'The Farm Project': Actress Zooey Deschanel's advice on organic food, pesticides is short on science

Michael Schulson | Genetic Literacy Project | May 18, 2018

The actress and singer Zooey Deschanel has a message for Americans too poor to buy organic food: Stop eating apples, avoid fresh tomatoes, and give up on grapes, peppers, potatoes, and other items that appear among the so-called “Dirty Dozen,” a list of fruits and vegetables that, when farmed and harvested using standard industrial methods, tend to carry more pesticide residues.

“If you can’t afford to buy organic, avoid the dirty dozen and look for produce with lower pesticide levels, like asparagus, cauliflower, or mangoes,” Deschanel advises viewers of her new, viral Facebook video series, Your Food’s Roots.

The problem: While this appears to be a piece of safety advice, it’s hard to find any scientific support to back it up. And it’s not the only questionable claim that Deschanel shares in the series, which debuted two months ago on Facebook and quickly attracted millions of viewers. The videos do touch on serious issues, but they also illustrate how sloppy science, celebrity culture, and social media virality too often converge to generate market-driven fear-mongering and baseless health claims, rather than serious consumer education..........To Read More.....

My Take - As you read this article you begin to see just how weird these celebrities are, and I think "Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, ....with her..... “bio-frequency healing” stickers, .....and....  jade eggs ....designed to be inserted into the vagina to coax “spiritual detox.”' is really over the top whacko. 

However, there's a silver lining to all of this.  I've concluded we need to thank these celebrities for taking the postions they do.  Whether its about food, genetics, pesticides, social justice, vaccinations or any other loony thing they embrace.  Why?  Because if they're for it - it's more than reasonable to be against it. 

See, less work for the normals of the world.