How Good are Strawberries for You?
Easton Renwick
Period 3
Academic Biology
Issues with our Food
Have you ever gone to the grocery store to get food? How about a container of strawberries? Did you know that strawberries are among the top fruits sprayed with pesticides! In the article I will introduce to you the pros, cons, and what the main types of pesticides that are used in strawberries.
Strawberries are not only one of the top choices of all Americans for a summer time snack, but are a huge gain in profit for many large businesses that spray pesticides. Companies across the United States make up to 50 billion dollars just in pesticide production. About 40 percent of what they make is in fact exported to other countries, making the United States the largest manufacturer of pesticides. This also creates jobs for many Americans in pesticide production plants. It has been estimated that approximately millions of lives have been saved from malaria, yellow fever, sleeping sickness, black plague, and typhoid all from spraying pesticides. In early years, before spraying of pesticides was common, about 35% of the annual crops that farmers grew were killed. Now, because of pesticides only 20% of the crops are damaged. There is also one other strong point that makes pesticide use more acceptable. While spraying pesticides, it had reduced the number of Spruce budworm and gypsy moth that have infected many parts of trees and farms. The links for the information about the good effects for spraying pesticides is found here: http://www2.mcdaniel.edu/Biology/eh01/pesticides/pro,consof_pesticides.html
Although there are many good side effects to spraying pesticides there are also harmful ones. Studies in several animal species have shown that the major three pesticides sprayed on strawberries is rapidly absorbed in the our blood stream from the gastrointestinal tract and is rapidly metabolized. Pesticides are also very harmful to our lungs, they irritate the lung tissue and can cause severe coughing. The information about spraying pesticides can be found here.
http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/carbaryl.htm
http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/benomyl.htm
http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/captan.htm
I believe that spraying pesticides are good to use because they have prevented many deaths and prevented many diseases . That is why I believe that spraying pesticides is a good idea.
March 18th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Easton, I find your post very good. I think that it is interesting about the pesticides and what they do to the foods. Do you think that this happens with all foods, or just certain ones? All in all, that is a very good topic and I think you did great on it. Allie
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:32 am
Easton I like that you didnt just point out the bad things about pesticides. I agree with many of the reasons that they are good to use, like the fact that they can stop diseases like malaria and black fever. I like that you also showed many of the bad things like that the pesticides are absorbed into our bloodstream quickly. What are the main three pesticides?
April 1st, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Pesticides are helpful to mankind for eliminating many disease-causing organisms. I just don’t want to eat the pesticides on my food. Don’t you think the consumer should be made aware of the foods that are heavily sprayed with pesticides?