Everyday you eat the food that you have purchased from the store, use the water out of your well or the city water system to drink, make your coffee and cook your food and breath the air around you. You may not think that anything seems dangerous or out of place about your day-to-day routine, but there may be something on the surface that may be making you sick: pesticides. Pesticides cling to the surface of fruits and vegetables, find their way to water sources, and combine with dust, pollen and other pollutants in the air. How can pesticides harm you and how can you avoid contact with them?

The Negative Affects of Pesticides

Farmers know that you do not want worms in your apples, fungi on your corn or weevils in your potatoes, so they use pesticides. While the process of eliminating these bothersome creatures from your food is in many ways a good thing, the negative affects of pesticides may outweigh the benefits. Pesticides can cause everything from itchy eyes and skin burns to horrible stomach problems and, in some cases, even death.

How to Keep Pesticides from Affecting Your Family

There are several ways to keep pesticides from hurting your family. Wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly even if the label says that they have been washed previously. If you handle a home garden or other areas in which you use pesticides, there are specific tips to learn to keep yourself safe. The first is to keep yourself informed. Read the label! Know what is in the pesticides that you are using on your own vegetables and fruits.

When you read the label, you will want to know the active ingredients. There should also be an EPA registration number on the label that will ensure that the product you are using is EPA reviewed. Keep track of the EPA’s signal words such as DANGER, CAUTION, or POISON. Be sure that you understand the first aid procedures should an accident such as a spill or ingestion occur, and be sure to understand how you should properly store all of your chemicals.

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