healthy food tip and recipe
Today's Recipe
If you don't know what to serve for dinner tonight ...
Get an extra boost of health-promoting vitamin A from the tomatoes and heart-healthy monounsatured fats from the avocados in this great addition to your Healthiest Way of Eating.
Ingredients:
- 6 medium cloves garlic, pressed
- ¼ cup minced scallion
- 1-2 tsp finely minced jalapeno pepper
- 3 TBS chopped fresh cilantro
- 8 cherry tomatoes, quartered
- 1 medium ripe but firm avocado, diced into ¼-inch cubes
- 1/4 cup + 1 TBS fresh lemon juice
- 4 6 oz halibut steaks or fillets
- salt and black pepper to taste
- Press garlic and let sit for 5 minutes to bring out its health-promoting properties.
- Mix together garlic, scallions, jalapeno pepper, cilantro, tomatoes, avocado, 1/4 cup lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
- Heat 2 inches of water in the bottom of a steamer and let it come to a boil.
- Rub halibut with 1TBS lemon juice and season with a little salt and black pepper. Place in steamer and steam 10 minutes for every inch of thickness. (e.g., 5 minutes if it is 1/2-inch thick)
- Place fish on plate, and top with salsa.
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Healthy Food Tip
Do they use a lot of pesticides in the production of non-organic almonds? The organic ones are much more expensive and I was wondering whether it was worth it.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen much data on the actual measurements of pesticide residues on almonds (the nuts themselves). I have seen the results from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Pesticide Program Residue Monitoring 2002 (http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/pes02rep.html), which noted that there were no pesticide residues found in the samples that they tested in their study. Yet, because they only tested two samples, I would definitely not want to make any conclusive statements from such a tiny amount of evidence.
What is more widely available is information about the use of pesticides in the growing of almond trees. If you do an Internet search using the keywords "almonds pesticides" you'll find reports about the amounts and types of pesticides used in the growing of almonds in California (where a majority of the almonds are grown). For example, according to one report (http://www.almondboard.com/Programs/CropProtectionDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=4177), the amount of pesticides applied to almond tree fields increased 12% from 2002 to 2003. Another website I found listed the types of pesticides most frequently applied to almond trees. You can see this information at http://www.pesticideinfo.org/DS.jsp?sk=3001#TopChems.
I should point out here that it's perfectly legal to spray toxin-containing pesticides on almonds and for the nuts themselves to contain pesticide residues. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets the food standards here, and pesticides get routinely reviewed for regulatory reasons. For example, they currently allow about 20 parts per billion (20 ppb) levels of the pesticide, acequinocyl, to show up in the nuts themselves. This tolerance level would legally allow about 120 micrograms of the pesticide to show up in one cup of your almonds.
Should you risk this level of pesticide exposure by selecting non-organic almonds? Unfortunately, the answer probably depends on how often you eat almonds, how many other potential toxins your body has to process, your overall level of health, and the specific health of your body's detoxification systems. In general, if you are extremely vital and healthy and don't have many other toxins for your body to process, ppb (parts per billion) levels of a pesticide will probably not pose much of a risk to your health. However, if you do not have healthy detoxification systems, or you are exposed to many other routine toxins (not necessarily involving your food), a relatively small amount of pesticide residues in your almonds may increase your risk of health problems.
Based on the information I have seen, I cannot conclusively give you insights into whether there is a lot of pesticide residues found on the almond nut (which would hopefully have some protection granted to it by the nature of the hard shell surrounding it) but can note that there seems to be a significant amount of pesticides used in the conventional (non-organic) growing of almonds. Whether the pesticide residues end up on the almonds you eat, I don't know. Yet, I do know that the application of these pesticides may have profound effects upon the land, ecosystem, and health of the workers involved in growing the almond trees, which would not be present if the trees were grown organically. Therefore, by purchasing organic almonds, you may not only be doing something better for your health but you are also supporting a more sustainable environment.
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