After a long and busy day at work my SO and I finally made our way home. We had been away from our haven for more than 13 hours and we were ready to get home, unwind, and collapse into our plush bed. We parked the car and climbed the back stairs that lead to our kitchen door. This door allows for an easy exit in the mornings and an even easier return after a long day. We put the key in the door and pushed the door, awaiting our oasis.

When we pushed, the door didn’t budge.
We tried again, but again the door didn’t budge. Someone had locked the deadbolt, which you can only do from the inside. We were a little confused but assumed that someone had been in our apartment for maintenance purposes … about twice a year we get random things replaced that mostly leave our apartment in more of a disarray than in help. We are usually uninformed of these changes until we come home with a dusty hole where the water heater used to be.
Last night, when we finally opened the door, what we found was unsettling. Every single cabinet door was open. Every single drawer was hanging on its hinges. Every closet door was wide open. Our stovetop appliances had been moved to the kitchen counter and our stovetop light was “on”. We slowly walked through the kitchen until we met in the living room where we found an enormous cardboard piece with a tiny canister sitting on top of it. The smell in the apartment was nauseating, a clearly poisonous smell that was reminiscent of “Raid”. We looked at each other and then kept walking through the apartment, back to our bedroom. Another cardboard piece with a canister was in the doorway of the apartment. The smell was even stronger there.

Finally, after what seemed like hours but was only minutes, we pieced together what had happened. The maintenance for our apartment complex had “fogged” our apartment … as a routine pest control operation, I’m guessing. Though it’s not that routine because this has never happened before.
We read the back of the canister and in bold letters the warning read, “Cover any and all food utensils and dishware that may be used after application. Keep away from food. Wash everything thoroughly if you may use it before eating. Cover furniture and anything you may be in direct contact with.”

My home had been fogged with poison and against my will, without any kind of preparation. All of our food (remember me? The fruit loving, veggie eating, raw foodie??) had been contaminated and our chic wire rack that held all of our vintage dishware had a sticky film of poison on it.
All I could think was: of course, the girl that washes her hair with vinegar to avoid the parabens would have her apartment fogged.
The irony in this is not lost on me. But then all I could think was that all of this was just to rid the apartment of ants. Ants!! What have they ever even done, except raid my countertop when I’m too lazy to wipe it down??
Then I realized, this is exactly what they do to food crops in order to rid them of pesky little bugs. And then they ship those foods off to the grocery stores and then I happily pluck them off the shelves and gobble them up like a good, little raw foodie.
 “Organic? Psh. Who needs organic?! Fruits and vegetables–with or without pesticides–are still better than canned mush.”
I used to make that argument on the daily, arguing that the extra price was just a way for poshy people to prove that they were still better than us poor folks that can only afford conventional fruits and vegetables. But here I was, nearing a panic attack because everything was covered in poison, realizing the same goes for my food.

And pesticides are no joke, either. The NRDC recommends that we choose wisely when we are purchasing foods because there are serious neurological and reproductive consequences to consuming pesticides. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents limit their child’s overall exposure to pesticides due to decreased cognitive functioning, behavioral problems, and pediatric cancer.
And we wonder how ADHD has just skyrocketed over the years?!
What’s even more is that scientists are deeming a lot of these pesticides as “obesogenics“, meaning that they program stem cells to develop into fat cells, essentially increasing your fat storage more than is necessary. Which is how obesity works.

As a rule of thumb, when shopping, follow the “Dirty Dozen, Clean Fifteen” rule …



Kimberly Snyder has done a great introduction on the importance of organic foods and I’ll leave you with that (for now) as I’ve just begun my obsessive research on this topic. Consider this a “part I” in the series of health benefits of organic foods.

And, by the way, those studies that made a big deal about organic food not being more nutritious than inorganic food make me let out a major eye roll. Who said it was ever about nutrients?? What about the poison-potential??

What do you think about all of this??

xo

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0 Comments

  1. Ugh, tell me about it!! One of my biggest qualities is that I'm an unusually calm person so I think that definitely helps. We are in the process of washing everything down, now … a perfect weekend project 😉

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