Seattle PI, January 30, 2008: Andrew Schneider. A study found that the urine and saliva of Mercer Island children eating conventional food contained markers of a family of brain-damaging pesticides. When the children ate organic products, signs of pesticides were not found.

“The transformation is extremely rapid,” said Chensheng Lu, the principle author of the study published online in the current issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

“Once you switch from conventional food to organic, the pesticides (malathion and chlorpyrifos) that we can measure in the urine disappears. The level returns immediately when you go back to the conventional diets,” said Lu, a professor at Emory University’s School of Public Health and a leading authority on pesticides and children. Within 8 to 36 hours of the children switching to organic food, the pesticides were no longer detected in the testing.

The Seattle PI article contains a list 45 fruits and vegetables and their percentage of detectable pesticides. At the top of the list is peaches; 96.6% of the peaches tested contained up to 9 detectable pesticides. 93.6% of all apples tested contained up to 9 detectable pesticides. 94.1% of all celery tested contained up to 9 detectable pesticides. Regulators have certainly done a poor job studying and controlling pesticides.

So what can you do? Eat as much organic foods as you can and buy foods grown close to home – better yet, grow them yourself. FoodNews is a wonderful source for great information on pesticides in food. You can also use hypnotherapy for yourself and for your family to make healthy food choices. One of my new weight loss clients yesterday was talking about her children and how to get them to eat a variety of vegetables and whole grains rather than junk foods. I suggested that she start slowly with making changes, gradually working the healthy foods in. I also urged her to teach her children self-hypnosis. Not only could they learn to use hypnosis for healthy eating, but then they would have it as a tool for academics, sports, relationships and all other areas of their life. I agreed to a family hypnotherapy session where I will meet with she, her husband and their 4 children. I’ve said before that I thought self-hypnosis should be a part of every kindergarten curriculum – perhaps making it a family affair is even better!