Environmental toxins: Your fruit and veges may be making you gain weight

Vanessa Bogenholm remembers the exact moment she decided to make the change from conventional farming to organic farming. One day, while preparing to inject a gas pesticide into the soil on her 65-acre berry farm, she dressed herself in protective clothing and put her dog in the car so he wouldn't inhale the chemical fumes.

Suddenly she thought to herself: This is an insane way to make food.

If only more farmers experienced that moment of enlightenment we might live on a far healthier planet.

Possible exposure to toxins on imported produce
Farmers who change from conventional to organic don't have an easy go of it. Since the day Vanessa put harmful pesticides, herbicides and fertiliser in her past and converted her berry farm to organic, her harvests are smaller and the demands of plant management are much more difficult.

On the plus side, she no longer has to handle methyl bromide, the soil fumigant and pesticide she was using on the day she decided to make the change. Farm workers who inhale methyl bromide are at risk of developing convulsions, impaired cognitive function, neurological damage and even coma and death.

I found Vanessa's story in a recent Associated Press article that illustrates how farm hands aren't the only ones who suffer from methyl bromide exposure. People who live in the vicinity of farms where methyl bromide is used have reported flu-like symptoms, headaches, nervousness and vision problems.

On a global scale, this gas has also been shown to contribute to ozone layer depletion; a drawback that prompted the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty that banned the use of methyl bromide as of this year.

In the past, the main users of the chemical were growers of open-field strawberries, including pick-your-own, accounting for around 75 percent of the methyl bromide used for UK outdoor soil-grown crops. The use of methyl bromide is now banned in the UK.

Under the Montreal Protocol countries have agreed to phase out methyl bromide usage by the year 2010. All strawberries grown in Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark are already produced without methyl bromide but it is still used in other countries, including Spain and the US, from which we import produce.

This poison gas is just one of many toxic agents we might come into contact with at any given time without ever knowing it. According to US HSI Panellist and First Lady of Nutrition Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., C.N.S., more than 80,000 pesticides, pollutants and chemicals are currently in use worldwide. And the combined effect on our health can be devastating.

Toxins may contribute to obesity
Environmental toxins compromise our efforts to stay healthy and may even interfere with attempts to lose weight.

Here's how Dr. Gittleman explained the idea of 'fattening toxins' in a recent e-mail she sent me:

'In compelling research published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in 2002, Dr. Paula Baillie-Hamilton correlated the rise in the use of synthetic chemicals from 1930-2000, with a matching rise in the number of overweight and obese adults in the United States. Baillie-Hamilton concluded that growth hormones and pesticides in the food supply are fattening to both animals and humans. As found in 'Fast Track,' animal studies with pesticides more than support this theory.

'In addition, a recent 2004 US symposium entitled 'Obesity: Developmental Origins and Environmental Influences' concluded that environmental toxins - particularly oestrogen-like chemicals from plastics in food and drink packaging - play a role in obesity.

'Over the past 60 years, our diets, lifestyles and environment have undergone a petrochemical revolution, placing a huge burden on our body's detoxification organs. Our gastro-intestinal tracts are sluggish and constipated without enough fibre rich foods; we are lacking critical nutrients needed for the liver's detox pathways; and the liver's detox enzymes are being inhibited by common medications, excess sugar, caffeine and trans fats.'

The 'Fast Track' that Dr. Gittleman refers to is her most recent book, 'The Fast Track One-Day Detox Diet,' which presents a quick, no-strings-attached approach, designed to promote rapid weight loss and increased energy, with an eye towards long-term weight control and a significant reduction of the poisons we constantly consume.

You can find more information about Dr. Gittleman's book at amazon.co.uk