Celebrate an Organic Hanukkah This year, December 8th marks the
beginning of Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday known as the “Festival
of Lights.” Hanukkah is a time for lighting the menorah,
spinning the dreidel, eating good food, and spending time with
loved ones—not a time for toxic chemicals to be making their way
into your family’s holiday food. Latkes, or potato pancakes,
served with apple sauce are the traditional food eaten on
Hanukkah. But both potatoes and apples are foods that are
typically high in pesticides. According to Beyond Pesticides’
Eating with a Conscience database, potatoes that are grown with
toxic chemicals show low pesticide residues on the finished
commodity, however, there are 78 pesticides with established
tolerance for potatoes, 30 are acutely toxic creating a
hazardous environment for farmworkers, 69 are linked to chronic
health problems (such as cancer), 17 contaminate streams or
groundwater, and 70 are poisonous to wildlife. Potatoes have
been found to contain residues of the pestici