C U LT U R E F E A T U R E hormone-injected, mass-produced, pesticide-covered food one finds elsewhere. And Whole Foods hardly has a corner on organic eating anymore. Most major chain grocery stores carry their own line of organics. A study by the Rodale Institute found that 58 percent of consumers were concerned about food contamination by pesticides, GMO, and other agricultural chemicals; and an average of 53 percent of Americans (and a higher 57 percent of women) claim to shop organically. Other studies have shown that number to be as high as 70 percent, even with the prices for organic foods weighing in as much as 50 percent costlier than non-organic options.
causing cancer and obesity. And between 1970 and 1990 alone, U.S. consumption of the tasty poison spiked 1,000 percent. Or take the use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) in
in humans is a link to breast, colon, and prostate cancers, as well as to reduced ability to fight illness and weakened defenses against early cancerous cells. For being so easy to overlook, it makes some sense: Altering the hormones of animals we eat affects our own hormonal balances. And so there is logic to being concerned about throwing off our body’s hormonal homeostasis simply so we can save 30 cents on a gallon of milk. Organic lovers have a point.
FOR BEING SO EASY TO OVERut, speaking of LOOK, IT MAKES B lovers, I can’t help but wonder . . , if we SOME SENSE: ALTERare increasingly and rightly concerned ING THE HORMONES about hormones and synthetics in our OF ANIMALS WE foods, why aren’t we eople are concerned women questioning EAT AFFECTS OUR P about the State of their presence in our the Onion for good reason. sex? OWN HORMONAL Heaven forbid we forget to For all the greening wash our pesticide-drenched of the supermarket, odds BALANCES. produce. And finding natural are a significant portion of foods outside the produce section can seem like scouting for endangered species. We’re seeing ingredients on labels today that didn’t exist a few decades ago, and not all of these scientific concoctions are good for us to eat. I challenge you to find just about anything in a general grocery store aisle that does not contain high fructose corn syrup, for example. I thought I was victorious the other day in finding “all natural” popsicles, only to squint at the ingredients to see HFCS listed as ingredient numero dos. High fructose corn syrup has been directly linked to
cows today. Nearly one-third of all cows are injected with the synthetic hormone, which increases a cow’s milk production by nearly 10 percent. But the hormone leads to all sorts of health issues for the cows, among them udder infections and cystic ovaries. The antibiotics that doctors then use to treat the infections find their way into the cow’s milk, and right into our bodies, as well as increasing the cow’s insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1). The result
the female consumers buying hormone-free food are daily taking some form of hormonal and chemical contraceptive, not by accident but on purpose and with a prescription. Let’s face it: As Americans quasi-obsessed with eating organically—with making sure no chemicals go into our produce and no hormones into our meat—we are at the same time culturally attached to a most un-organic method of sex and reproduction. Nevertheless, women today seem to gravitate toward the Pill almost as soon as they start their periods. NARAL reports that of the VERILY MAGAZINE · TEASER 2012
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