<story><title>Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/29/cocktail-pesticides-almost-all-oranges-grapes-uk-study</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mherdeg</author><text>This is an area where I&amp;#x27;m torn. Should I be buying only organic produce or should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce?&lt;p&gt;There is a tradeoff... with young kids and a full-time job the time I can spend buying or preparing meals is pretty limited. I don&amp;#x27;t fully understand the magnitude of the risks of, say, eating too much vs. eating too much pesticide.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m also kind of irrationally mad at organizations like the Environmental Working Group; as far as I can tell their &amp;quot;dirty dozen list&amp;quot; comes from taking public domain FDA data about toxins in food, dividing the guideline safe amounts by about 10 arbitrarily, and publishing that the public numbers are higher than their (apparently made up?) lower safety thresholds. I just don&amp;#x27;t understand the science here -- how much extra death are they saying I&amp;#x27;m incurring by eating non organic produce and what are the error bars?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bawolff</author><text>42% of people are obesse in usa. That seems like very obviously the more immediate risk by many orders of magnitude. The risk of pesticides (that are within legal limits) is a bit more nebulous, but seems almost certainly nowhere near as pervasive as obesity. If you have a known risk that&amp;#x27;s significant, probably best to focus there.&lt;p&gt;However is this really the trade off? For the most part you can&amp;#x27;t really buy pesticide free food that&amp;#x27;s unhealthy.</text></comment>
<story><title>Traces of 122 different pesticides in 12 most polluted fruit and veg products</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/29/cocktail-pesticides-almost-all-oranges-grapes-uk-study</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mherdeg</author><text>This is an area where I&amp;#x27;m torn. Should I be buying only organic produce or should I be spending the same money and energy on eating less sugar and more of any kind of produce?&lt;p&gt;There is a tradeoff... with young kids and a full-time job the time I can spend buying or preparing meals is pretty limited. I don&amp;#x27;t fully understand the magnitude of the risks of, say, eating too much vs. eating too much pesticide.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m also kind of irrationally mad at organizations like the Environmental Working Group; as far as I can tell their &amp;quot;dirty dozen list&amp;quot; comes from taking public domain FDA data about toxins in food, dividing the guideline safe amounts by about 10 arbitrarily, and publishing that the public numbers are higher than their (apparently made up?) lower safety thresholds. I just don&amp;#x27;t understand the science here -- how much extra death are they saying I&amp;#x27;m incurring by eating non organic produce and what are the error bars?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>clairity</author><text>the (magnitude of) risk isn&amp;#x27;t certain yet, but it&amp;#x27;s unlikely zero, given our history of poorly quantifying the harmfulness of a variety of substances. a reasonable hedge is to buy organic for the dirty dozen and non-organic for other produce. eat less processed sugar regardless, whether you replace it with fruit or not.</text></comment>