Another Good Reason to Buy Local (or at least Australian)

Some vegetables you eat may contain dangerous pesticides, banned, cancer-causing chemicals and poisonous lead and cadmium.

Earlier this year, Today Tonight revealed shocking farming practices in certain countries, such as Thailand, India and China. Dangerous chemicals such as DDT and Deildren, banned in Australia decades ago, were being used on vegetable crops. Tests on dried foods imported into Australia showed 16 out of 50 (one in three) had carcinogenic residues.

Today Tonight under Freedom of Information Act found secret Government test results that are quite disturbing.

Dr Geoff Skurray, who is a Nutritionist and Toxicologist, said in some everyday foods, levels of toxic chemicals are up to hundreds of times more than the legal limit.

We bring into Australia $100 million worth of imports per year, according to Euan Laird of the Australian Vegetable and Potato Growers' Federation, AusVeg. "What we're facing now is a whole new potential threat that we haven't exposed before," Mr Laird said. "The condition in which this produce is grown overseas is not equivalent to our standards. It's in polluted water, with septic systems not to our standards. It's a danger to our society."

In China, untreated animal waste and human excrement from nearby toilet blocks were being used as fertiliser on hectares of vegetables, including cauliflower, celery, cabbages, snow peas, corn. These vegetables were grown for export to many countries, including Australia.

A massive range of popular vegetables, imported mainly from China and destined for our tables, were found to contain illegal levels of the dangerous pesticide, chlorpyrifos. Imported fresh garlic, peas, pickled cabbage, mustard, also lychees all contained chlorpyrifos.

This chemical has been banned in many countries because it can cause asthma and nervous system problems.

Imported garlic up to 95 per cent on the shelves is from China, also Mexico, Argentina and the United States. Capsicum and asparagus imports have doubled from New Zealand, Greece, Belgium, Peru and Thailand.

Batches of fresh peppers and sesame seeds failed tests with high levels of salmonella, a deadly bacteria and when you put this in the food and it's not destroyed by cooking you are likely to get food poisoning, devastating food poisoning, particular of older people and young children.

* Baby corn from China: tests found an alarming 240 E coli microbials per gram, a total of 8.5 million through the corn. The acceptable level is zero.
* Snow peas: 110 per gram, the acceptable level is zero.
* Sugar peas: 400 E coli, The level should be zero.*
Garlic and frozen cauliflower: lower, but more than 3 E.coli per gram. Again, the acceptable level is zero.

Consignment after consignment contained illegal levels of poisonous lead, a terrifying 260 times more than the legal limit. Lead can cause brain damage in children.

In imported peanuts, commonly from China, a number of tests found dangerous levels of cadmium, a known cancer-causing chemical in roasted, salted, blanched and ground peanuts. It was up to 27 times the legal safety limit.

Cadmium's extremely toxic, it can cause cancer, it accumulates in the body and it can also cause all sorts of other diseases to the liver and kidney," Dr Skurray said.You wouldn't find that in Australian peanuts.

Pistachio nuts contained up to 3000 times the legal limit of aflatoxins, an invisible mould and potent carcinogen linked to liver cancer.

Perhaps the most high-profile examples of these potential dangers come from America - last year's tainted pet food scandal and the halting of questionable food products from China.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand activated the National Food Incident Response Protocol (the Protocol) last March due to reports from the US of numerous pet deaths associated with contaminated pet food.

The pet food disaster, which slowly evolved into the largest recall of pet food in U.S. history, involved exported wheat gluten from China that contained the toxic chemical melamine and was used as an additive in food sold under more than 100 brand names. Hundreds of dogs and cats died; an official tally was never issued. In addition, U.S. health officials disclosed that up to 3 million broiler chickens had been fed the contaminated surplus pet food and then had been sold to restaurants and supermarkets across the country.

That was followed by a recall of almost a million tubes of toothpaste from China that were contaminated with a chemical used in antifreeze. The toothpaste had been distributed to institutions for the mentally ill, hospitals and prisons in the South.

Did I forget to mention the 6,104 cartons of imported cantaloupes from Costa Rica were recalled due to salmonella contamination or maybe the scombroid fish poisoning linked to tuna steaks imported from Vietnam and Indonesia…..we could go on for hours.

One thing is abundantly clear to me: You're more likely to encounter contaminants in foods from abroad than those grown in Australia.

If you don’t grow your own, buy local, if you cannot buy it local ……..make sure it’s AUSTRALIAN.

Take care of you and yours:)
Molly