about pesticides on my fruit and veggies, after reading this maybe I was focused on the wrong thing? I don't normally get into stuff like this but the facts are just to outstanding to ignore. It just shows you that we need to educate ourselves(which is tricky with the Internet, its hard to find non-biased materials) and prayerfully do what we feel is best for our families.



Number of Human beings that could be fed
by the grain and soybeans eaten by U.S. livestock: 1,300,000,000

Human Population of the U.S.: 243,000,000


% of corn grown in U.S. being eaten by human beings: 20%

% of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by livestock: 80%

Pounds of potatoes that can be grown on 1 acre of land: 20,000

pounds of beef that can be produced on 1 acre of land: 165

Amount of meat imported annually by U.S.: 200,00,00 pounds

User of more than half of all the water used
for all purposes in the U.S.: livestock production

Water needed to produce 1 pound of wheat: 25 gallons

Water needed to produce 1 pound of meat 2,500

How frequently a heart attack kills in the U.S.: every 45 seconds

Amount you reduce your risk of heart attack by reducing
consumption of meat, dairy, and eggs 100%: 90%

The Dairy Council tells us: Milk is natures most perfect food.
The Dairy Council does not us:
Milk is natures most perfect food for a baby calf, who has four stomachs, will double its weight in 47 days, and is destined to weigh 300 pounds within a year.

Chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticide residue in the U.S. diet supplied by meat: 55%

Supplied by Dairy products:23%

Supplied by Veggies:6%

Supplied by Fruit:4%

Supplied by grains: 1%

Relative pesticide contamination in breast milk of meat eating mother's compared to pesticide contamination in breast milk of vegetarian mothers: 35 times as high

Sperm count of average male compared to 30 years ago: Down 30%

Principle reason for sterility and sperm count reduction of U.S. males:
Chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides
( including dioxin, DDT, etc)

% of hydrocarbon pesticide residues in American diet attributable to meats, dairy products, fish and eggs: 94%


% of total antibiotics used in U.S. fed routinely to Livestock: 55


% of staphylococci infections resistant to Penicillin in 1960: 5
in 1988: 91

Only man to win Ironman Triathlon more than twice: Dave Scott 6 time winner
Food choice Of Dave Scott: Vegetarian

I saw these Stats as I was reading a book and the Author had pulled these from 'Diet For A New America"by John Robbins. Now I have not read this book, and there were many more Stats I did not list..I have no clue how old these are I am sure now they have changed and need to be
re-evaluated but it got my mind thinking. I am obviously not going to pull all these things from my diet but it gets my wheels turning! I am not quite sure how we are gonna replace all the protein, and so forth but I am defiantly going to be looking for ways to adjust our diets!










2 comments:

Amy F. said...

Sweet!! I can not wait to read this book. You and I are on the same page. You're right, these are facts we can't ignore. (If you haven't noticed, Dax doesn't really drink milk -just eats cheese ;) -but I didn't want to preach too much about it). And I really don't like meat anymore, but I'm not a "vegetarian". However, these are all things that are on track with my 'nutrition belief system', even though I don't always follow it, hehe ;)
Thank you for sharing! That is really motivating, and quite disturbing!!

Amy F. said...

Oh, and you'd be surprised where you can find protein. Its in pretty much everything (sometimes in small amounts), but beans & legumes are a great source of protein. I swear by eating both 5 fruit and 5 veggie servings a day, as well as whole grains, like wild & brown rice, and/or whole oatmeal, etc. (there's more, just too much to list) that you won't have a protein or iron deficiency.
I agree though, I'm not quite ready to let go of meats completely, but I guess we know now why its good to eat "sparingly", right? (wink, wink).