{"id":7383,"date":"2017-08-11T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-11T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.p4.greenpeace.org\/post\/why-are-there-pesticides-in-our-eggs\/"},"modified":"2019-11-06T09:48:57","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:48:57","slug":"why-are-there-pesticides-in-our-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/7383\/why-are-there-pesticides-in-our-eggs\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are there pesticides in our eggs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case you missed the news this week, here\u2019s what we know so far: during the first week in August, the Dutch food safety authority (NWMA) announced<\/a> that they discovered tens of thousands of eggs contaminated with fipronil – a toxic anti-lice pesticide, banned in food production in the EU. Dutch and Belgian police have since\u00a0made arrests<\/a> at the homes of buyers of the fipronil-laced pesticides.<\/p>\n

\"Eggs

Eggs from discount store ALDI.<\/p><\/div>\n

Millions of eggs could be contaminated<\/strong>. The full extent isn\u2019t known yet, but 180 Dutch farms have been temporarily closed and major German retailers like Lidl and Aldi have been pulling eggs off their shelves. Authorities in Germany are testing other products made with eggs; like pasta, mayonnaise and cakes.<\/p>\n

This is just the latest in a long-line of global food safety crises. Industrialised farming has been linked time and time again to outbreaks of E. coli<\/a>, salmonella<\/a>, listeria<\/a>, bird flu<\/a>, swine flu<\/a> and Mad Cow disease<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dutch and Belgian authorities may have known<\/a> about the egg contamination two months ago, but the public is only learning about it now. Why did they take so long to react?<\/p>\n

This is the result of a greedy industrial system bending the rules because of poor government oversight. We exist in a broken food system where suppliers cut corners at the expense of public health just to make more profit. Outbreaks like these seem to be happening more and more. All of this points to a deep-seated disease in the industrial agricultural system.<\/p>\n

\"Chicken

Chicken farm in Northern Germany. 30,000 male and female chickens of the breed “Ross” are fattened in this north German farm within 35 days to a weight of 2kg.<\/p><\/div>\n

Our insatiable demand for beef, pork, dairy and eggs has created a massive industrial livestock system globally that\u2019s about high volume at any cost. Too often, that system needlessly puts public health at serious risk. It fosters inhumane conditions for animals, encourages runaway deforestation for feed and grazing, causes pollution of rivers and oceans and contributes massively to the climate crisis. It is a disaster for our planet.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The solution is not just avoiding this product or that product. The best way to protect ourselves and our families from outbreaks is to change this broken system once and for all. We need more transparency. Authorities must put public safety and consumer protection above all else.<\/p>\n

We can all play our part. Find out where your food comes from. Read what the label says. Try to buy from trusted ecological farms, retailers or markets. Grow more of your own food, if you can. Eat fewer animal-based products like beef, pork, dairy and eggs, which are often linked to these food scares. Embrace a diverse diet with more plant-rich food.<\/p>\n

\"Ecological

Zuzana Pastorkov\u00e1 owns an eco-farm in a small village in the municipality in \u0160ala District, in the Nitra Region of southwestern Slovakia.<\/p><\/div>\n

Together, we can fix food.<\/p>\n

\n

Christiane Huxdorff is a sustainable agriculture campaigner for Greenpeace Germany\u2019s Food campaign.<\/em><\/p>\n

Davin Hutchins is a senior campaigner with Greenpeace International\u2019s Meat and Dairy campaign based in the United States.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you missed the news this week, here\u2019s what we know so far: during the first week in August, the Dutch food safety authority (NWMA) announced that they discovered tens of thousands of eggs contaminated with fipronil – a toxic anti-lice pesticide, banned in food production in the EU. Dutch and Belgian police have since\u00a0made arrests at the homes of buyers of the fipronil-laced pesticides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":9699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[86,91],"p4-page-type":[59],"class_list":["post-7383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature","tag-food","tag-health","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7383"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26076,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7383\/revisions\/26076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7383"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=7383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}