Links to all references can be found at the end of the lesson
Table of Contents
Eating is our most intimate interaction with the environment.
Every time we eat, an almost inconceivably complex enzymatic and hormonal network starts breaking down our food to gather its electrons and further fuel all of our physiological functions.
Alas, over the past century, in our ruthless (and clumsy) pursuit of higher crop yields and profitability, we have altered much of our food supply with all sorts of contaminants, and have made this already-intricate process even moreso.
These experiments include:
Let us focus on them and try to understand to which degree they might be worth influencing our eating practices.
Pesticides are extensively used in modern agriculture to control pests and weeds.
The most commonly used pesticide around the world is a herbicide called glyphosate, a compound initially developed by the agricultural giant Monsanto, now owned by another giant, Bayer. Other examples include malathion, parathion, diazinon, chlorpyrifos, tetrachlorvinphos, and many, many more.
Now, these pesticides are, in theory, heavily regulated. This is particularly true in regions like Europe, which has notoriously stricter regulations than, say, the United States.
In fact, many poisons commonly used in the U.S. (e.g., atrazine, phorate, paraquat, terbufos, and more) are either completely banned or carefully monitored in the EU, UK, China and even Brazil (sorry, Americabros…).