(NaturalHealth365) You’re careful about food preparation and storage; plus you always cook meats at safe temperatures. But, if you’re not eating organic produce, you might still be at risk for food borne illnesses and this news may be quite surprising to many people.

While most cases of food borne illnesses such as salmonella come from animal products (poultry is still the number one cause of food poisoning deaths), a new video from NutritionFacts.org points out that 46 percent of food poisoning cases come from the fruits and vegetables we eat. And, while many noroviruses are transmitted from person to person through bodily fluids, a great number of cases had been unexplained. It’s recently been determined that an alarming number of people are contracting food borne illnesses from eating produce. Check out this short video below:

How do vegetables become dangerous to eat?

When someone comes down with a case of food poisoning due to eating vegetables, the pathogen is never actually from the vegetable. An intestinal bug must come from a life form with intestines. Clearly, fruits and vegetables don’t. The food borne illnesses like salmonella is almost always from manure – coming from contaminated irrigation water or run-off.

In many cases, it was hard to be sure how these pathogens were getting onto our fruits and vegetables. However, disturbing information shared by food technologist Katharina Verhaelen and her colleagues shows that they might be getting sprayed onto the produce when it is treated with pesticides. This research was published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology in January of 2013.

The water used in the pesticides is often dredged up from ponds or stagnant pools that are prone to contamination with fecal pathogens from cattle manure or other sources. This makes vegetables treated with pesticides not just a chemical hazard, but also a microbiological health hazard as well. Pesticides are in effect posing a double risk to those who don’t eat organic produce and/or fail to wash their produce properly before consuming it.

Crazy logic: Chemical companies push more chemicals to solve the problem

If that isn’t shocking enough, the “solution” dreamed up by the pesticide companies will astound you: they are now adding more chemicals to the pesticides to in order to combat the microorganisms in the water that is used in the pesticides.

While all vegetables have a risk of becoming contaminated through irrigation water or run-off, this additional pesticide risk brings yet another way for our vegetables to become a health hazard.

How can you stay safe and get back to enjoying the health benefits of vegetables? Organic vegetables are not sprayed with pesticides, so choosing them helps you to avoid this risk altogether. That said, all vegetables should be washed and rinsed thoroughly to cleanse them of any microorganisms they might have come in contact with. While organic produce is safer and healthier than non-organic, it should still be cleaned thoroughly before eating.

Know the source of your food, support local (chemical free) farming practices and, if possible, start growing your own fresh produce.

References:

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/norovirus-food-poisoning-from-pesticides
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673201
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23290241