There will be no delivery on Christmas Eve! Based on the responses received following my request for feedback last week it was made clear that there is little appetite for a last minute delivery, with only one of those that did respond choosing that option. The overwhelming majority stated that a delivery on the 18th/19th was perfectly acceptable. So my Christmas break is going to be rather longer this year than I had anticipated, because I was convinced that the late delivery would have been most popular. But it’s too late now, I have cancelled the delivery slot from my supplier, and I will use the unexpected free time to my advantage…..in ways I have yet to decide upon.
So next week will be normal, and so will the following one be really. I will need your Christmas orders to be placed by Tuesday 16th, all I ask is that you let me know if you are going to require particularly large volumes of anything so that I can plan my harvesting/stock levels to accommodate your requirements, and to do this as soon as you can please.
I am preaching to the converted I know, but I thought that you might be interested in the report that I have attached a link to below. Every year the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) publish ‘The Dirty Dozen’, a list of the 12 types of fruit and vegetables most likely to be contaminated with multiple pesticides, analysed from an annual Government’s pesticide residue study. What PAN does is to focus on produce with multiple pesticide residues (known as ‘pesticide cocktails’) because the government sets safety limits for just one pesticide at a time, ignoring the growing body of evidence that chemicals can become more harmful when combined. Whilst PAN focusses on fruit and vegetables in this year’s report it references a worrying increase in prevalence of residues in bread products. I have copied and pasted a section from its analysis.
Pesticide residues in bread products
While we focus on fruit and vegetables for the Dirty Dozen, cocktails of pesticide residues are found in many different foods, including grains, such as barley, oats and wheat (and subsequently bread).
The Government’s testing results in 2021 revealed that the proportion of bread products containing two or more pesticides had almost doubled over the previous year to 50%. This marks a major increase from government testing results over the past decade when, on average, roughly a quarter of bread has been found to contain pesticide cocktails. The bread products tested included standard white and brown bread, crumpets, scones and muffins. Eleven different pesticides were found, including five with links to cancer, namely cypermethrin, deltamethrin, flonicamid (insecticides), fosetyl (fungicide) and glyphosate (herbicide).
The presence of glyphosate in grain is largely due to its use as a pre-harvest desiccant, when it’s used to artificially dry crops to make harvesting easier. If the UK Government banned the use of glyphosate as a pre-harvest desiccant it could reduce the amount of this residue found in grains.
“With the cost of living crisis forcing people to spend less on food, its vital that consumers can trust that eating relatively cheap products like bread won’t expose them to dangerous mixtures of chemicals. The government claims that it is committed to tackling pesticides, so why have pesticide cocktails been allowed to double in a staple food that most of us eat at least once every day?” Nick Mole, Policy Officer, PAN UK
In the attachment below you will see the latest ‘Dirty Dozen’, there is also some recent historical data that really demonstrates just how bad that citrus fruit in particular is for retaining residual levels of potentially harmful chemicals, so if you buy non-organic fruit and veg at the very least you should thoroughly wash it, though whether that is enough to make it safer is questionable. If you are reading this you are probably aware of most of this and are doing the right things to minimise harm to you and yours, but it’s pretty sobering stuff, and something that the wider public is largely unaware of. Keep buying organic produce and spread the word!
I have spoken about Esther before. She is our friend from Pamplona Spain, and she visits us for a few days each year, and is with us this weekend. Esther first came to stay with us as a 14 year old language student 27 years ago, and for quite a few summers she would be with us for several weeks at a time. We have never been able to shake her off since. She is now married and has a three year old son (who has also visited), and we love her dearly. Well last night I revealed a truth to her that she was uncomfortable with. I informed her that at 41 years of age she is now older than I was when she first came to us! The look of horror and disbelief on her face was a sight to behold. “But you were old when I first knew you!” she exclaimed, she’s not one to pull her punches. The irony was that she was sitting on the sofa doing her needlepoint sewing at the time of my revelation (not that needlepoint is necessarily the preserve of the older generation), supervised by Ralph the Rag Doll cat.
This week sees a return of broccoli (calabrese), there are savoy cabbages, Brussels sprouts and a limited number of sprout tops. Leeks will be smaller than they have been, there are Java and Acoustic potatoes (price reduction), Avocados are smallish ‘Haas’ fruit, apples are crisp sweet and juicy ‘Aria’, there are unwaxed lemons and limes. Otherwise it’s mostly all of the root vegetables that you know and love. However, I am giving the Spanish cherry vine tomatoes a go this week, let’s hope that they have some flavour. I have slightly reduced the price of mushrooms this week too.
This morning whilst I was out in the garden feeding the hens and refilling the wild bird feeders I heard the sound of approaching geese, and sure enough a few moments later the first wave of three skeins appeared. In total, after the third group passed by, I counted 142 birds. Now I may have double counted one or two, or missed some, but it was in that region. It was a lovely sight.
Right that’s me done. It looks like we are in for another week of changeable weather, with Wednesday looking most promising, but it’s going to be mild all week. Anyway, have a good one.
Phil
Reading your dirty Dozen list and am dismayed to see bananas with 67% chemical cocktail retained. But, I am thinking, is that all in the skin perhaps? That’s conveniently peeled off when you eat it rendering them safe perhaps. I am hoping that’s so.
I don’t know the answer to that question Jillian, but I would rather not take the risk
Its worrying reading. Couple that report with the Panorama programme on the Beeb about PFAS contamination, it makes you wonder if anyone will ever see sense and how much the law makers are being paid by the big chemical companies to allow them to carry on polluting every part of the planet.