Does This Permethrin Make Me Look Fat?
I understand that some people think by being quiet, and circulating ideas inside their head. Others think by talking. I think by writing.
Right now I have several conflicting/confusing trains of thought coursing through my cerebral neurotransmitter juices. We'll see if they arrange themselves in any semblance of order.
I mentioned the grasshopper plague in the garden earlier, and the difficulty we faced in dealing with them in a way that didn't harm other kinds of life. Guineas seemed like ideal grasshopper vacuums, except that we didn't have any, and weren't sure how to get some right away and how to keep them in the garden and protect them from the dog.
My guinea search took a surprising and heartwarming turn suddenly last week when I called Linda, who is married to Phil, after a mutual friend told me they might have guineas to sell. They didn't really have any to sell, but within a matter of hours, Phil and Linda were here, delivering three guineas--exactly half of their own flock. They are on loan, given "because in this economy we really need to help each other." This is the love of Christ being made really practical. Unknown to me, they started doing market gardening this year too, after their farming operation was downsized in a major way--related to the settlement of an estate, I gathered--and they couldn't stand to see our market gardening endeavor fall victim to the grasshoppers.
Dorcas (cousin) told me that they had gotten guineas themselves recently, and they all flew out of whatever they came home in from the poultry auction, roosted in the cedar trees, and haven't been caught since. But they're doing a good job of going after insects. I offered her my extra copy of Gardening with Guineas, which I discovered was my second copy when I went to check my shelf for a book on ducks, and found Gardening with Guineas there. An identical book was on the coffee table. Forgetfulness is a real trial sometimes. $13.45 spent needlessly.
After the county horticulture agent told us that Permethrin was the insecticide to use for grasshoppers, we actually bought Eight, which contains Permethrin. It sat here unused, while we debated further what to do and while the grasshoppers kept gnawing and hopping and growing. We kept the "blend 'em up and spray 'em on the crops" option in reserve for the time being--one reason was that the grasshoppers are still fairly small and it would take a looooong time to gather a cup full of them. (Can't you just see me stalking and pouncing and stuffing grasshoppers into a jar?) It would have been me, Hiromi utterly lacking the patience for this kind of effort.
When we got the guineas, we were a little worried about turning them out right away, for fear they'd have no sense of where they belonged and where their safety and grain and water were, and would range everywhere except in the garden. So for the moment, they're in a shaded calf hutch in one corner of the veggie garden, getting used to that as their home area. We did feed them some tomato worms, which Phil and Linda helped us pick off the Nicotiana and tomatoes. (Phil is amazing. He doesn't mind carrying them bare-handed. Shuddddddder.) The guineas were not immediately certain what to do with the tomato worms, but inside the hutch, they were at least rendered innocuous to the garden crops. I hope they ate them while we weren't looking. I didn't really want to watch anyway.
Right after the guineas arrived, Hiromi went out and bought them white millet and scratch grain. He is pampering them and talking to them, and tomorrow, when we're out there to keep an eye on things, we'll let them out to forage in the garden. So far, the dog does not go into the garden, which is surrounded by an electric fence. The fence is really to keep the sheep out, but it's a bonus that it keeps the dog out too. The guineas will be relatively safe there.
Late on Friday night, after Hiromi had worked in the flower garden, clearing the paths of all the weeds, and experienced again the overwhelming presence of all the grasshoppers, he announced that he was going to spray the Permethrin. We had decided earlier that since we weren't going to eat the flowers, maybe that was a logical place to test the spray. I strung together all the needed hoses and connected them to the insecticide container fitted with a hose-end spray device. After all the tilling was done, I fed Hiromi hose length and he operated the spray trigger and we covered that area in short order. Tonight there were very few grasshoppers left in the flower garden.
So everything's good. Right? We'll just spray the veggie garden tomorrow, and then turn out the guineas to clean up the escapees, and all will be well.
Not quite.
See, it's like this. I've been reading Jillian Michaels' book Master Your Metabolism, and, among other things, I've been learning about the fact that many chemicals act as endocrine disruptors. That means that they affect how human hormones are produced and used. This action of pesticides is not as widely known as the fact that some of them are carcinogens (meaning they cause cancer), but more and more researchers are convinced that this effect is at the root of the rising obesity epidemic.
Hormones have an enormous effect on how food is metabolised. Most of us know that insulin is a metabolism hormone. But there are also many others that are less well-known. One hormone out of whack often has a cascading effect, causing others to go awry also, because the various parts of the endocrine system are inextricably linked.
All energy-producing foods eventually turn into glucose, which circulates in the bloodstream and energizes body processes. If glucose is not metabolized (used) immediately, it is stored. It is hormones that direct whether or not glucose is stored. Stored glucose becomes fat. (I'm sure this is an over-simplification.) Soooooo, if hormones are misguided--perhaps by endocrine disruptors--they may store way too much of the food that is ingested, instead of allowing it to be metabolized immediately. This is one of Jillian Michaels' emphases--that messed up endocrine systems are helping to make people fat. If permethrin is an endocrine disruptor, and I ingest it by spraying it on something I eat, it might make me fat(ter). Not good.
I read about Permethrin online. It is a synthetic pyrethroid. I think the natural form is pyrethrum, which is a natural insecticide I am familiar with. The botanical name for Painted Daisy is Pyrethrum. I like the idea of killing grasshoppers with Painted Daisies a lot better than using something from a chemical lab. While we were doing the spraying deed in the flower garden, I smelled the chemical odor, and mentally lamented the incongruity of a stinky flower garden. I had, of course, already picked all the flowers to be taken to market the next day.
Some of what I read online was reassuring; some of it wasn't. Apparently Permethrin either is not a known endocrine system disruptor, or it is. It is either a known carcinogen, or it isn't. It either is safe to eat plants sprayed with it in a matter of days, or it stays on your spinach and ends up in your body tissues, where it stays for many months. It is either nontoxic to birds or it affects their nervous system and results in chickens becoming agitated and having difficulty walking. You get the idea. One source says one thing; another says the opposite.
Permethrin kills insects by direct contact, or when they ingest it, presumably by chewing on plant material that has been sprayed. It also has some repellent effect. The morning after we sprayed the stuff, we had over an inch of rain. I wondered if that nearly $17.00 worth of spray was all going to waste. Apparently not. At least the rain washed the stink out of the air.
Tonight Hilda and Joel walked through the gardens with us. The insect population difference between the veggie and flower garden was very noticeable.
I wonder how God sees it. Does the flower garden look deader to Him than the veggie garden? Is He who created all living things grieved by the deadness? Have we violated His principles, to say nothing of the first tenet of the Hippocratic oath (First, do no harm.)--a sensible sentiment, even though we are not medical professionals? Does "saving the crop" and "protecting our livelihood" justify the use of substances that may be damaging to human life over the long term? I really wish we didn't have to make these difficult choices.
Right beside the Eight on the shelf at Stutzmans was a Pyrethrum/Rotenone blend. Both of those are used by organic gardeners. Maybe that will be our answer for the veggie garden. I know I have owned some of that in the past, and I was surprised to find it missing from my stash when I checked. I wonder if that's labeled for grasshoppers. Even if it isn't, maybe it would work for baby grasshoppers, which is what we have right now.
This natural Pyrethrum possibility is making sense to me. This "semblance of order" is good enough for me for now.
Right now I have several conflicting/confusing trains of thought coursing through my cerebral neurotransmitter juices. We'll see if they arrange themselves in any semblance of order.
I mentioned the grasshopper plague in the garden earlier, and the difficulty we faced in dealing with them in a way that didn't harm other kinds of life. Guineas seemed like ideal grasshopper vacuums, except that we didn't have any, and weren't sure how to get some right away and how to keep them in the garden and protect them from the dog.
My guinea search took a surprising and heartwarming turn suddenly last week when I called Linda, who is married to Phil, after a mutual friend told me they might have guineas to sell. They didn't really have any to sell, but within a matter of hours, Phil and Linda were here, delivering three guineas--exactly half of their own flock. They are on loan, given "because in this economy we really need to help each other." This is the love of Christ being made really practical. Unknown to me, they started doing market gardening this year too, after their farming operation was downsized in a major way--related to the settlement of an estate, I gathered--and they couldn't stand to see our market gardening endeavor fall victim to the grasshoppers.
Dorcas (cousin) told me that they had gotten guineas themselves recently, and they all flew out of whatever they came home in from the poultry auction, roosted in the cedar trees, and haven't been caught since. But they're doing a good job of going after insects. I offered her my extra copy of Gardening with Guineas, which I discovered was my second copy when I went to check my shelf for a book on ducks, and found Gardening with Guineas there. An identical book was on the coffee table. Forgetfulness is a real trial sometimes. $13.45 spent needlessly.
After the county horticulture agent told us that Permethrin was the insecticide to use for grasshoppers, we actually bought Eight, which contains Permethrin. It sat here unused, while we debated further what to do and while the grasshoppers kept gnawing and hopping and growing. We kept the "blend 'em up and spray 'em on the crops" option in reserve for the time being--one reason was that the grasshoppers are still fairly small and it would take a looooong time to gather a cup full of them. (Can't you just see me stalking and pouncing and stuffing grasshoppers into a jar?) It would have been me, Hiromi utterly lacking the patience for this kind of effort.
When we got the guineas, we were a little worried about turning them out right away, for fear they'd have no sense of where they belonged and where their safety and grain and water were, and would range everywhere except in the garden. So for the moment, they're in a shaded calf hutch in one corner of the veggie garden, getting used to that as their home area. We did feed them some tomato worms, which Phil and Linda helped us pick off the Nicotiana and tomatoes. (Phil is amazing. He doesn't mind carrying them bare-handed. Shuddddddder.) The guineas were not immediately certain what to do with the tomato worms, but inside the hutch, they were at least rendered innocuous to the garden crops. I hope they ate them while we weren't looking. I didn't really want to watch anyway.
Right after the guineas arrived, Hiromi went out and bought them white millet and scratch grain. He is pampering them and talking to them, and tomorrow, when we're out there to keep an eye on things, we'll let them out to forage in the garden. So far, the dog does not go into the garden, which is surrounded by an electric fence. The fence is really to keep the sheep out, but it's a bonus that it keeps the dog out too. The guineas will be relatively safe there.
Late on Friday night, after Hiromi had worked in the flower garden, clearing the paths of all the weeds, and experienced again the overwhelming presence of all the grasshoppers, he announced that he was going to spray the Permethrin. We had decided earlier that since we weren't going to eat the flowers, maybe that was a logical place to test the spray. I strung together all the needed hoses and connected them to the insecticide container fitted with a hose-end spray device. After all the tilling was done, I fed Hiromi hose length and he operated the spray trigger and we covered that area in short order. Tonight there were very few grasshoppers left in the flower garden.
So everything's good. Right? We'll just spray the veggie garden tomorrow, and then turn out the guineas to clean up the escapees, and all will be well.
Not quite.
See, it's like this. I've been reading Jillian Michaels' book Master Your Metabolism, and, among other things, I've been learning about the fact that many chemicals act as endocrine disruptors. That means that they affect how human hormones are produced and used. This action of pesticides is not as widely known as the fact that some of them are carcinogens (meaning they cause cancer), but more and more researchers are convinced that this effect is at the root of the rising obesity epidemic.
Hormones have an enormous effect on how food is metabolised. Most of us know that insulin is a metabolism hormone. But there are also many others that are less well-known. One hormone out of whack often has a cascading effect, causing others to go awry also, because the various parts of the endocrine system are inextricably linked.
All energy-producing foods eventually turn into glucose, which circulates in the bloodstream and energizes body processes. If glucose is not metabolized (used) immediately, it is stored. It is hormones that direct whether or not glucose is stored. Stored glucose becomes fat. (I'm sure this is an over-simplification.) Soooooo, if hormones are misguided--perhaps by endocrine disruptors--they may store way too much of the food that is ingested, instead of allowing it to be metabolized immediately. This is one of Jillian Michaels' emphases--that messed up endocrine systems are helping to make people fat. If permethrin is an endocrine disruptor, and I ingest it by spraying it on something I eat, it might make me fat(ter). Not good.
I read about Permethrin online. It is a synthetic pyrethroid. I think the natural form is pyrethrum, which is a natural insecticide I am familiar with. The botanical name for Painted Daisy is Pyrethrum. I like the idea of killing grasshoppers with Painted Daisies a lot better than using something from a chemical lab. While we were doing the spraying deed in the flower garden, I smelled the chemical odor, and mentally lamented the incongruity of a stinky flower garden. I had, of course, already picked all the flowers to be taken to market the next day.
Some of what I read online was reassuring; some of it wasn't. Apparently Permethrin either is not a known endocrine system disruptor, or it is. It is either a known carcinogen, or it isn't. It either is safe to eat plants sprayed with it in a matter of days, or it stays on your spinach and ends up in your body tissues, where it stays for many months. It is either nontoxic to birds or it affects their nervous system and results in chickens becoming agitated and having difficulty walking. You get the idea. One source says one thing; another says the opposite.
Permethrin kills insects by direct contact, or when they ingest it, presumably by chewing on plant material that has been sprayed. It also has some repellent effect. The morning after we sprayed the stuff, we had over an inch of rain. I wondered if that nearly $17.00 worth of spray was all going to waste. Apparently not. At least the rain washed the stink out of the air.
Tonight Hilda and Joel walked through the gardens with us. The insect population difference between the veggie and flower garden was very noticeable.
I wonder how God sees it. Does the flower garden look deader to Him than the veggie garden? Is He who created all living things grieved by the deadness? Have we violated His principles, to say nothing of the first tenet of the Hippocratic oath (First, do no harm.)--a sensible sentiment, even though we are not medical professionals? Does "saving the crop" and "protecting our livelihood" justify the use of substances that may be damaging to human life over the long term? I really wish we didn't have to make these difficult choices.
Right beside the Eight on the shelf at Stutzmans was a Pyrethrum/Rotenone blend. Both of those are used by organic gardeners. Maybe that will be our answer for the veggie garden. I know I have owned some of that in the past, and I was surprised to find it missing from my stash when I checked. I wonder if that's labeled for grasshoppers. Even if it isn't, maybe it would work for baby grasshoppers, which is what we have right now.
This natural Pyrethrum possibility is making sense to me. This "semblance of order" is good enough for me for now.
posted by Mrs. I at
7:29 PM
2 Comments:
Grasshoppers can be terrible pests that are difficult to get rid of. Sometimes you just concede and plant grasshopper resistant plants.
By
Mike from Wet Water Fountains, at 6/22/2009
You are finding me in the same place that you are with this insecticide etc. What research do you trust? I've done research all my life and know how to identify a legitimate article but sometimes you get caught in the information overload. Then there is the reporting behind the "insecticide is bad" articles that talks about the conspiracy behind the insecticide production companies and the FDA and the GMO companies. Should one believe these reports, it makes one afraid to eat anything at all practically.
By
espíritu paz, at 6/26/2009
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