There's no way to know for sure. The best option is arguably buying from local producers, who have established reputations for organic operation. But beware of mainstream "organic" designations, because there are huge loopholes.

Also, the truly horrible aspect of this is how persistent these endocrine-disrupting chemicals are, and how they bioaccumulate up the food chain. And not just in the environment, but also in our bodies. In particular, in our fat, given that they're for the most part lipophylic.

Even worse, they're persistent across generations. I recall estimates that, for some compounds, mothers' milk accounts for ~20% of total lifetime exposure. We have indeed been well and truly fucked.

You can’t. Best thing you can do is buy certified organic, which would preclude a lot of nasty agricultural practices. There’s no industry certification for pesticide-free. Certified organic allows natural pesticides, some of which are harmful.

I feel like this isn't well-enough understood in my circles. Many people I know and talk to about it seem to think that organic means no pesticides, which is indeed far from true.

Interestingly enough, something similar came up when we were looking for car seats for the first time, years ago. We were trying to limit flame retardants, which was(is still?) almost impossible. The best we could do was contact manufacturers and ask them what they used and how the fabric is made and flame retardant applied. At the time there was one pretty new, really expensive car seat company that basically implied that their car seats had no flame retardant at all, which wasn't true because otherwise they would not meet standards, and a bunch of popular bloggers and (at least minor) celebrities were promoting it as chemical-free, when it really, really wasn't.

In the end we found one brand that was OEKO-TEX certified and actually told us what they used and how they used it, which was about the best we could hope to get.

How many people know what pesticides their organic foods/producers use? I hardly know, and I care about this stuff more than just about anyone I know.

How long ago was this? California, which had been the primary driver of the flame retardants being added nationwide, recently updated the regulations. The labeling now will state that no flame retardants were added.

It was years ago, not recently. It was still when all car seats were definitely treated with additive flame retardants.

I have been excited that CA is reversing on flame retardants. It was hard to find certain kinds of furniture without flame retardants. Every kind of kids pajamas that relatives gave as gifts had flame retardants. I don't remember about strollers for sure, but it seems like even many strollers had it, but that could be wrong.

> chemical-free

Are they selling a vacuum? What could that phrase possibly mean with regards to baryonic matter?

You forgot the Golden Rule.

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.¹

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm really trying. Some things some people think are just nonsensical because their model of reality is too inaccurate.

"Chemical-free" is an abbreviation of "dangerous chemical free," or in some cases (for car seats, not so much food), "chemically inert." Nobody would ever have a reason to specify that something should contain no chemicals at all, so the word "dangerous" is dropped in what is essentially an application of Huffman coding. ;)

I could be misinterpreting people, but I think there are people who haven't quite thought it through this much.

Yes, you.

Cute. I like you.

Yes, this is what the endorsers were meaning, and what most people mean when saying it (general populace, marketers, etc).

Toxin-free. Poison-free. Dye-free. Fragrance-free.

This is the vernacular usage of "chemical free" in the US.

> Toxin-free. Poison-free. Dye-free. Fragrance-free.

Artificial toxin/poison/dye/fragrance-free. You can shove as much naturally occurring toxins in the product as you like, and both marketers and regular people will agree it's "chemical-free".

And that's side-stepping the whole "artificial" vs. "natural" nonsense. 'spacehome may be pedantic in this context, but in general, he's right - regular people have their model of the world ridiculously out of sync with reality. Which is of course readily exploited by advertisers selling "chemical free", "natural", "organic" products, which are no better (and sometimes worse) than the "artificial" ones, but still command a premium price.

The world would be a better place if someone called out "chemical free" as a bullshit phrase every time it was used.

The types of mommy-bloggers and non-a-list celebs who would think dihydrogen monoxide is a caustic toxin. It's a certain type. You'll know them when you see/read them. ;)

Well it actually is both of those things, if you sit in it long enough you'll melt, if you breathe it in you'll die, so maybe they're smarter than you think :)

I am sorry. That was a dumb joke to try to make.

> Best thing you can do is buy certified organic, which would preclude a lot of nasty agricultural practices.

Instead they use higher quantities of different nasty, outdated chemicals that were grandfathered. Repeated studies show that eating organic does not change the amount of pesticides found in consumers' blood. Organic food is not healthier.

This article seems to imply that pesticide residues on organic food are consistently lower.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/the-truth-abou...

But, I gather there is some further link between food -> blood level traces that you're actually talking about. Do you have a good link on how that study was performed?

My wife and I buy most of our meats and vegetables directly from a farm. We have the farm owner's number on hand, and can call and ask. We can also ask to be there at the slaughter if we'd like or to visit the animals before hand. Surprisingly, it's not that much more expensive than whole foods for us. The farm is about a 20 mile drive from where we live. We like it.

I found the program online. Didn't need any special contacts or anything.

What's shocking is that buying from a farm is _more_ expensive than Whole Foods for you (or for anybody else for that matter). The price they charge wholesalers can be easily 1/10th of what you pay at a grocery store for a lot of common items, probably not beef, but vegetables for sure. To even consider the inconvenience of shopping at a farm, I'd have to see some serious cost advantages, of which there aren't any as far as I can tell.

From the farmer's perspective, it is a bit of an inconvenience to sell you anything less than a whole animal.

The fixed costs of an on-farm slaughter building or mobile slaughter truck are comparable to the facility that processes thousands of animals per hour, but spread out among fewer animals. If you want it cheaper, best be prepared buy live and do the slaughter and butchering yourself, and plan some meals around organ meats. Or there are independent butchers that will chop up any dead thing you care to bring to them, that are a necessary convenience for hunters that want to fill a chest freezer with venison every November. They can do cows and chickens, too. They aren't picky. But not all of them are able to do the slaughtering part.

Vegetable prices, I just don't get. If I am coming to your farm stand and taking the cabbage away still covered in mud and slugs, what exactly am I paying extra for? How is it that the veg farmer can't beat the grocery store price?

Negotiation power of big chains?

"Look, you don't have to bother with petty sales 1 kilo here, 2 kilos there and waste your whole day/pay somebody else to do the sales, I'll take 10 tonnes but for 30% of your normal price - look at this pile of money, it can be yours now!"

Surely the farmer must realize that the buyer is not eating all that, and will be reselling it. They are then competing with their own produce.

Also, they don't always pay someone to do sales. A lot of farm stands have honor boxes, Or they do pre-paid farm shares and just deliver to a drop-off point. There are a lot of ways for veg farmers to get paid directly for their produce, and they are all somehow less convenient and more expensive than going to a grocery store. Do they just not go to Kroger or Publix or Piggly Wiggly or wherever to see what they have to beat?

It gets worse: there are u-pick farms where you _come and pick stuff yourself_ and they still charge you more than grocery store.

Yes, but you also must account for the 3 pounds of blueberries I will eat whilst u-picking.

Seems like a sure-fire way to load up on pesticides. Those berries need to be washed first.

The meat is grass fed and pastured (stricter than free range), so it's of higher quality than whole foods. The vegetables are significantly cheaper.

It's inconvenient for the farm to sell directly to you, although I agree with you that if you buy in any kind of reasonable amount (eg a quarter / half of a cow) you should (and in my experience this has been the case) see incredible reductions in cost.

A starting point would be eating canned food as little as possible and avoid non pet bottle and thermal receipts

(this for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A )

Buy from a farmers' market, and ask. Most of the sellers will know off the top of their heads exactly how their crops have been grown and what was/wasn't used, and if they don't, that's a seller to avoid.

As an added bonus, farmers' markets tend to be cheaper than supermarkets even as the food is better. It mystifies me that they aren't more commonly used and have a reputation as being for rich hipsters (i.e., like Whole Foods).

> It mystifies me that they aren't more commonly used and have a reputation as being for rich hipsters

Are there many farmers markets open for the second shift worker getting off at, say, 10pm?

The one here is open Saturday morning and Wednesday afternoon.

I guess a large chunk of people are able to make one or the other, but it also won't work all that well as an only source of produce.

Depends on where you live. Within very easy driving distance from me (or a rigorous bicycle ride) are farmers markets that, put together, are open from 8:30AM to 6:30PM. If you're working the second shift (lucky you, I only ever got first or third) you'll have no problem being able to get to one of those at least once a week.

They’re for rich hipsters because they’re very expensive, rarely open, and very small. In SF, vegetables at farmers markets and Whole Foods are 2-5x the cost compared to any Chinese grocery like New Mei Wah

in sf, the civic center (heart of the city) farmers market has a lot of farms catering to asian and lower income folks. the prices are pretty comparable to new may wah. think $1 bags of a couple pounds of produce.

the alemany farmers market is also similar in terms of cost and availability of produce. not too hard to avoid the ferry building and fort mason type hipster farmers markets :) not as easy as the markets in terms of hours/access, but...

Farmer's markets aren't cheaper in sf. The quality is definitely better than whole foods - but some of the other retailers have great produce and lower costs than the farmers markets. I am not trying detract from farmer's markets as they are an important part of the ecosystem - but they are pretty bougie in town.

That's unfortunate. I suspect it's a supply-and-demand thing: SF probably has more residents per capita who want to buy from farmers' markets than anywhere else in the country, and so prices rise accordingly. That definitely isn't the case in most places though (not even Seattle), so I stand by my advice for everyone else.

Seems reasonable!

The Alemany farmer's market on Saturday morning is cheaper than anywhere else.

True but that's also all the way down in Alemany and only one farmer's market out of all the farmer's markets in the city.

People sell stuff at farmer's markets that they don't actually grow themselves. There's very little oversight.

And even if they do sell their own produce, who knows where they're growing it, or if they've had the soil tested for contaminants, or if they're being honest about pesticides and fertilizers.

Depending on where you are, the goods at a Farmer's Market might not really be any better: http://www.tampabay.com/projects/2016/food/farm-to-fable/far...

Never been to a cheaper farmer’s market in my life. I’ve lived in New York, Chicago and Baltimore. Intrigued by this concept. Can’t imagine it actually exists anywhere.

Toll roads, long driving, competition and dealing with parking and paying to set up in a high-demand area are all problems farmers face at large city markets. Go almost anywhere else and you'll indeed be surprised.

It is certainly the case in the Central Valley in California. I got great wine grapes for $1/pound as well and wonderful organic persimmons for that same price. However, that area has a bunch of actual farmers.

Those are all fairly large cities. I find, living genuinely pretty close to the farms themselves, that the farmers market around here is pretty affordable. And nicely does accept things like WIC.

Those are all big cities... Are you unable to imagine anything other than an urban environment? That's sad

Have you been making a (literal) apples to apples comparison though? I find that farmer's markets in my area (Seattle) can be cheaper than Whole Foods for organic locally sourced things in season but definitely more expensive than going to a regular grocery store.

So just take the farmers' word for it? How do you know the farmer is actually selling produce with pesticides as organic since they are more profitable?

Ask yourself: whom would you trust more? A physical person in front of you, who's whole life depends on her business or a company which is legally set-up to maximize profit?

Would you trust a random individual who may or may not even be a farmer or a business that has obtained USDA organic accreditation?

But the USDA organic accreditation doesn’t mean pesticide free unfortunately. They still use a tonne (actually more by quantity) of pesticides, and those pesticides aren’t proven to be safer. E.g. Rotenone is shown to damage mitochondria, but is fine to be dumped on “organic” crops. So sadly it’s still actually very debatable whether you’re better off going organic or not.

Edit: think of “USDA Organic” label as more of an industry marketing gimmick that allows them to triple prices, than any genuine intent to produce safer foods.

Physical people in front of you lie a lot, especially when they are desperate. I'd trust the large company more.

This was true when I lived in Georgia, but in San Francisco the farmer's markets are easily double the price of grocery stores like Safeway and Costco.

I once bought Chilean grapes at a local "farmers" market. Since then I don't go to farmer's markets.

Organic farm CSA.

I used to get a box of produce from an organic farm that I trusted completely and that I'd visited in person on several occasions. Without that level of transparency (which is available in many places if you look for it) you're going to have a harder time.

Buy seeds and grow them yourself.

Careful, though - if you live in an area that's been populated for a long time, that may increase your exposure to lead. Maybe get the soil tested first.

And if you live in an area that used to manufacture semiconductors (and possibly contaminated with heavy metals), it is recommended that you use a certain kind of plastic sheet between the dirt in the ground and the topsoil that you buy at a store. There are these square wooden frames made for these kind of farm plots.

In most areas, you can get free or cheap soil testing through a local university.

Aquaponics could be the solution to that.

You'll have to know the farmer in person and take her word.

Is it possible to buy a cheap chemical kit which allows testing for these toxic compounds?

doubt it, considering how broad the term "pesticides" is.

Perhaps a test involving real bugs then :)