Pesticides: health effects and how to remove pesticides from food

Strawberries, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, pineapples, beets and papaya are the foods that have the highest amount of pesticides, substances that are harmful to health because they increase the risk of serious diseases such as cancer, kidney and liver problems, for example.

The more water and less fiber the food has, the higher its concentration of pesticides and other substances that can also be caused by fertilizers, which penetrate not only the skin but all food. Even if the peel of the food is removed, the chemicals that have entered the food cannot be removed and end up accumulating in the human body over the years causing damage to health.

Effects of pesticides on health

Pesticides are toxic substances that fight pests that can affect crops, but their use can cause:

• Acute intoxication when there is excessive exposure: it can happen, for example, in farmers who do not protect themselves enough at the time of its application, or Late intoxication due to its regular consumption over the years: it can happen when eating foods full of pesticides like those that we find in supermarkets.

Late intoxication can take years to manifest, but the changes that can arise are serious and sometimes irreversible. GM foods can contain even more pesticides, know what they are.

How to remove pesticides from food

It is not always possible to remove pesticides from food, so the best way to protect yourself and avoid ingesting pesticides is to opt for organic food, which is also known as organic food because it does not contain any type of pesticide, but if this is not possible you can:

• Resting food before eating, which is not always possible and is also not very good because most of the vitamins are found in the peel; Wash all fruits, vegetables and greens very well before consumption, with water and soap Create your own plantation at home, on the ground or in plant pots, for example, choosing to use only natural products to avoid possible pests.

Check it out: 3 reasons to buy organic food

How to plant tomatoes and lettuce at home

Buy a tomato seedling or put the seeds in a coffee cup with moist soil until it starts to germinate and then plant in the pot you want, watering daily and always leaving it in the sun, because the tomato needs a lot of sun to grow and bear fruit.

Place the lettuce seeds or a lettuce seedling in the garden and place it in a plant pot or in a horizontally cut pet bottle, watering daily. Like tomatoes, lettuce also needs sun for at least 5 hours a day.

Signs and symptoms of contamination

The following table indicates some signs and symptoms that may indicate acute poisoning caused by pesticides, which especially affect farmers because they come into contact with a greater quantity of the product at once, and also the diseases that can be caused by late poisoning, which occurs through regular consumption of contaminated food.

Signs of acute poisoning (farmers)	Diseases caused by late intoxication (general population)
Weakness Abdominal cramps Red eyes, conjunctivitis Sneezing Agitation Convulsions Asthma attack Nose and throat irritation Dizziness Vomiting Muscle tremors Headache Loss of appetite	Lung cancer Thyroid cancer Testicular cancer Breast cancer Prostate cancer Infertility Mental ilnesess Liver changes Kidney changes Thyroid changes Cardiac arrhythmias Parkinson's disease Pulmonary fibrosis Respiratory allergies Increased malformation of the baby

It is possible to know if the cause of the symptoms or of the installed disease is caused by pesticides through specific blood tests, which are difficult to be performed because most laboratories do not have it and also because it has a high financial cost.

However, the doctor may suspect that the disease is related to pesticides when acute symptoms appear in farmers or when the person informs the doctor about their lifestyle, for example.