[HN Gopher] EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
___________________________________________________________________
EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
Author : john-titor
Score : 376 points
Date : 2026-06-08 15:59 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.foodwatch.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.foodwatch.org)
| stogot wrote:
| Companies that poison the people like this should be sanctioned,
| along with their owners. Greed and profiteering
| spwa4 wrote:
| Wasn't the EU fresh from a scandal that they voted all sorts of
| laws, sued lots of EU companies, and then allowed Chinese
| companies to import lots of stuff that obviously violated all
| those laws for 20+ years?
|
| From safety regulations to baby toys with lead paint.
|
| The EU will probably do nothing again.
| throwaway67678 wrote:
| When it comes to safety regulations as with everything else,
| some countries do not succeed, others do not try
| Saline9515 wrote:
| The EU has allowed large scale imports of chinese fake honey
| for the last 20 years.
|
| All of the beekeeper associations complain about it,
| regularly conduct lab tests with honeys from supermarkets,
| most of them being not honey, or mixed with fake honey.
|
| The EU of course has done nothing : the beekeepers aren't
| powerful enough to distribute the right bribes to the right
| people. Meanwhile the consumers buy glucose syrup at
| 15EUR/kg.
|
| But hey, we have USB-C! It evenS out, right?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Its up to individual countries to do it no? They've been
| testing honey here recently and several brands got removed
| from stores.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| No, it's up to the EU to stop imports from China. It's
| not possible for individual countries to do it:
|
| - Lab testing is complex, requires to identify the DNA of
| pollens in honey and few countries can do it at the
| moment.
|
| - Honeys are mixed, so it's trivial to receive fake honey
| in a country that allows it, mix it, and reexport to
| another one that forbids it. Same happens with olive
| oils, no one cares.
|
| - Many brands just lie, given that there is no
| enforcement regarding food traceability and safety in
| general in the EU (it's a meme to reassure consumers).
| Where I live a brand advertising "locally made honey" was
| found to sell glucose syrup : nothing happened.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Does the EU have a centralized food testing agency?
| Saline9515 wrote:
| It does have a food safety agency, but this is a classic
| international trade problem that is solved at the border
| since the EU is a trade union.
| flexagoon wrote:
| They don't "poison the people" unless the pesticides are found
| in a toxic dose (they are not).
|
| Of course, the legal limits are purposefully designed to be
| well below the LOAEL, and those companies that were found to
| contain levels above them should face consequences. But to
| claim they "poison the people" isn't true.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| The toxic dose is a vague term. You may not die from
| exposure, but you can still have effects, such as
| infertility, cancers or endocrine disruption.
| fasterik wrote:
| If we really want to be precise, we should talk about parts
| per million (PPM). Scientific research establishes a safe
| level of consumption in terms of PPM, below which there are
| no detectable health effects. Generally when you see
| alarmism about "pesticides found in food" they're orders of
| magnitude below the PPM that would have any effect on human
| health.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Exactly, scientific research established that DDT was
| perfectly safe, too! Scientists even used to eat it to
| "prove" that it was safe.
|
| In reality it depends, being biology, "safe level" is
| also very relative since you don't know every effect the
| substance has on the body.
|
| That's why pesticides and other chemicals such as
| bisphenols are regularly phased out, since effects can
| appear long after "scientific research" established it
| was "safe". Or it can affect certain populations, such as
| farmers, who get a high dose, or children, who are more
| sensitive than adults.
|
| Others, such DDT, lead or cadmium, are accumulated in the
| body over a long period, and then start to show effects,
| even when the person has stopped eating it. Or can find
| their way later the food chain: Inuits would get poisoned
| when eating polar bear's meat, that was full of DDT from
| fields on the other side of the globe.
| fasterik wrote:
| We update our beliefs as we get new data. There's not
| much else we can do.
|
| There's a common thought pattern among conspiracy
| theorists. "Some conspiracies turn out to be real" so
| that justifies their belief in their very specific
| conspiracy theory. The same pattern occurs when we talk
| about chemicals in our diet or the environment. "Some
| chemicals turn out to be dangerous" but that doesn't
| prove that a specific concentration of a specific
| chemical is doing anything, unless we have data to
| support the claim.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Precaution principle exists, and in the case of food
| safety, "getting new data" make take years or be very
| costly.
|
| For instance, bisphenols in plastics baby bottles were
| proved problematic after decades of use. Precaution
| principle would have recommended to avoid them
| (especially since they weren't necessary).
|
| It's not trivial, and many businesses would rather see
| their consumers die than cut their margins. I remember
| buying some custom furniture; when it arrived it reeked
| of varnish smell. I called the factory, told them they
| didn't cure it correctly. Manager said "yeah we know, we
| know it's dangerous but people get cancers years later
| and you can't identify the source anyway" (true story).
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| We have seen over and over again chemicals which are
| "safe to consume" or "not that bad" actually do have very
| severe effects. It's just very hard to link cause and
| effect. When someone dies of cancer we can't pinpoint it
| to coming from the pesticide on the blueberries they ate
| a few months ago.
|
| We have all these terrible illnesses that we ascribe to
| bad luck, and then all of these new chemicals we haven't
| fully studied yet being sprayed on everything.
| fasterik wrote:
| Even things we know for certain aren't "safe to consume"
| are harmless at small enough doses. If I drink chlorine
| at 1000 PPM it's going to kill me, but drinking it at 1
| PPM (roughly the amount added to drinking water in many
| places, and well below the level in swimming pools) is
| considered harmless to humans and kills pathogens, so
| it's a net positive. _It 's possible_ that chlorine at 1
| PPM causes cancer, but that's a claim that would require
| evidence.
|
| The same argument applies to pesticide or any other
| substance. Without talking about specific numbers, it's
| just speculation.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| In the case of pesticides, lower doses may show increased
| effects, what you say is false.
|
| https://academic.oup.com/edrv/article-
| abstract/33/3/378/2354...
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| +1
|
| The downvotes aren't surprising, people who have spent enough
| time on this orange site tend to lose the plot
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| There are all kinds of toxic residues and contaminants in the US
| food supply because there's a lack of testing, lack of
| regulation, lack of enforcement, and a lack of the precautionary
| principle. Meanwhile, farmers will continue spraying RoundUp on
| oats just before harvest, rice grown in the US will contain
| arsenic from naturally-occurring contaminated soils, and almost
| all bread contains toxic crap banned in the rest of the world.
| nickff wrote:
| This article is about the EU food supply, and does not appear
| to attribute the contaminants to US exports. Why are you
| bringing American cultivation practices into this?
|
| If anything, this OP demonstrates that the EU regulations are
| futile (though that may be an overstatement).
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| EU generally leads the developed world in regulation, that
| has become a meme and a joke.
|
| but for Food related stuff, EU standards and regulation are
| truly superior for consumers, relative to US and other
| countries
| flexagoon wrote:
| > but for Food related stuff, EU standards and regulation
| are truly superior for consumers, relative to US and other
| countries
|
| That is mostly a myth. EU and US take different approaches
| to setting food safety regulations, which means they have
| different lists of banned substances. The EU bans a lot of
| substances that have no evidence of actual adverse effects
| just out of an abundance of caution or sometimes even
| because of uninformed public perception, which is why their
| regulations seem more comprehensive, but the vast majority
| of that has no real positive effect on consumers.
|
| https://blog.ansi.org/ansi/differences-between-eu-and-us-
| foo...
|
| In terms of actual food safety, the US is basically the
| same as the EU (it technically ranks even higher than most
| EU countries on the "Quality and Safety" criterion of the
| Global Food Security Index, but the top countries are all
| very close)
|
| https://insights.economistenterprise.com/sustainability/pro
| j...
|
| (Before anyone accuses me of something, I live in the EU
| and generally prefer EU in terms of lawmaking and
| regulations. It's just that food safety specifically is a
| point of comparison which is much less true than people
| usually think)
| NopIdoN wrote:
| I'd love to see a policy difference where I prefer the
| attitude of the US
| otherme123 wrote:
| The message you respond to talks about "food stuff",
| which is admitedly blurry. You focus on food safety,
| which is very good in the US. But the EU also regulates
| heavily food quality and sustainability, and it usually
| shows IMO.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| An odd exception to that trend is dairy products (thanks
| to the hard work of various US Dairy Councils). Ice
| Cream, sold as "Ice Cream" in the United States, is
| _vastly_ superior to most anything you 'll find in the
| rest of the world.
|
| 10% milk fat (more exactly 1.6 lb per pre-mixed gallon,
| but that's simply a bizarre way of phrasing it), no more
| than half air by volume. 6-10% other dairy solids
| (lactose, whey).
|
| Compare with the UK: at least 5% _fat_ (no cows need be
| involved)
|
| France requires 5% milkfat, Germany at least requires the
| 10% milk fat, but no further requirements.
|
| Canada pretends to be at 10%, but if you add any
| flavoring at all that can go down to 8%.
| stackghost wrote:
| Yeah, the US FDA allows artificial growth hormones in
| dairy so let's drop this comical charade that US dairy is
| good.
| daedrdev wrote:
| The United States has far stricter labeling standards than
| the EU. That's why US products appear to have more
| ingredients, they are required to say what their
| ingredients are mad from, even on identical products.
|
| Many things that are well known memes are completely false.
| Not everything in the EU is better regulated. Everyone
| always complains about chlorinated chicken, not realizing
| that <5% of US chicken is washed that way as chicken now
| uses vinegar washes, and those that did were at
| concentrations deemed safe by the FDA.
| Jensson wrote:
| > The United States has far stricter labeling standards
| than the EU
|
| Source for that? All I can find says EU have stricter
| labeling standards except for forum comments such as
| yours here.
|
| Edit: > Many things that are well known memes are
| completely false
|
| To me it looks like "USA shows more additives due to
| harsher labeling standards" is just a meme, everything
| I've seen says Europe has stricter requirements on what
| you need to say about additives. So USA having much more
| additives listed comes from American products having more
| additives in them, not everything is better in USA.
| thesmtsolver2 wrote:
| https://www.tilleydistribution.com/insights/food-
| regulations... The European approach to
| food additives is visible. The EFSA assigns a 3- or
| 4-digit code to every food additive, and that number must
| be included on food labels if it's used in a product. The
| EFSA believes this system makes it easier for consumers
| to look up and memorize specific additives.
| In the US, those same additives are required to be
| printed out in full.
| NopIdoN wrote:
| That's not stricter, it's just different names.
| thesmtsolver2 wrote:
| It is stricter.
|
| https://www.daymarksafety.com/news/some-fundamental-
| differen... EU labels are not required
| to list as much information about nutrients in a product
| as compared to US food labels. Plus, they often omit such
| items as saturated fat, fiber, and sugar.
| NopIdoN wrote:
| I fear you have been vinegar brain washed. Like this
| talking point was dilled into you
| Jensson wrote:
| > If anything, this OP demonstrates that the EU regulations
| are futile (though that may be an overstatement).
|
| Nothing said that EU farmers used these pesticides, its
| related to imports. And even most imports they tested were in
| the legal limit even though they are from areas where these
| things are legal.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| I agree the situation is shitty in the US, but what does that
| have to do with pesticides banned in the EU? It seems entirely
| superfluous to this to this story.
| dirck-norman wrote:
| There is some weird obsession on the internet about proving the
| U.S. is the worst at everything.
|
| Believe me, the majority of "The rest of the world" does not
| protect its citizens from harmful food contamination.
| llbbdd wrote:
| I attribute a lot of it to the principle of "punching up".
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Agreed. Nobody really talks about most other countries,
| while the US is pretty much top of the list of nearly every
| topic. So we're constantly a target.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > while the US is pretty much top of the list of nearly
| every topic
|
| s/is/was
|
| The US is trying really hard to lower its position on
| these lists. The US has not been near the top of
| reading/writing/arithmetic in a long time. The US is
| undoing a lot of federal regulations by
| eliminating/reducing agencies meant to regulate things
| like EPA, FDA, Dept of Education.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| You're the worst at everything when you're the only one
| measuring it. There are parts of the world where vegetables
| are grown next to where factories dump toxic waste. Pretty
| sure no one is measuring that.
| ofrzeta wrote:
| For spices and tea it really makes sense to buy organic (not that
| there are no fraudsters but still).
| Jensson wrote:
| Just buy from places where these laws are in effect instead of
| imports from other countries where they legally use these
| pesticides.
| kuerbel wrote:
| It also makes sense for anything coming out of third world
| countries, pesticides kill and harm lots of farmers there.
| https://www.publiceye.ch/en/topics/pesticides/pesticide-gian...
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Organic is just green washing, it doesn't mean no chemicals.
| Plenty of organic products contain toxic chemicals and heavy
| metals. Organic oats have been found to contain glyphosate.
| Organic spices have been found to contain heavy metals.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Organic means that no non-organic pesticides have been used
| in production. There are still organic ones available, which
| are less dangerous. Especially to the farmers who are the
| first ones to get exposed to the poisons we spread on the
| fields.
| luqtas wrote:
| care to cite any decent research proving you point?
|
| there's an extensive body of research on synthetics having
| no effect on human health, from goverment funded, private
| and independent research... if you access your country's
| official institution you'll see there's plenty of
| synthetics allowed in organic agriculture just because they
| mimic perfectly "organic" substances
|
| interesting point too, is the lack of any extensive meta-
| analysis/studies on organic pesticide impact on health and
| plus the fact organic farm is rather poor (produce less
| than 2% of the global food) and usually if not always lack
| good machinery to spread pesticides on the recommended
| quantities science points out (which organic agriculture
| also has less literature on that too)
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Not all synthetics are dangerous, many are. Many are
| banned, with the list growing each year:
| https://www.npic.orst.edu/reg/restricted.html
|
| Why were they allowed in the first place, if "research"
| was enough? Science is not definitive, and what we
| believe to be an approximation of the truth today way be
| discovered to be totally wrong tomorrow. You are
| confusing science and religion.
|
| Would you defend, for instance, that DDT and other
| organochlorine poisons are safe? They were the darling of
| scientists and agrobiz companies for a long time, until
| we discovered well that they were dangerous.
|
| Of course, if we find a strict equivalent to a
| biopesticide that happens to be synthetical, it would be
| a good substitute. But most synthetic pesticides are not
| like this, unfortunately.
|
| And what you say about the lack of studies regarding
| organic farming is a plain lie, it takes 30 seconds on
| google scholar to find it:
|
| - Farmers in organic farms are less exposed to health
| effects of synthetic pesticides: https://www.sciencedirec
| t.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03784...
|
| - Organic farming improve soils and yields: https://www.s
| ciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1658077X2...
|
| - Review on organic food quality and health effects: http
| s://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s12940-017-031.
| ..
| luqtas wrote:
| > Not all synthetics are dangerous, many are. Many are
| banned, with the list growing each year:
| https://www.npic.orst.edu/reg/restricted.html
|
| as many synthetic are developed... last time i was making
| an inventory of an exclusive corn and soybean high tech
| farm (selling on the hundreds millions USD) there was at
| least 45 different pesticides... some were distributed in
| a quantity of 10 mililiters! per hectare with machine
| with proper air filter at the cabine of the tractor never
| seen by the organic movement, which by the way,
| considering their ~ 30% increase in land, fertilizers and
| pesticides needs and their production totalling less than
| 2% of all the global food, feels quite a stretch to read
| author's conclusion of your last study...
|
| your 2deg cited study shows improvement on soil quality
| by variety/rotation, what it has to do with GMO
| technology? one literally can plant varied stuff while
| using synthetic pesticides... take a look on most health
| studies done in organics and health not controlling for
| life style factors, nor any major study even found
| dangerous levels of pesticides in food. don't get me
| wrong, there are niche cases were organic crops just make
| sense but when you start dismissing GMO technology for a
| 8 billion and growing world, which in decades will move
| out of the rural ambient (rural flight is an on going
| thing, literally no one wants to work in farms, much less
| in organic ones were the workload is much bigger, if not
| borderline on slavery (trust me, i did some WWOOF)),
| feels pure ignorancy out of greenwashing or small studies
| compared to what we rolled on science the past 30 years
| of GMO technology
|
| https://biofortified.org/genera/independent-funding/
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3367244/
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7061863/
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600850
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6918800/
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10814746/
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1602638
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s44264-023-00009-7
| parineum wrote:
| > There are still organic ones available, which are less
| dangerous.
|
| "Organic" as in certified 'Organic' or as in the class of
| molecules?
|
| If the former then I'd love to see the classification
| requirements that make a qualifying chemical safer all the
| ones that aren't.
|
| If the later, that's blatantly untrue
| Saline9515 wrote:
| "Organic" as in "allowed in what is commonly called
| 'organic farming'". You can find the rather short list
| here: https://www.agdaily.com/technology/the-list-of-
| pesticides-ap...
|
| Note that other countries may have different
| legislations. You are also free to eat DDT to prove that
| organic farming is not really safer.
| i5heu wrote:
| At least in Germany we have "Bio" which is a organic label
| that is controlled at least somewhat.
| jenadine wrote:
| But it is controlled for the wrong criterias. "Natural"
| doesn't mean healthy or good for the environment. It is
| only greenwashing and "appeal to nature" fallacy
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Organic is a label which means something specific. Compliance
| with the definition is controlled by law, however
| imperfectly. It is _not_ just greenwashing.
| bluGill wrote:
| You are both correct. Organic means something specific.
| However what it means is not what most people think it
| means. People want healthy and good for the earth - that is
| not what organic gives you. Sometimes it does, but
| sometimes conventional ag (with all those scary chemicals)
| is better.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Yes, I get this argument. But everybody intuitively
| understands the basic proposition of organic. Namely: "We
| have not _added_ anything to your food for which you don
| 't have many thousands of years of evolutionary
| preparation." That is not pseudoscience, it's rational
| circumspection. Or, as the European Commission calls it,
| the "precautionary principle". Speaking for myself, I
| find it convincing.
| bluGill wrote:
| Problem is we have modern science which in same cases has
| proven that the modern chemicals are less harmful.
| Remember lead was considered normal for many thousands of
| years
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Modern science can only "prove" that something is not
| harmful on a timescale of a year or perhaps a decade, not
| a generation or more. If the precautionary principle had
| been applied in Roman times, lead would _not_ have been
| considered safe. Nor asbestos, nor thalidomide, nor
| microplastics, nor a bunch of synthetic molecules -
| "proven safe" - that are routinely added to non-organic
| food in order to improve its yield or its cosmetic aspect
| or whatever. That was my point.
| bluGill wrote:
| That is still better than organic, which doesn't even ask
| what science can show about chemicals. The obvious
| example is organic doesn't have GMOs, even though GMOs
| are the only foods we even try and prove safe. Everything
| else, what we just assumed, but nobody has ever actually
| checked.
| kube-system wrote:
| Yes, but we understand modern science as it pertains to
| both... which is why lead is controlled for both organic
| and non-organic farming.
|
| Honestly curious, which of these is more harmful than the
| non-organic alternatives?
|
| https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-I
| /su...
| bluGill wrote:
| I used lead as an example only because everyone actually
| understands why it's harmful. There are a number of
| chemicals that are more harmful, common vinegar for
| example in the concentrations that are useful, but nobody
| understands it because nobody has actually read the
| safety information on such chemicals.
| kube-system wrote:
| I would imagine any agricultural use of vinegar as an
| organic chemical pales in comparison to it's culinary
| use.
| woadwarrior01 wrote:
| Within the EU, it does. There's a whole regulation for it: EU
| 2018/848.
| tashoecraft wrote:
| People are downvoting you, but you're right:
| https://news.immunologic.org/p/organic-foods-are-not-
| healthi...
|
| Organic is marketing. Organic produce is more profitable.
| Theodores wrote:
| Yes and no!
|
| In the UK, tea means tea bags and that normally means tea bags
| made of a plastic/paper mix. If I remember, the bag material is
| made and then they heat it up to get the plastic out, revealing
| the holes, needed for the bag.
|
| Of late there has been criticism of microplastics in tea bags,
| and the posh organic bags have fared quite badly. Fancy sachets
| are not necessarily it.
|
| As for chemicals, not one farmer spends any money than what is
| the bare minimum, no matter what they do. They might have to
| put all kinds of toxic chemicals on crops but they are not
| going to waste money over-doing it, because they are tight with
| the money, at all times, under all circumstances.
|
| So the question has to be asked, is it worth worrying about the
| worrying levels of chemicals in tea when there are worrying
| levels of microplastics that the body really cannot get rid of
| with some liver-fu?
|
| But, are there more toxins? The working class British way to
| have tea is with milk and two sugars. The milk is designed for
| baby cows, not grown men, they should be 'weaned off' because
| there are all kinds of things in dairy that might not be
| toxins, but could be considered to be. For example the
| cholesterol and saturated fat. Next the sugar, which is fine in
| moderation, so long as you don't care for your teeth, and, when
| combined with saturated fat, can contribute to type two
| diabetes.
|
| Clearly opinions vary regarding the health aspects of milk and
| sugar in tea, my grandmother almost made it to a century,
| consuming plenty. However, you can reduce the toxic load from
| drinking tea by getting rid of the microplastics by using
| plant-based teabags (even LIDL have them), not having milk and
| sugar in the tea and, only then, getting concerned about buying
| organic.
|
| Organic does not mean no nasty chemicals, it means no synthetic
| nasty chemicals. However, it is still a good nice-to-have, but,
| realistically, if you want to cut your exposure to toxins,
| there are these other huge areas that are under our control,
| but those things are going to be controversial lifestyle
| choices. Just not using cars 'could' reduce your toxic load far
| more than any organic teabag.
| card_zero wrote:
| _Oh no, I drank 1 ml of saturated fat._ Is it even still all
| bad for you? I thought I heard some detail about that
| recently ...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat
|
| > A 2024 meta-analysis found that odd-chain and longer-chain
| saturated fatty acids were negatively associated with the
| risk of cardiovascular disease, including stroke.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd-chain_fatty_acid
|
| >OCFAs are found particularly in ruminant fat and milk (e.g.
| pentadecylic acid).
|
| (I don't know if that means _most_ of the saturated fatty
| acids in milk, it 's full of different varieties.)
| podocarp wrote:
| I am more worried about heavy metals and pesticide in tea
| than the micro plastics in the teabag. There is more tea than
| bag after all. Furthermore the ground tea found in teabags
| potentially release more pesticides/heavy metals compared to
| loose tea leaves you brew in a teapot.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Because of the thermal shock, these bags release _billions_
| of plastic particles, that you immediately consume and let
| diffuse into your organs. It may be one of the worst forms of
| exposure to microplastics overall.
| brikym wrote:
| People still use tea bags even though they're a top source of
| microplastics.
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| People don't even know. I had long assumed that it was only
| the obvious nylon pyramid tea bags that were plastic, and
| only recently discovered it's _all_ tea bags.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Source?
| squidsoup wrote:
| People still use tea bags even though what they contain is a
| byproduct of tea production and barely counts as tea.
| childintime wrote:
| Then where does the real stuff go? The arabs, indians?? Tea
| bags are the mass market in Europe for example. Hardly
| anyone uses tea leaves (are they different?).
|
| I know an Iranian in the Netherlands who says the tea there
| is mostly coloring.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| I carefully check the label and try to only buy Australian made
| 100% food.
|
| I never buy any food ever from China.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Does that meaningfully restrict which foods / ingredients you
| can get?
| andrewstuart wrote:
| No. Australia produces vast variety of food everything you
| could want to eat aside from more exotic stuff.
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| In terms of fresh meat and vegetables, it's pretty much all
| grown/produced in Australia. Anything canned / dried is often
| imported though. Things like rice or coffee beans you
| technically can buy Australian grown but you'd have to go out
| of your way to find it.
| verall wrote:
| It's one of the richest food cultures in the world. If you've
| never tried sichuan peppercorn on mapo tofu, or pickled mustard
| greens on noodle dishes, I think you're in for a real treat.
|
| These do involve foods from China though..
| andrewstuart wrote:
| You can use safe Australian ingredients to cook the recipe.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Where in Australia grows Sichuan peppercorns? They're
| almost exclusively grown in China and the general regions
| nearby to my knowledge.
| Cerium wrote:
| You can grow them yourself. I had no effort producing
| more than I can use in only a few years time.
| bluGill wrote:
| They have some really good foods. They also have some really
| unethical foods. When we only have a broad brush...
| chupchap wrote:
| In Australia, tea and spices are imported predominantly from
| Asian countries.
| nullbio wrote:
| What's that going to help you with?
|
| Ever been to Innisfail? Have you seen them fly small Cessna's
| over the banana fields and absolutely drench them with
| pesticides?
|
| They do this with all the crop fields in Aus.
| moi2388 wrote:
| Oh you import food from third world countries and it's terrible?
| Who would have guessed.
|
| Better keep pushing the farmers in the EU away for more of these
| great "trade deals"
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Are these EU farmers that are being turned away growing tea and
| spices?
| nozzlegear wrote:
| The report itself[+] blames the pesticide residue on a "boomerang
| effect" from EU countries: EU countries export these banned
| pesticides to third countries, those countries use the banned
| pesticides on the food they grow, and then the EU countries
| import that food. In effect, EU companies are still profiting off
| of the sale and use of banned pesticides on food that Europeans
| will eat.
|
| [+]
| https://www.foodwatch.org/fileadmin/-INT/pesticides/banned_p...
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Object on "blame"--it is actually only saying that this
| scenario is possible, it is not establishing that it actually
| is the cause.
| ars wrote:
| I checked the list of pesticides in the article, and almost all
| of them were banned because of the effect on pollinators, not
| because of human health.
|
| So using these pesticides only on products for export makes
| utterly no sense!
| Jensson wrote:
| They were never used in EU, what happened was that EU exports
| the pesticides and then they are used in other countries and
| then those food products are imported into EU.
|
| So EU makes pesticides that itself bans from being used on
| their own fields. Which isn't that weird, it isn't the
| chemical that is banned it is using it as a pesticide that is
| banned.
| mhitza wrote:
| That is one reason why I, at least try to, check the label and
| avoid products with non-EU ingredients.
|
| Also one of my worries with the mercusour trade deal. And any
| deal that involves meat imports from the US, with specific
| laxer regulation requirements (at least what Trump would like).
| culi wrote:
| Unfortunately this is an all too common pattern in the history
| of pesticides. In 1979 DBCP was banned in the US after factory
| workers became sterile. Dow Chemical happily shipped tons of it
| to be sprayed directly on banana workers in banana republics[0]
| by Dole/Chiquita/Del Monte. To this day Costa Rica, Honduras,
| Guatemala, Panama, and Nicaragua have some of the highest rates
| of infertility, birth defects, and chronic illnesses in the
| world
|
| This was just after the Gros Michel had gone basically extinct
| because of monocropping. The banana companies hired scientists
| to figure out what to do that almost universally recommended
| diversifying the crop. But they calculated that it'd actually
| be cheaper to just double down on pesticide application and
| start again with another monocrop.
|
| There's an incredible documentary about the banana industry
| history (and practices that continue to this day like banana
| companies paying gangs to assassinate local labor leaders)
| called Bananaland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoRmtQht8-E
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
| 7moritz7 wrote:
| I'd be more scared of publicly criticizing Chiquita than the
| CIA at this point
| culi wrote:
| All but 2 countries in South America have had the
| experience of democratically electing a leader only to have
| them overthrown in a US-backed coup. The US/CIA started
| with this obsession with the 1954 Guatemalan Coup
| specifically to maintain Guatemala as a banana republic.
| Chiquita owned most land in Guatemala and left is
| uncultivated to stifle competition. Jacobo Arbenz wanted to
| (slightly) tax this land to reduce poverty. Chiquita hired
| Edward Bernays (yes, _that guy_. The father of modern
| public relations, nephew of Freud, etc) for an influence
| campaign and eventually got CIA to launch Operation
| PBSuccess in 1953. The CIA /Chiquita gave very extensive
| lists of political opponents to murder during the coup.
|
| So what's really the difference?
| dylan604 wrote:
| You can't spell Chiquita without CIA
| pnw wrote:
| Not just South America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All
| eged_CIA_involvement_in_the...
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| What else would they have produced with banana crops that
| people would've wanted?
| culi wrote:
| More banana varieties. The reason Panama Disease was so
| successful is because of the practice of cloning. Every
| single crop is the same genetics. Researchers warned that
| starting over with the Cavendish would result in the exact
| same thing again and the clear solution was to stop cloning
| the exact same plant and grow more types of bananas (there
| are more than 1,000 species of banana and tens of thousands
| of varieties around the world).
|
| Now we're dealing with TR4 because of the Cavendish being
| grown in the exact same way but with an even heavier
| reliance on pesticides, slavery, and violent control over
| local power.
| stinkbeetle wrote:
| It's not pesticides, it's everything. Everything from slavery
| laws to workers rights, environmental regulations, health and
| safety regulations. The ruling class has conspired to evade
| those regulations and crush local competition for 100+ years,
| by offshoring and globalizing their abuses and exploitation.
| thesmtsolver2 wrote:
| > EU countries export these banned pesticides to third
| countries
|
| Shouldn't EU ban ideally exports of good that it bans
| internally?
| im3w1l wrote:
| Only if you see the world in black and white and those
| pesticides being an absolute evil. But if you see it as a
| complicated tradeoff where whats right for one country can be
| wrong for another then it's unproblematic.
| gibspaulding wrote:
| In other words, "yes, definitely". But they won't because
| EUREUREUREUREUR.
| thesmtsolver2 wrote:
| > But if you see it as a complicated tradeoff where whats
| right for one country can be wrong for another then it's
| unproblematic.
|
| How can anyone entertain that belief unless:
|
| a) they think people in other countries have a different
| biology
|
| b) profits matter more than the health of people in other
| countries (mostly former colonies of Europe)
| rplnt wrote:
| Couldn't it also be case where the pesticides are fine to use
| on potatoes but not on tomatoes, for example?
| psychoslave wrote:
| No, pesticide are volatile and can poison water deep in
| earth no matter which thing was the initial target.
| psychoslave wrote:
| Ideally we would all be exemplar citizen of the world direct-
| democratic federation, careful of avoiding any compromission
| and bribery in our wonderful system. Ideally we would all
| always optimize for sustainability, careful to keep our
| action in contemporary reciprocal mutual benefits, in the
| extend that we confidently believe also able to bring
| prosperity and peace to future human generations.
|
| Concretely, my friend, I'm afraid this is not quite the world
| the power imbalances lead us to.
| rsynnott wrote:
| The EU has said it will, and some member states, like France,
| have, but a full ban is still pending.
| germandiago wrote:
| You cannot blame like this the administration when you make any
| regulatory mistake such as not knowing a rule or not being able
| to enforce it in practice.
|
| It is amazing that we have regulations for everything and that
| when they cannot enforce it, they blame someone else.
|
| Different way of dealing with people depending on _who_ , not
| _what_.
| franciscop wrote:
| I know someone close who grows oranges in Spain. He has to go
| through hell, had to rework multiple times the fields so that
| they pass the strict Spanish regulation for organic produce.
| They get evaluated not only on the final product being
| pesticide free, but also on the full process being compliant,
| with heavy fines for non compliance.
|
| This is fine-ish, except that the imported oranges get checked
| only seldomly (if that) and are given a lot of leeway, making
| it very hard to compete if you grow them locally. Last couple
| of years saw some profit for growing them locally, but it's
| been times where there was literally no profit at all for 5+
| years.
|
| Funny story: he requested a permit to build a well, and ofc it
| takes forever so he just waited. After 4-5 years waiting,
| having even forgotten about it, someone called him: "we're here
| to inspect the well". What well? You haven't given me
| permission yet. "yes, we know, but people build them anyway
| before getting permission so we thought you'd do the same".
| jenadine wrote:
| > strict Spanish regulation for organic produce.
|
| Organic labels are a different thing than official regulation
| though. IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things.
| tfourb wrote:
| There is an official eu organic label. It's not compulsory
| of course, but it's the baseline for organic food
| production in and for Europe. Other (private) labels have
| stricter rules and are usually certified in addition to the
| EU label.
| franciscop wrote:
| No, this is definitely an official gvmt body that can
| fine you if you try to sell fruit as organic that doesn't
| follow the regulations. It IS definitely compulsory if
| you mark your produce as organic.
| lukan wrote:
| "IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things."
|
| What do you mean?
|
| I only know of "Demeter", that also has some very esoteric
| requirements (homeopathy, cosmic energy flow rituals) - but
| otherwise organic label optimize for:
|
| - no or little pesticides and herbicides
|
| - more space and better condition for the animals
|
| My only other grievance is that they also all ban GMO
| CalRobert wrote:
| I was surprised after moving to Ireland to discover that you
| can break the law and nothing will happen. I went through
| hell with planners (idiots who don't believe in climate
| change and hate eaves) while people around me put three
| mobile homes on their land as well as building two permanent
| homes with no permission (and ripping out ancient hedgerows)
| and successfully got retention. Why even bother?
| trick-or-treat wrote:
| Sure, but you have to move to Ireland. That's a deal-
| breaker for most folks.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Yeah, we ended up leaving in part because of how lawless
| our area was (the midlands)
| rendall wrote:
| I'd love to hear more about this if you have the time.
| What specific things happened?
| CalRobert wrote:
| Family next door had 17 kids (yes, from one mother), 5
| dangerous dogs, and absolutely despised us (somehow we
| thought having a few acres of land would make worrying
| about neighbours less necessary). There was an ongoing
| decades-old land feud with the farmer behind both of our
| homes. The aforementioned dangerous dogs killed several
| of the farmer's sheep, so the farmer finally shot and
| killed one of the dogs during an attack on said sheep,
| which escalated tensions. We had 2 and 4 year old kids
| who, it's worth noting, were roughly the size of sheep
| and about as tempting for the dogs to kill, so we were
| basically terrified to let our kids outside. Neighbours
| routinely insulted us, yelled at us, and threw garbage
| (including old chemical containers, sharp metal, etc.) on
| to our land.
|
| They also routinely trespassed and shot fireworks over
| our thatch roof (the roof was part thatch, part modern) -
| very concerning when your roof is more flammable than
| kindling. Finally they left a dead crow in a bag by our
| door which felt like a threat, so we sold the place at a
| EUR100k loss and moved to the Netherlands.
|
| Gardai were absolutely lazy, uncaring, and useless, and
| did absolutely nothing.
|
| Now I encourage everyone I can to stay as far away from
| rural Ireland as possible.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I jokingly refer to this as the Catholic principle: "sin
| first - confess and repent later" as it's a common theme in
| countries that are/were traditionally Catholic, including
| my own.
|
| It's really just places culturally untouched by Calvinism,
| Puritanism and the like, all of which put emphasis on
| order.
|
| The last thing to attempt bringing order to them were
| various forms of authoritarianism and they didn't last. I
| think we can agree this is not the right approach.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Maybe I'm a Calvinist. I'm definitely happier in the
| Netherlands. My general experience was that Irish laws
| existed mostly for show and if you followed them you were
| a chump. Unless you wanted to smoke a joint now and then,
| of course.
|
| Ireland supposedly cares about nature too, but you can
| still buy truckloads of turf off the side of the road in
| Offaly. Good luck getting those rules enforced.
|
| Our experience wasn't limited to "victimless" crimes
| though. I think when you're threatening your neighbours
| and letting dangerous dogs loose on other people's land
| where there's kids or sheep then authoritarianism is
| called for.
| verisimi wrote:
| Organic food can use organic pesticides.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| This is a common complaint in the EU, since enforcement is by
| ones own government, everyone believes that they are the only
| ones being held to account. It may or may not be true in
| general, but it sure gives that impression
| retired wrote:
| Meanwhile nobody bats an eye in Spain if you hire illegal
| African immigrants, pay them far below minimum wage and house
| them in shacks without electricity and running water. Places
| like Almeria look like slave towns.
| interludead wrote:
| It also shifts a lot of the real exposure onto farm workers and
| local environments outside the EU, while EU firms still capture
| the upside
| kryptoncalm wrote:
| More relevant is that 14 out of 64 samples had levels above the
| legally allowed limit (MRL), of which 12 pesticides that are not
| approved in the EU (page 12 of report). This is more severe than
| products 'containing' pesticides, which could as well be
| advancements in measurement.
|
| Problematic products are: Peppers, dried (6x), Cumin (3x), Rice
| grain (2x), Tea leaves and stalks (1x), Non-fermented tea leaves
| (1x), Mix of spices (1x).
| Etheryte wrote:
| Cumin always shows up on these lists, whether it's with heavy
| metals or something else. It's to the point where I've more or
| less just stopped cooking with it because I don't trust it to
| be safe.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Get yourself a dehydrator and try making it yourself. I've
| started doing this with my herb garden and the catnip I grow
| for my cats. They much prefer the stuff I make than the stuff
| from the store as much as I enjoy my fresh dried
| (oxymoronic??) herbs. I haven't tried cumin yet. We'll see
| how the peppers in this years attempt at gardening goes.
| enlyth wrote:
| I probably have a weird gene or something but cumin smells
| like disgusting body odour to me and any food that has any
| trace of it I cannot eat or I will gag
|
| This doesn't happen to me with anything else, I'm not a picky
| eater and will happily eat literally anything else
| ripe wrote:
| > cumin smells like disgusting body odour
|
| You're not wrong. If you smell pure cumin (without any
| other spices or herbs), particularly if you grind and mix
| it with yogurt to make a salty lassi, you get a whiff of
| body odor. My kids called it "the BO drink".
|
| It's a weird thing, but the smell becomes quite different
| in combination with other smells. It's an ingredient in
| many expensive perfumes, believe it or not! [1]
|
| [1] https://www.fragrantica.com/news/CUMIN-Polarizing-Note-
| of-Sw...
| trick-or-treat wrote:
| How much heavy meals can be hiding in a pinch of cumin
| realistically? Maybe you should invest in a metal detector.
| why_at wrote:
| It's strange to me that this isn't the emphasis of the article.
|
| I assume the MRL the lowest amount which could possibly cause
| harm? If so then why does it matter for the rest of the
| products where the levels are below that?
|
| It could be for potential environmental harm, but then the fact
| that these are being exported at all should tell you that
| they're being used, you don't have to test consumer goods.
|
| Their recommendations include this:
|
| >2. Automatically lower all maximum residue levels (MRLs) of
| non-approved pesticides to the limit of detection to prevent
| these substances from making their way back onto European
| plates via a dangerous 'boomerang effect
|
| But is this scientifically supported?
| interludead wrote:
| The worrying part is not just that banned substances show up at
| trace levels, but that a non-trivial number of products were
| apparently over the legal limit
| amelius wrote:
| We're reaching the point where people need to install GC/MS
| systems in their homes in order to be safe from food hazards.
| LaGrange wrote:
| No we don't. And the greatest hazard is the soul crushing
| disappointment that is a Dutch tomato.
| contingencies wrote:
| _wasserbomben_ +
| https://www.hortidaily.com/article/6022801/how-tasty-tom-
| suc...
|
| I'll settle for no soft apples.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Just a note that the majority of these detections report the
| lowest amount chemistry can reliably quantify. Not the danger
| level, the known biological effect level, the smallest amount
| where chemistry can say they're statically confident the
| substance is present in a known amount.
|
| Modern gas chromatography is ridiculously sensitive.
| nullbio wrote:
| Why? I thought pesticides were safe? That's what the Monsanto bot
| told me, anyway.
| HerbManic wrote:
| I too believed Patrick Moore representing Monstanto when he
| said 'Round up' was safe to drink.
| blitzar wrote:
| > When the interviewer immediately offered him a glass of the
| herbicide to drink, Moore refused, stating: "No, I'm not an
| idiot," and abruptly ended the interview.
|
| Guess he just want thirsty at that moment.
| interludead wrote:
| The obvious question is: if these pesticides are considered too
| unsafe to use in the EU, why are EU companies still allowed to
| export them?
| ShinyLeftPad wrote:
| Isn't that the only way they can profit?
| l5870uoo9y wrote:
| Not a single word on where the toxic products were produced
| except third countries?
| maurotdo wrote:
| This boomerang is the effect of another boomerang: nothing grows
| anymore without pesticides. I can see that in my crops and
| fruits: when I was young I could benefit from the produce my dad
| grew naturally. 30 years later nothing grows naturally anymore,
| blight, insects and diseases kill everything in a few days. We
| gave up, as it makes no sense to actively poison our produce when
| the poison comes with no hassle from bought one.
| simongray wrote:
| I don't think you can conclude much from a sample size of 1.
|
| My country at least (and probably yours too) is producing more
| organic products than ever before. People are also consuming
| organic products more than before.
| fsflover wrote:
| Don't organic foods use natural pesticides?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-06-09 08:00 UTC)