How To Get Your Healing Garden Off Drugs With Natural Pesticides

Many common pesticides (such as ant, roach, and mice poisons) have been linked to breast cancer. It probably shouldn’t surprise us that these compounds can be dangerous; they are designed to kill insects with which we share many common biological systems!

Several pesticides are known endocrine disruptors (they disrupt natural hormone-signaling pathways), and through these mechanisms have been implicated in increased risk for breast cancer.

In addition to effects by themselves, these chemicals have been shown to have additive effects with other kinds of endocrine disruptors. In other words, exposure to small doses of pesticides may have greater effects when people are also exposed to other chemicals to which we are all commonly exposed.

Unfortunately, when pesticides are applied in the home, they don’t just kill bugs and disappear. Rather they often stick around (for years or decades) and are found in the air and on the dust we touch and breathe, meaning that we all have sustained and multiple exposures to these toxic chemicals.

And when we apply them outside, pesticides enter the air we breathe, fall on the lawn on which we walk and our children play, and eventually, seep into our water. The result can be devastating for the wildlife with which we share our world, and also may have a significant impact on rates of human diseases, including breast cancer.

How to make an organic pesticide made from vegetables

You will need:

• an empty & clean gallon jug (such as a milk jug)
• a spray bottle with a spray nozzle
• a funnel
• a piece of cloth such as a shirt or bandanna
• a pot that can hold 1 gallon
• 2 small onions
• a jalapeno pepper
• a clove of garlic
• some dish soap

Take 1 gallon of warm water, dump it in a pot and you’re ready to begin making the pesticide.

The best way to minimize insects inside and outside the home is through careful and regular cleaning. Some good resources for learning more about pesticide alternatives for the home and garden are listed below.

Pesticides and alternatives Information –  United States

Pesticide Action Network North America
www.panna.org

Agricultural Resources Center/Pesticide Education Project; Toxic-free Schools
http://metalab.unc.edu/arc

Beyond Pesticides
www.beyondpesticides.org

Californians for Alternatives to Toxics
www.alternatives2toxics.org

Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides
www.pesticide.org

Pesticide Health Effects Research; Abstracts of peer-reviewed articles
www.chem-tox.com/pesticides/index.htm

Silent Spring Institute
www.silentspring.org
A non-profit scientific research organization dedicated to identifying the links between the environment and women’s health, especially breast cancer.