General Question

flo's avatar

What food items absorb the most amount of lead from the soil?

Asked by flo (13313points) January 7th, 2014

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7 Answers

Buttonstc's avatar

I do know that carrots are what they plant in order to clear fields of excessive pesticide residues so I wouldn’t be surprised if the same were true of lead.

Needless to say, even tho I don’t religiously buy everything organic, I absolutely ALWAYS buy organic carrots (or else I don’t buy carrots at all.

You might also find these guideline lists of the “dirty dozen” and “clean fifteen” from the Environmental Working Group to be of interest generally.
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http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/

flo's avatar

I have heard about carrots being something to eat organic only if possible.
I heard green tea has too much lead.

Added: Thanks for the link, I knew about those dirty dozen. I get the impression lead is more dangerous though than pesticides I don’t know why.

Buttonstc's avatar

Well, if you care to read through it all, this paper seems to zero in on the problem.

Apparently, there’s a lot of lead in certain pesticides (lead arsenates) commonly used in orchards (apple mostly) some of which are later used for other vegetable crops. Its not a pretty picture.
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http://www.hindawi.com/journals/aess/2013/283472/

flo's avatar

Its not a pretty picture sounds right.

thorninmud's avatar

Indirectly, beef. Next to the root itself, the part of plants that retains the most lead from contaminated soil is the stem. Cattle eat huge quantities of plant stems, and so accumulate large amounts of lead when they graze in contaminated areas. That lead ends up in the meat and milk.

flo's avatar

@thorninmud thanks.

Do you all know how much soil free farming is going on ?

flo's avatar

The google search result page about soil free farming keeps disappearing on me.

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