Pesticides in Breastmilk: The Good News for Vegetarians
Vegetarian Voice Spring 2001 <
www.navs-online.org
Remember those ads from the 1950s featuring thriving, chubby-faced
babies sucking on bottles of formula? You've probably seen them,
because those ads do, of course, still exist. But now there's a
difference: today, medical professionals and nutritionists are adamant
that breastmilk is best.
But over the past year, discussions on the topic of pesticides in
breastmilk have left some mothers questioning the safety of their
milk.
Fortunately, there is a way for women to minimize the levels of
pesticides in their breastmilk - they can go vegetarian, or better
yet, vegan. As described by Virginia Messina, PhD and Mark Messina,
MPH, RD in the Dietitian's Guide to Vegetarian Diets, studies of
vegetarians show lower breastmilk levels of the pesticides DDT,
chlordane, heptachlor, and dieldrin, and industrial compounds or
byproducts, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and
polychlorinated dibenzodiozins.
This is hardly new information: it's been known for years. One study
published twenty years ago in the New England Journal of Medicine
found that in an analysis of breastmilk from a sample of vegans, the
levels of 17 chemicals were markedly lower than in the general
population.
Another study from nearly a decade ago, published in the European
Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that frequency of consumption of
meat, dairy, and fish was directly related to [breast] milk
contamination.
Also, in the mid 1970s, the EPA analyzed the breastmilk of vegetarian
women and found the levels of pesticides to be far less than average.
In 1992, a study published in the European Journal of Clinical
Nutrition found that meat and dairy products strongly contribute to
breastmilk concentrations of dieldrin and PCBs. This same study also
found that fish consumption leads to PCB contamination. This may be
why Japanese mothers have such high levels of dioxin in their milk,
according to Carol Huotari of La Leche League International. Huotari,
who heads the Center for Breastfeeding Information at LLL, points out
that while Japanese women eat much less dairy and meat than Americans,
they do consume more fish.
How does eating animal-based foods lead to increased breastmilk
contamination levels? Pesticides are stored in body fat. So, when
women eat animal (including fish) flesh, they also absorb the
pesticides consumed by that animal. Women, in turn, store those
pesticides in their body fat, then pass them along to their nursing
infants through their breastmilk. Remember, even a skinless chicken
breast contains over six grams of body fat.
Likewise, dairy cows release much of their stored pesticides in their
"uddermilk." So, consuming dairy products also leads to an increase
in one's own pesticide stores.
Plant foods, on the other hand, don't bioaccumulate, or store
pesticides. On average, a pound of apples - even apples that are not
organic - will have nowhere near the levels of pesticides as found in
a pound of chicken flesh. Of course, it goes without saying that a
pound of organic apples wont have any pesticides at all.
Pesticides made headlines across the nation this past year with the
Environmental Protection Agency condemning and phasing out two popular
pesticides for home and garden use due to the potential health risks
they pose.
This and other pesticide-related issues are causing more and more
parents, including actress Jane Seymour, to warn others about the
potential health risks children face from exposure to potentially
dangerous pesticides. "As parents, we want to do everything we can to
protect our kids, but there is an incredible void of simple
information to guide parents to better choices," says Seymour.
Put aptly by John Robbins in his historical book Diet for a New
America, "women, and even little girls, who think they may wish to
have and breastfeed a baby in the future would do well to realize that
the diet they eat today will greatly affect the health of their
young."
The bottom line, however, even for non-vegetarians, is to choose
breastfeeding over formula feeding - except in extreme and rare cases.
As Robbins states, human breastmilk is nutritionally and vastly
superior for a human infant to any cow's milk formula, formulas are
also likely to be contaminated with toxic chemicals, human breastmilk
contains antibodies which are crucial for the newborn, and
breastfeeding provides the bonding and emotional nurturance which are
tremendously important to the well-being of both mother and baby.