Food
What you eat has a BIG climate impact
Did you realize greenhouse gas emissions from cows are about same as from transportation? The food system contributes about 30% of emissions. What you eat has a big impact on sustainability. This April 2022 article from the New York Times (you might run into a firewall) provides tips on how you can reduce your impact. The main takeaways are:
What you eat matters a lot more than whether it’s local or organic, or what kind of bag you use to carry it home from the store.
Beef, lamb, and cheese do the most climate damage. Pork, chicken and eggs are in the middle. Plants have the lowest impact. People who eat mostly plants contributes about 1/4 to 1/2 of the emissions than people who regularly eat animal-based foods.
You don’t have to give up meat altogether - eating less meat and more plants, or switching from beef to chicken, reduce your climate footprint.
Waste less - tossed food costs a lot of energy to produce and deliver with no benefit. Households throw away 1/3 of the food they buy!
Did you know that in the United States, the single largest volume of material sent to landfills and incinerators comes from food waste. Worldwide, food waste accounts for 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, at least double that of emissions from aviation. According to estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, that is enough food to feed more than a billion people.
Compost wasted food to minimize the methane emissions.
A climate friendly diet is also a healthy diet and often saves you money, so changing your habits can be a 3-for-1 win.
Farmers markets and online farmstands
Farmers Markets and sustainability naturally go together: organically grown goods, locally made, and less transportation and packaging, are key, positive green impacts
The Hopkinton Farmers Market has been at Weston Nurseries during the winter and on the Common during the summer but needs new leadership to continue - reach out if you can help or know someone: here's more info
There are many other farmers markets in the area: find local markets here
Get local produce when you vacation or visit other communities: find markets anywhere
Hopkinton's own Long Life Farm offers an online farmstand - order organic fresh produce they grow on their farm, then pick it up right in town
CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture)
Like farmers markets, CSAs provide food that is organically grown, and there is less transportation and packaging when you use a CSA
CSAs are local farms where you:
are a sustaining member
provide a fee and in return receive fresh produce on a regular basis (typically once a week from early summer through fall)
sometimes do work for the farm
CSAs near you:
There's a new CSA in town - Homeplate Farm - get sustainably-grown fresh veggies produced right here in town!
One farm providing pick-up in Hopkinton is Upswing Farm
There are CSAs in Westborough, Holliston, Ashland and beyond: just search the web for "CSAs near 01748" (or 01784) for the latest info
Grow your own
Get help - join the Hopkinton Garden Club!
Work with a consultant - Edible Landscaping
Buy in Bulk
SupplyBulkFoods.com is a seller that provides dry foods in bulk, with organic options and no plastic packaging - everything from pasta to pecans. You order what you want and it comes in bideogradable bags. At this point, there aren't any locations very close to Hopkinton, but there are pickup spots in Boston and other towns, in the event you work or regularly go there.
Additional sustainable eating and drinking practices
Drink from reusable bottles, not single-use plastics
Take your leftover restaurant food home in your own reusable container rather than styrofoam or plastic clam shells
Use your own grocery bags when you shop, including lightweight mesh bags for produce
Choose food and beverages with less packaging (do apples really need to be wrapped in cellophane?)
Compost your food scraps - do it yourself or subscribe to Black Earth Compost
Food packaging often contains PFAS - even the pizza box! Avoid packaged food from restaurants and stores.
See what the Hopkinton Sustainable Green Committee is doing to help reduce the use of toxic products in our town
Why eat organically grown food as much as you can and other things you can do
Health risks to children from food with toxic pesticides
There are two choices of food for consumers, with or without toxic pesticides.
The health risks of dietary exposure to agrochemical synthetic pesticides, designed to kill weeds and insect pests, can’t be washed off because the chemicals enter the cell structure in food crops and meats.
Science research studies of pesticides in children are revealing low level pesticide exposure in food harms a developing infant’s brain, nervous system, organ development, and critical protein and enzyme synthesis. (Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4)
Infants and children are more vulnerable than adults to toxins
Infants are more vulnerable to pesticides because their immature liver and kidneys cannot remove pesticides as well as an adults’, and children eat and drink more relative to their body weight than adults, leading to a higher dose of pesticides residue per pound of body weight. (Sources: 5)
Pesticide damage to prenatal, infant, and child vulnerable biological development contributes to cancer, permanent changes in brain chemistry leading to behavioral disorders, learning disabilities, autism, ADHD, and disorders to the endocrine and immune systems. (Sources: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
USDA organic food reduces pesticides in children and adults
USDA organic agriculture is food grown and raised without synthetic pesticides and represents less than 1% of US agricultural farmland. (Sources: 23, 24)
An organic food diet reduces pesticides in families tested in the US. The study, Organic Diet Intervention Significantly Reduces Urinary Pesticide Levels in U.S. Children and Adults, found significant reductions in pesticides were associated with decreased risk of autism, cancers, autoimmune disorders, infertility, hormone disruption, learning disability, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. (Sources: 25, 26)
Massachusetts campaign for farms to transfer to organic agriculture with USDA $100 million federal funding TOPP program
Massachusetts has over 7,000 farms but only 204 USDA certified organic farms. (Sources: 27, 28, 29)
The Northeast Organic Farmers Association (NOFA) Massachusetts chapter is pursuing its pesticide reform campaign with a coalition of the Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Massachusetts Medical Society, and environmental organizations to restructure the current registration and use of toxic pesticides to abide by the Protection of Children and Families From Harmful Pesticides Act, and to promote biological, sustainable, alternative pest controls in order to reduce or eliminate human or environmental exposure to toxic chemicals. (Sources: 29, 30, 31)
Massachusetts consumers can join the NOFA campaign to promote more access to organic food by asking their supermarkets and farm suppliers to transition to USDA Organic farming thru the $100 million being offered in the federal Transitional and Organic Grower Assistance Program (TOPP). (Sources: 32, 33, 34,35, 36)
Federal and state food pesticide laws and the MA Attorney General's lawsuit
The child health crisis from dietary pesticides is due largely to the current federal and state agricultural legislation permitting the multinational pesticide manufacturers and food industry to bypass child epidemiological safety testing, Instead, the laws rely on corporate agrochemical laboratory data to register pesticides, often without toxicity safety studies. (Sources: 13, 14, 15, 16)
The Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (now governor) and five other state attorney generals along with a coalition of environmental and farmworker organizations filed a lawsuit to ban the nation’s most popular neurological harming pesticide Chlorpyrifos, overriding the agrochemical controlled US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) registration of the organophosphate chemical. (Sources: 17 ,18, 19)
In the Spring of 2021 the Ninth Circuit Court ruled the EPA had failed to prove any residue tolerance level was safe and in February 2022 the EPA banned Chlorpyrifos on agricultural crops. (Sources: 20, 21)
In 2022 the Ninth Circuit Court also banned all current environmental safety tolerances of the most commonly used toxic herbicide Glyphosate, but the EPA has yet to comply. (Sources: 22)
Sources
1. Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD)
https://chadd.org/adhd-weekly/pesticides-could-play-a-role-for-some-people-with-adhd/
2, Denmark, Odense Child Cohort
https://europepmc.org/article/med/31229776
3. The Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS)
https://cerch.berkeley.edu/research-programs/chamacos-study
4. Heartland Health Research Alliance
5. National Pesticide Information Center
http://npic.orst.edu/health/child.html
6. American Academy of Pediatrics
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/130/6/e1757/30399/Pesticide-Exposure-in-Children
7. Environmental Working Group and American Academy of Pediatrics
8. Learning Disabilities Association of America
https://ldaamerica.org/lda-epa-decision/
9. American Parkinson Disease Association
https://www.apdaparkinson.org/article/the-relationship-between-pesticides-and-parkinsons/
10. CDC Data and Statistics on Autism Spectrum Disorder
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html
11. CDC Glyphosate in Children Study
12. Beyond Pesticides Diseases Linked to Pesticides
https://www.beyondpesticides.org/assets/media/documents/health/pid-database.pdf
13. The Intercept How Pesticide Companies Corrupted the EPA and Poisoned America
https://theintercept.com/2021/06/30/epa-pesticides-exposure-opp/
14. The New York Times Pesticide Studies Won EPA’s Trust, Until Trump’s Team Scorned ’Secret Science’
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/business/epa-pesticides-studies-epidemiology.html
15. EPA Pesticide Tolerances
https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-tolerances
16. EPA’s Policy on Children’s Health
https://www.epa.gov/children/childrens-health-policy-and-plan
17. AG Maura Healey Sues EPA to Protect Children and Public From Know Toxic Pesticide
18. US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Chlorpyrifos Ruling
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/04/29/19-71979.pdf
19. EPA 2021 Final Ruling on Chlorpyrifos
20. NY Times, EPA to Block Pesticide Tied to Neurological Harm in Children
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/climate/pesticides-epa-chlorpyrifos.htm
21. Earthjustice, EPA to Ban Chlorpyrifos Finally
https://earthjustice.org/press/2021/epa-to-ban-chlorpyrifos-finally
22.Courthouse News, Ninth Circuit Orders EPA to Reexamine Glyphosate Toxicity to Humans and the Environment
23. Pew Research Center, Organic Farming is on the Rise in the US
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/01/10/organic-farming-is-on-the-rise-in-the-u-s/
24. USDA Economic Research Service
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/natural-resources-environment/organic-agriculture.aspx
25. Friends of the Earth, Pesticides Levels Drop After One Week of Eating Organic
https://foe.org/news/pesticide-levels-drop-if-eat-organic/
26. You Tube video Family Organic Diet Study
https://foe.org/news/pesticide-levels-drop-if-eat-organic/
27. Massachusetts Department of Agriculture (MDAR) Resources Facts and Statistics
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/agricultural-resources-facts-and-statistics
28. USDA 2017 Massachusetts Organic Census
29. USDA 2021 National Organic Census
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2022/2022_Organic_Highlights.pdf
30. Massachusetts law MGL 132B Sec.5A
https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXIX/Chapter132B/Section5A
31. Protection of Children and Families From Harmful Pesticides
32. Northeast Organic Farmers Association Massachusetts (NOFA Mass)
33. Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility
34. MDAR Organic Certification Cost Share Program
https://www.mass.gov/how-to/apply-for-the-organic-certification-cost-share-program
35. USDA $100 Million TOPP
https://www.farmers.gov/your-business/organic/organic-transition-initiative/toga
https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/organic-certification/topp
36. NOFA Mass Organic Certification Transition Consulting Assistance
https://www.nofamass.org/organic-certification/
37. NOFA Mass Organic Transition Resources