“There’s now no place untouched;
No child born chemical-free”1

When in our lives are we willing to take unnecessary risk?  It’s risky jumping out into oncoming traffic, right?  You wouldn’t do it unless you had a very good reason – to save a child in the street, for example.  But when it comes to the products we use or the food we eat, we do not realize that there are dangers as serious as a child darting into traffic.  At least with oncoming traffic, you can see the threat.  The dangers from chemicals are invisible:  you can’t see the stuff, and yet you can still get hit.2

Anna Lappe’, one of the authors in a riveting book called Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, tells a story of an experience she had when staying at the Ritz-Carlton, Lake Las Vegas.  She writes:

At the resort’s turnoff, I see the golf course first: green grass dotted with palm trees.  Sprinklers tick, spraying the thirsty lawn bordered by the original landscape: craggy rocks and dusty hillsides.  Then I see the lake, or what turns out to be just a sliver of all 350 man-made acres of it.

At the hotel the landscaping is immaculate, not a leaf out of place, not a faux cobblestone unpolished. I can’t help but notice, however, the uncanny quiet.  There are no birds, no bees, no insects of any kind.

Clean. Tidy. Neat.  That’s what you see.  What you don’t see is what makes this artificial oasis in a desert possible: not only the water, but the chemical too. And you certainly don’t see their consequences.  Later, when I ask a property manager what chemicals are used on the area landscaping, she laughs and says, “Oh honey, I have no idea.  But I’m sure there’s a ton of it!3

“The dangers from chemicals are invisible:  you can’t see the stuff, and yet you can still get hit."

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