Most developed countries use modern technology in order to minimize direct contact with pesticides; however, due to their use in agriculture, contact can never be completely eliminated. Farming communities tend to be present in areas contaminated by pesticides affecting their long-term health (water is the most likely source of contamination). Furthermore, the residues on chemically treated foods will affect people who don’t live in rural areas, as it stays on the produce.

pesticides can cause a number of health problems such as birth defects, nerve damage, cancer, and other diseases.

While pesticides can protect the food that we eat from diseases and insects, a small amount of pesticide residue might be able to get into our system by consumption. In Canada, this amount is regulated by maximum residue limits (MRL), which indicate a concentration of pesticides that does not affect human health. In 2006 and 2007, Health Canada tested over 99 per cent of Canadian fruits, vegetables, and imported foods, and found that all were below Canada’s MRL.

Although limited contact with pesticides is usually not fatal, the negative health effects are tremendous. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that pesticides can cause a number of health problems such as birth defects, nerve damage, cancer, and other diseases. The effects depend on the pesticides used, and on their level of toxicity – some pesticides can toxify your body right after you ingest them. The main purpose of pesticides is killing any predator threatening the plants they are applied on. Since their mode of action is not specific to one species, they can also harm humans, especially children in their developing age. Other pesticides create diseases in the long term, including cancer.

It is clear that pesticides can pose a threat to our health, so why do we continue using them? From an economic point of view, pesticides are seen as beneficial, as they prevent the premature fall of fruit, deterioration during storage, and ensure that the produce ripens more slowly, assuring a higher amount of profit. Our consumer society is used to a yield high enough to sustain the population. By stopping the use of pesticides, the total yield will decrease, leading to a price inflation for food. These economical disturbances would increase the gap between rich and poor, since people with less income will be even less able to purchase produce needed for survival.

The use of modern technology in food production allows the yields to be high enough to make food accessible to most people, yet the dilemma is obvious. People with less income cannot stop buying products that have been affected by pesticides, as they are often in a more accessible price range. As long as people consume those goods though, they will be produced. Pesticides were created to benefit mankind and establish food security; however it cannot be ignored that those same substances bring undesirable effects.

One alternative to pesticide-infected food is organic produce. The major issue with organic food is that the yield in the short term is comparatively low to that of fields farmed with industrial agriculture. This leads to a very high price as opposed to more affordable conventionally grown food, making it inaccessible to many populations. As long as the common consumer is not willing to spend more of their income on organic food, and the government does not reinforce organic over conventional agriculture, the cost will be a problem that many are not willing nor able to bear.

Furthermore, organic food is not as clean as most of us think it is. A CBC News investigation this month found that as much as 5 per cent of organic food in Canada tested in the past two years has traces of pesticide residues higher than the MRL allowed for organic food, while half of all the produce had at least some traces of chemical residues. The companies producing organic food have been accused of deliberately putting pesticide on the food to enhance growth. This leads to the conclusion that even organic food might not be the right option in order to keep chemicals out of your system. Unless you have a crop in your garden, and you grow your own food, buying food from the market will never be 100 per cent safe.

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Then comes the creation of diet pills. Some researchers spend the entirety of their professional careers trying to find the best diet pill that can compel people to consume it, and pharmaceutical companies wait quietly and patiently for the next big thing to be created so they can snatch it and commodify it as fast as they can. Diet pills, then, become part of the marketplace, a product to be bought and sold, to be advertised, to be commercialized, and to be broadcast to millions.

Raspberry ketone
Raspberry ketone (a naturally occurring compound found in red raspberries that gives them their smell) was introduced on the Dr. Oz Show in February 2013. Unknown to many, he called it “The No. 1 miracle [pill] in a bottle.”

“The science is just not there. The studies aren’t there. I would not be spending my money on any of this stuff.” -Dr. Arya Sharma

Dr. Oz, accompanied by self-proclaimed “fitness and weight-loss expert” Lisa Lynn, said that the pill makes your body “think it’s skinny” by producing a hormone called adiponectin. Furthermore, Lynn added that this pill “slices up the fat in your cells” which makes burning fat easier, and that the pill is said to be “very healthy” and has no “side effects.” For it to work, Lynn says that you have to take at least 100 mg of raspberry ketone, the equivalent of one capsule per day. (To get the same amount of raspberry ketone naturally you’d have to eat 90 pounds of raspberries a day.) The results start showing after one to five days, and, the longer you stay on this pill, the more weight you lose.

This pill sold out in many health food stores just after this episode aired on television, according to an abcnews.com article published on April 5, 2013 entitled “Raspberry Ketone Frenzy.”

Lynn said she discovered this pill by doing “research, research, and research.” Lynn forgot to inform the viewers that raspberry ketone was never tested on humans in clinical trials. Instead, it was tested on mice in two different experiments in 2006 and 2010.
Dr. Arya Sharma, Professor of Medicine and Chair in Obesity Research and Management at the University of Alberta, said in an interview with the Globe and Mail in June 2012 that raspberry ketone acts on the body by activating stress hormones, which can lead to problems such as an increase in heart rate. Dr. Sharma continued, adding, “The science is just not there. The studies aren’t there. I would not be spending my money on any of this stuff.”

Garcinia cambogia
On October 29, 2012, the show aired another episode featuring another diet pill called Garcinia cambogia or, in other words, “the newest, fastest fat-buster.” Garcinia cambogia is a tropical fruit native to Indonesia. Dr. Oz said that you can lose fat without dieting or exercising with the help of this diet pill – he called it the “revolutionary fat buster.”

This pill is said to be different from other diet pills in the market because of its “dual action”: it decreases body fat while suppressing appetite. Furthermore, it is said to aid in suppressing the stress hormone cortisol, and therefore can help decrease belly fat.

Dr. Oz said on the show that “[he] does not sell this stuff, [he] does not make any money on this, and [he] does not commission any brand on this.” The raspberry ketone phenomenon repeated itself after this episode. Many health food stores that held the product suddenly found themselves lacking stock.

What is more important is changing how society views people who aren’t considered ‘skinny’ or ‘perfect.’

But does this pill actually work? Contrary to raspberry ketone, this pill was actually already tested on human subjects, but the results were not that positive. The first experiment done in 1998 – which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association – and another one done in 2010 – published in the Journal of Obesity – came to the same conclusion: Garcinia cambogia failed to produce any significant weight-loss compared to a regular diet plan. But the last experiment showed that the Garcinia extract generated only short-term results, and that “its clinical relevance seems questionable.”

The harsh truth
If a diet pill is said to be ‘good,’ as shown on “The Dr. Oz Show” or just by good publicity, people will take it no matter the consequences. Our society is a fat-phobic one, and a lot of people will do anything it takes to lose weight and attain the supposedly ‘perfect’ body. Pharmaceutical companies make millions using that affective aspect. This marketplace is getting out of control, and Dr. Sharma asserts that “better regulations and tighter rules should be put in place to restrict the types of weight-loss claims companies are allowed to make.”

While that is one of the solutions, what is more important is changing how society views people who aren’t considered ‘skinny’ or ‘perfect.’ This could reverse the current trend, and people would not resort to drastic measures in order to become what society expects them to be, and shows like “Dr. Oz” wouldn’t feel compelled to thrust dieting into the mainstream.

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