No esrog jam after all

[lethargic_man]

I bought arba minim for the first time this year. I was looking forward to turning the esrog into jam, or making crystallised dried esrog afterwards, but reading this article has put me right off.

Bah, humbug!

Comments

really?

[bluepork.livejournal.com]

Even if the pesticide concentration in Esrogim is high, the absolute amount of pesticide contained in the one serving of jam you are likely to get from your estrog is likely to be small.

So, personally, I wouldn't worry.

Even if you and a few friends were to pool your esrogim to make a larger quantity of jam, the absolute amount of jam you are likely to each is still going to be small, because you spread it on your bread, rather than eating mouthful's of the stuff.

Really, I think there are far greater sources of unregulated environmental chemical hazards than "pestrogicides"!

Re: really?

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I disagree: I would be eating mouthfuls of the stuff, indeed the whole jar, just not at once. And though some noxious chemicals pass through the system and are gone, others build up in the body. (That was the cause of the whole Silent Spring débacle: because DDT builds up in the body and was concentrated into the bodies of higher predators, eventually killing them. Also see (or, more usefully, read :o)) Zodiac: the Eco-Novel by Neal Stephenson.)

Anyhow, a little googling turned up this article (http://www.thejc.com/judaism/judaism-features/38461/somebody-please-find-me-organic-etrog) in the JC, which says:

As he put it, eating a batch of post-Succot etrog jam was equivalent to dipping one's liver in a barrel of weed-killer.

An etrog grower in Israel told me that with all the insecticides and herbicides he sprayed on his trees, he would have to be meshuggeh to eat the etrogs he cultivated.

(It also says, amusingly:

I once asked for an organic etrog in Golders Green. You would have thought from the shocked look of the owner that I had asked for an etrog bundled in bacon.

) Anyhow, you can eat your esrog after Succos if you want; I'm going to give it a miss.

Re: really?

[bluepork.livejournal.com]

I think you misunderstand my point.

Even if you eat the entire esrog at once, it would still represent such a small fraction of the food you eat, and the man made chemicals inside it would represent such a small fraction of the man made chemicals that you absorb overall, that the increase in risk as a result is small enough to be de minimus. (Assuming, of course, that your JC article writer is exaggerating slightly. I do believe that if you actually were to dip your liver in a barrel of weed-killer there might be some short term harmful, or even fatal, effects. Besides, removal of your liver carries risks of it's own...)

Finally, whilst the damage (and considerable benefits) of DDT are pretty much beyond doubt, Silent Spring itself is still extremely controversial, with many people saying it relies on faulty science. As a consequence, quoting it weakens your argument in my eyes :-)

However, I really don't feel passionate about the subject of eating Esrogim. If you don't want to eat it, don't eat it!

Re: really?

[(Anonymous)]

I am the author of the original article on Ingathered.com. The grower told us that they spray the trees with a tremendous amount of poison (this is not regulated in anyway because the etrogim are not considered food).

I would stay away from etrog jam, unless it was made from organic fruit or there was a very pressing need to eat a small amount.

diversified

[(Anonymous)]

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