Author Archive | Barbara Hirsch

The Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics recently published a detailed policy statement on pesticide exposure in children. The term pesticides here also includes herbicides (weed killers), fumigants, and fungicides (for controlling molds). Following are some excerpts.

Children encounter pesticides daily in air, food, dust, and soil and on surfaces through home and public lawn or garden application, household insecticide use, application to pets, and agricultural product residues.”

The past decade has seen an expansion of the epidemiologic evidence base supporting adverse effects…The evidence base is most robust for associations to pediatric cancer and adverse neuro-development.”

For many children, diet may be the most influential source, as illustrated by an intervention study that placed children on an organic diet (produced without pesticide) and observed drastic and immediate decrease in urinary excretion of pesticide metabolites.”
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When someone recently commented that tenting was the only effective way of ridding a home of termites, I agreed, adding that every other living thing therein was also killed. It reminded me of what seems to have become a common human response to pests since these poisons were invented – to wipe out everything, not just the targeted creatures. From what I’ve learned, most pesticides and insecticides applied in our home, gardens and on the fields that grow our food do just this. They are broad spectrum all right, for besides killing pests, they kill the beneficial insects and increase the toxins in our soil, air and water.

Spiders eat lots of bugs and can provide effective pest control in our homes. Rachel Carson says that in a spiders’ 18 month long life, she can kill 2,000 insects. Virginia Hayes wrote about them in the Independent recently as “among the front line of garden friends”. She is the curator of that botanical paradise Lotusland, which has been pesticide free for many years. And locally, only the black widow is dangerous to us.

Ants and termites are natural enemies. Ants attack and eat them –  they are not only invasive pests to us.”They eat pests harmful to crops and orchards. They destroy garden pests, killing small larvae and culling aphids before they can destroy the plant they are on.” Some types of nematodes (microscopic round worms), when applied to the soil, can kill pests that attack many kinds of fruits and vegetables. Ladybugs and lacewings are two other insects that are beneficial, besides being pretty. This linked site from Australia has tons of info on various forms of biological control of pests, and on the many good bugs there are.

Last week’s EcoFact failed to mention that Neonicotinoids, are used very widely on seeds and fields of non-organically farmed food crops. They are less toxic to humans (as far as is now known) than other pesticides, hence their burgeoning use. But for the flying pollinators, like bees who have a radius of 3 miles from their hives, these and other pesticides spread in agricultural regions and in institutional and domestic landscaping are having a calamitous effect on bee populations.

African Honey Bee in Santa Barbara

The effects of these losses have been felt everywhere, especially in the northern hemisphere, both within commercial hives and in wild bee populations. Many species of bees have recently gone extinct. In China, farmers are painstakingly hand pollinating fruit trees with paintbrushes, as there are not enough bees for their apple and pear orchards.

Here in Santa Barbara, Don, the beekeeper of San Marcos Farms, told me that his bee losses last year were the worst ever, he estimated 30-40%. Another beekeeper he knew in Buellton had a similar report. San Marcos Farms specializes in wildflower honey and so situates their hives accordingly, but farmlands are not far enough away to prevent exposure. Far worse losses have been reported in other parts of the country.

And even closer to home, from the Santa Barbara Beekeepers Association: “In response to the discovery of 7 Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP) in residential citrus trees in Santa Barbara and Goleta, the California Department of Agriculture is planning a systemic neonicotinoid pesticide application, possibly affecting thousands of residential properties. This application follows on the heels of similar foliar spraying and systemic ground soaking throughout the state, and most recently, in Santa Maria.”

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Ever flown into San Francisco and wondered about those brightly colored ponds at the base of the bay? I sure have, assuming the worst. But they are salt evaporation ponds and the colors are caused by algae, different kinds at different salinity levels.

Besides being an excellent flavor enhancer, salt has been used to preserve meat and fish for thousands of years. The word salary comes from salarium, salt being part of Roman soldiers’ pay. There have been salt wars, salt laws, salt taxes, salt trading, salt rites. The stuff is and has been elementally essential to us.

We are saline. Our bodies contain about a half pound of salt. But the association with health dangers came from the fact that salt intake temporarily increases blood pressure.  As hypertension and heart disease increased among westerners, the campaign against salt began. Recently, meta analyses and even more studies are still not able to prove a link between salt and increased risk of death. And as salt licks would prove, other creatures need it too. Continue Reading →

Besides raw honey and maple syrup as healthful sugars, what about other sweeteners? I also happen to have a bottle of molasses, a jar of coconut sugar and a bottle of agave syrup in my kitchen.  Good choices?

Due to its strong flavor, molasses is not used much other than in baking and cooking, but it is great stuff, very high in iron – a couple of tablespoons has more than a burger! –  and is rich in other nutrients as well. Ironically it is a waste product in the sugar making process, being made after the non nutritive sugar is removed from the cane syrup, and retaining the healthful part of the plant.
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