Enough to Drive you Crazy

I'm a big fan of buying organic when I can, although we also occasionally ingest fast food and the ilk. Knowingly feeding pesticides to my family freaks me out, especially when children are more susceptible to the effects of even small amounts of chemicals on their developing systems. Pesticides have been linked to a variety of health problems, including nervous system toxicity, cancer, hormone system effects, and skin eye & lung irritation. But since we can't always buy organic, I'm thankful for organizations that test fruits and veggies for pesticide toxicity. The EWG tests it as it is typically eaten - washed and peeled where applicable. According to their website "you can lower your pesticide consumption by nearly four-fifths by avoiding the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables and instead eating the least contaminated produce. When you eat the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables, you’ll be exposed to an average of 10 pesticides a day. When you choose fresh produce from the 15 least contaminated fruits and vegetables, you’ll consume fewer than 2 pesticides per day." Since I like to shop at our local non-organic farmer's market, this is helpful to me. (You can download a pdf of the shopper's guide here in case you don't have a photographic memory)

We always buy organic hormone free milk, even sending it to preschool to protect Caitlyn from future breast cancer. Then there's the BPA issue. We tossed out all Caitlyn's old bottles and even the new ones I had bought Elijah after learning about plastics leeching BPA. We stopped heating in and started hand washing our plastic. But now we find out that BPA is in one of my biggest pantry staples - canned tomatoes! What am I supposed to do, grow and can my own in mason jars?

Now we discover that SPF claims in sunscreen are usually exaggerated new government data links a form of vitamin A actually used in sunscreens to accelerated growth of skin tumors and lesions. So sunscreen is both protecting us from and causing skin cancer? Now I have to get sunscreen for my kids from an approved list!

Maybe I should just stop reading...