Une alimentation biologique - Assise de la santé humaine

Organic food - The foundation of human health

For over 40 years, I've been interested in food, particularly the health problems caused by industrial food. Unfortunately, I've come to the sad realization that despite the amount of information circulating on the subject, unhealthy and tampered food remains the basis of the diet for a vast majority of Westerners. Proof of this is the staggering number of fast-food restaurants found in all municipalities with over 10,000 inhabitants. Although we are led to believe that economic insecurity encourages junk food, nothing could be further from the truth. It is rather convenience and pervasive advertising that encourages adherence to fast food from a young age, initiating problems such as obesity, diabetes, hypoglycemia, generalized deficiencies, and multiple contaminations in young people.

We recently learned from Le petit journal.com that "the United Kingdom holds the record for the highest obesity rate in Western Europe. In forty years, the proportion of obese adults has tripled, now affecting one in three Britons. This scourge, which particularly affects working-class people and younger generations, has become a major public health issue. The figures published in the Health Survey for England report are staggering. In 2022, obesity was responsible for 3,000 hospitalizations per day, twice as many as in 2017.

The quality of industrial food has steadily deteriorated since the Second World War, partly due to the techniques used for food preparation and processing, the food additives used to make them more attractive and suitable for long preservation, but also due to field production techniques that increasingly rely on synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and genetic engineering, not to mention industrial farming techniques.

As early as my first book, Introduction au jardinage écologique (Introduction to Ecological Gardening), published in 1984, I denounced governmental laxity in monitoring pesticide residues in food, as well as the cronyism between agrochemical companies and public institutions supposed to protect citizens. Let's recall the Industrial Biotest (IBT) scandal, a company responsible for studying the effects of chemicals sprayed on cultivated plants. For three years, the work of this laboratory was carefully analyzed, and in 1980, it was revealed that two-thirds of the 405 studies conducted were invalid.

Over the years, I have unfortunately observed that Health Canada, through its Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) and its Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), does not fulfill its mandate, nor does the Chemical Contaminants Monitoring Plan of Quebec's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPAQ). In his excellent book Pour le bien de la terre, Louis Robert explains that "the procedure by which public interest is subordinated to private interests has become ingrained like a virus in a sprawling organism and has ended up infecting all hierarchical levels." Here he describes the MAPAQ ecosystem.

In Quebec, we are now applying more than 5 million kg of active pesticide ingredients in agriculture per year. It is not surprising that our societies are struggling with rampant healthcare costs. In Quebec, public health accounts for almost 50% of the budget. Despite increasing life expectancy, degenerative diseases have never been so widespread. The leading cause of death in Canada, cancer is responsible for 30% of deaths in Quebec. According to the Canadian Cancer Society, one in two Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, and one in four will die from it.

Pauline Gravel, in the newspaper Le Devoir of February 3, 2026, reported that according to a major analysis published in Nature Medicine, almost 40% of cancer cases worldwide could be avoided, as they are caused by modifiable factors including smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical inactivity. This study thus demonstrates the immense potential of prevention. Without the adoption of effective prevention strategies, there could be a 50% increase in new cancer cases by 2040, researchers warn. This is because, despite years of advances in anticancer therapies, the reduction in cancer mortality continues to result mainly from prevention and screening, hence the importance of identifying modifiable factors in different populations worldwide. I am firmly convinced that the prevention of cancer and a host of other degenerative diseases relies on quality nutrition. In this article, I will limit myself to discussing mainly health problems related to industrial agriculture. In my book Le festin quotidien, I discuss several other aspects related to human nutrition.

Plants denatured by synthetic fertilizers

When a plant develops in a natural environment, it is the soil microorganisms, mainly bacteria, that are responsible for the absorption of nutrients by the plant. Bacteria solubilize nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and other elements that the plant needs for its development. Through a primarily enzymatic action, they draw these elements from organic matter, from the parent rock, or from the air, and then make them available to the rootlets of the plants according to their needs. It is rare, in a natural context, for a plant to be deficient in certain elements and for others to be in excess.

When plants are fed with soluble synthetic fertilizers, which are directly assimilable, the process is entirely different. It is no longer the soil microorganisms that control the dosage of nutrients absorbed by the plants, but rather the producer with their soluble fertilizer formulas. Thus, microorganisms are bypassed in their work, and plants are forced to absorb large quantities of certain elements, while they do not find in the soil the other elements not present in the fertilizers used. In this way, chemical fertilization produces chemically unbalanced plants that become more susceptible to parasitism and dependent on pesticides.

Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are classified as primary elements because plants need them in larger quantities. They are therefore prioritized in fertilizer mixtures. Their N-P-K ratio is indicated on fertilizer bags. These are the elements found in excess in soils and plants. Very often, the so-called secondary elements as well as trace elements are deficient in conventional soils and plants. Significant deficiencies in magnesium and trace elements are particularly observed.

The French agronomist Claude Aubert reported as early as 1980 that spinach fertilized with 160 kg of nitrogen per hectare – a common dose in industrial agriculture – contained, four days after harvest, nitrate levels up to eight times higher than those observed in naturally grown spinach. Nitrates transform after harvest into potentially carcinogenic nitrites. The same often applies to many leafy vegetables that frequently receive this type of treatment. Excess nitrates and nitrites manifest themselves in a pronounced bitterness in taste.

The magazine Coup de pouce in September 2009 reported on a review of 41 studies which concluded that organic foods had a higher content of vitamin C, magnesium, calcium, and antioxidants, and a lower water content, meaning more dry matter. The program Enquête presented on January 23, 2020, a report titled Programmed Seeds which corroborated the decrease in taste and nutritional value of contemporary fruits and vegetables. The French team that produced this report first compared the nutritional value of 70 fruits and vegetables today with that listed in a booklet from 1960 titled Table de compositions des aliments. The conclusions are startling. The analysis concludes a free fall in nutrient elements over the past 60 years. I could cite multiple study results going in the same direction here. You will find this information in my book Le jardin écologique.

Always more pesticides in our food

First, we must be aware that pesticides — fungicides, herbicides, insecticides — are poisons designed to kill certain living organisms such as fungi, plants, and insects that interfere with crops. A priori, it is natural to believe that substances whose primary function is to kill can be potentially dangerous for the health of humans who consume them, even in minute doses.

In Canada (as in the United States), companies produce and provide the government with the necessary data for pesticide registration. However, Health Canada does not require any independent cross-verification of studies conducted by agrochemical companies to approve pesticides. In La Presse on December 20, 2016, Louise Hénault-Éthier reported that Canada's Commissioner of the Environment severely criticized the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), a Health Canada agency, for the conditional registration of 80 products that had not undergone rigorous evaluation.

It is the PMRA that determines the Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) for pesticides in food. Many specialists agree that it is extremely difficult to establish safe thresholds for pesticide residues. Onil Samuel, a toxicologist at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, states that "just because a government has legislated an acceptable threshold for a pesticide does not mean there is a consensus in the scientific community and that it prevents all forms of risk."

Tolerance thresholds are established based on an average-weight individual adopting a standard diet. They are set for the consumption of one fruit, but what about the consumption of several fruits or fruit juices? What about children and vegetarians? According to the Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health at the University of Washington, fetuses, babies, young children, pregnant or breastfeeding women are more at risk of experiencing health problems following exposure to pesticides. In his book Pesticides, le piège se referme (Pesticides, the Trap Closes In), François Veillerette states that "Children are particularly vulnerable to the potential carcinogenic threats of certain pesticides."

What about long-term effects for which no studies are conducted?

What about the synergistic effect of several pesticides, since residues from multiple pesticides can be detected on a single fruit?

Sébastien Sauvé, a professor in the chemistry department at the University of Montreal, deplores the fact that the cumulative effects of pesticides are not considered in the standards. "Science cannot disentangle this at the moment. There are cases where two pesticides below the standards are synergistic and the impact is greater. I always tell my students that in terms of toxicity, 1 + 1 = 4." Onil Samuel, a toxicologist at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, specifies that "modern toxicology is not equipped to calculate the risks of interactions between pesticides."

Therefore, we understand that MRLs are established without independent scientific studies being conducted. Furthermore, when a pesticide no longer controls the undesirable organism for which it is designed, agrochemical companies request an increase in MRLs to allow for a higher concentration of the product or a greater frequency of spraying, which inevitably leads to an increase in residues in food.

For example, to allow the import and sale of American sugar beet roots, Syngenta recently requested an increase in tolerance thresholds for two fungicides, Fludioxonil, a potentially endocrine disruptor, and Azoxystrobin, by 200 times for the first, from 0.02 to 4 ppm, and by 10 times for the second, from 0.5 to 5 ppm. This request, which has met with strong opposition, is still awaiting approval.

We recall the scandal created by Bayer's request in 2021 to raise the maximum residue limits for its flagship herbicide, glyphosate. These would allow up to 3 times more residues on chickpeas, 2.5 times more on lentils, 2 times more on peas, and almost 4 times more on beans. Health Canada, not conducting independent analyses, based its decision on studies provided by the manufacturer. This request is also awaiting approval.

Although this increase in MRLs has not yet been approved by Health Canada, an article published by La semaine verte on November 25, 2025, reported that the average concentration of herbicide residues detected in Canadian lentils had increased by almost 40% between 2015 and 2020. In 2020, 14 samples contained amounts that were up to three times the permitted limit, which did not trigger a recall. So, MRLs are not being increased, but the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) refrains from taking action. "Foods containing residue concentrations above the maximum limit can most likely be safely consumed," states a representative of the Health Canada Agency.

It is important to recall that in 2025, several brands of lentils sold in France were subject to official recalls due to exceeding maximum permissible limits in France.

In 2012, Monsanto (since acquired by Bayer) lobbied during free trade agreement negotiations to increase the maximum residue limits for glyphosate on lentils tenfold, which was granted.

Here are two excerpts from Health Canada's communications regarding the increase in MRLs:

"Increasing these tolerance thresholds is necessary to ensure consumers have access to a wide variety of nutritious and safe products and to provide producers with the tools needed to combat new pests."

"At the proposed maximum residue limits, these residues will not pose unacceptable risks to any subpopulation, including infants, children, adults, and seniors."

On June 27, 2023, Bruce Lanphear, a scientist appointed the previous year to advise Health Canada on its pesticide decisions, resigned. In his resignation letter, the environmental child health researcher denounced the federal government's lack of transparency, the influence of the agrochemical industry, and flaws in Canada's pesticide approval system. He stated: "I fear that the Scientific Advisory Committee (and my role as co-chair) provides a false sense of security by giving the impression that the PMRA is protecting Canadians from toxic pesticides. Based on my experience over the past year, I cannot provide that assurance."

According to French author François Veillerette, author of the book Pesticides, Le piège se referme (Pesticides, The Trap Closes In), pesticides are responsible for various forms of cancer, including stomach, brain, prostate, and bladder cancer, as well as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Parkinson's disease, endocrine disruption, decreased male fertility, and immune system dysfunction characterized by an alarming increase in allergy and asthma cases in children. It is not surprising that our societies are struggling with spiraling healthcare costs.

What the American organization Environmental Working Group (EWG) tells us, as of March 2024, is that the fruits and vegetables most contaminated by pesticide residues were, in order: strawberries, spinach, kale and collard greens, grapes, peaches, pears, nectarines, apples, hot peppers and bell peppers, cherries, blueberries, and green beans. On their website, we learn that a total of 209 different pesticides were found in conventional fruits and vegetables sold in the United States. Quite a cocktail!

The glyphosate scandal

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, accounts for 53% of pesticides used in Quebec. A large majority of genetically modified plants (GMPs) have been grafted with the gene for glyphosate tolerance. However, as what are called "weeds" have developed resistance to glyphosate over time, the concentration of the product in sprays had to be increased to control weeds in the fields, which has led to increased residues of this substance in our soils and in the food grown there. In 2019, 1,878,525 kg of glyphosate were sold in Quebec, twice as much as in the early 2000s and four times as much as in the 1990s.

For several years, a controversial practice has been gaining ground: spraying cereals and legumes with glyphosate just before harvest to dry the plants and speed up harvesting. This practice has greatly contributed to the increase in glyphosate residues and the need to raise MRLs.

However, the studies published in 2000, on which Health Canada based its 2017 renewal of glyphosate authorization for a 15-year period, have just been rejected. The article, titled "Safety evaluation and risk assessment of the herbicide Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, for humans," claimed that glyphosate posed no risk to human health. The retraction of the article is based on the discovery of conflicts of interest between its three authors and Monsanto, which undermine the scientific integrity of the article, stated Martin Van der Berg, deputy editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, in the retraction notice. The authors allegedly received financial compensation from Monsanto for their work. It has been shown that Monsanto itself drafted pseudo-studies and then used paid scientists as ghostwriters.

Thus, it is now recognized that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic. Moreover, it is strongly suspected of being an endocrine disruptor, meaning that the substance would affect our hormones even at very low levels. Let's cite the results of a 2019 study by the Ramazzini Institute in Italy, which aimed to evaluate the effects of the famous herbicide on rats. The researchers highlighted developmental and hormonal balance disturbances in exposed rodents, from the fetal stage to adulthood, at a low dose of the substance. Glyphosate exposure was also associated with an increase in anogenital distance [a masculinization marker] in males and females, as well as delayed onset of first estrus and increased testosterone in females.

It is important to understand that glyphosate programs cell death within hours due to the damage it causes to membranes and DNA and because it hinders cellular respiration. It has also been shown to disrupt cell division, which has always led the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to state that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic.

Furthermore, Monsanto has always claimed that glyphosate was not persistent. However, American studies have shown that carrots, lettuce, and barley contained glyphosate residues when grown a year after the herbicide application, confirming the persistence of the herbicide on food and in the environment.

Laxity at Health Canada regarding GMOs

The lobbyist group paid by Bayer-Monsanto, Corteva (a merger of Dow Chemicals and Dupont de Nemours), and ChemChina, which aggressively supports and defends the use of GMOs, is called Croplife Canada. They campaigned to cancel all forms of regulation concerning GMOs and have succeeded across the board, both here and in the United States. With officials from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Health Canada, members of the Canada Grains Council, and Seeds Canada, they formed what they called the Tiger Team. This group drafted the regulatory update that ended the mandatory disclosure of new GMOs for the industry. Thus, in Canada since 2024, the disclosure of new GMOs is now on a voluntary basis.

When private interests take precedence over the general interest, i.e., the protection of citizens' health and the environment, it is the primary mission of our institutions that is diverted. This phenomenon has a very specific name: regulatory capture.

It is important to remember that the president of Croplife Canada, Pierre Petelle, was a senior official at PMRA for 5 years; he also sits as president of the Canada Grains Council. Émilie Bergeron, vice-president of the organization, was an official for 15 years at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Maham Yousufzai worked for Bayer before becoming a key advisor at Health Canada, just as Kristin Rickard moved from Croplife to Health Canada, demonstrating how easily communication flows between the agrochemical industry and Health Canada, whose primary mandate, I remind you, is to protect citizens from abuses perpetrated by agrochemical companies.

Bruce Lanphear, a public health specialist at Simon Fraser University, comments on these connivances in these terms: "I know that this governmental complacency will have consequences for the health of Canadians. I am stunned by the government's inaction in the face of these conflicts of interest."

More than 80% of GMPs are plants adapted to herbicides which, coincidentally, are produced and marketed by the same companies that develop and market GMPs. By adapting plants to the herbicides they produce, these companies maintain a production system that relies on the use of pesticides, which is entirely to their advantage.

The worst is yet to come

I thought we couldn't exceed this level of complacency between agrochemicals and our institutions. We haven't seen anything yet. New molecules derived from genetic engineering called interfering RNAs (RNAi) have already been authorized in the United States under scandalous conditions denounced by the Center for Food Safety and more than twenty American nature defense organizations. The insecticidal substance named Ledprona is designed to eradicate the Colorado potato beetle. It acts by attacking a gene which, once inhibited, disrupts the vital functioning of the insect, causing it to collapse from within and slowly agonizing. This is a nascent technology with potentially dangerous effects that neither the companies wanting to market them nor the institutions supposed to protect our health and environment seem willing to seriously test before widespread dissemination in nature. And it seems that this would only be the beginning of the spread of these new molecules. A new nightmare is on the horizon!

I cannot understand the approach of certain individuals, groups, firms, or associations whose life project consists of poisoning the earth, air, and water, which contaminates our food, drinking water, and the air we breathe. Ultimately, these people knowingly poison us with the support of public institutions whose mandate is precisely to guarantee our health. It's incomprehensible. And our political elites are complicit in these repugnant and unacceptable crimes.

Healthy eating is based on organic farming

According to the American Academy of Sciences, the main source of pesticide exposure is food. It can therefore be largely avoided by opting for an organic diet, as demonstrated by a study published in Environmental Health Perspectives. In this research, scientists measured organophosphate pesticide residues in the urine of American children aged three to eleven. When children were fed conventional foods, pesticide residues were detectable in 91% of urine samples. Five days after these children switched to a predominantly organic diet, pesticide residues in their urine were undetectable or nearly undetectable.

In 2020, Vigilance OGM, the organization that advocates in Quebec against GMOs and their associated pesticides, had the urine of 40 citizens, public figures, farmers, and ordinary citizens analyzed to check for glyphosate contamination. Some ate conventionally, others ate organic, either partially or mostly. I was among the latter. The tests revealed that 26 participants showed a concentration higher than 0.05 microgram per liter, of which 24 exceeded the admissible limit in drinking water in Europe, which is set at 0.1 microgram per liter. The highest value came from a farmer who spreads pesticides, at 3.423 micrograms per liter. For my part, the herbicide was not detectable in my urine, just like most of the volunteers who stated that they ate mostly organic, which demonstrates that this dietary choice effectively protects against pesticide contamination.

Consuming organic food is the only choice available to us to achieve and maintain optimal health. Eating "organic" allows us to consume chemically balanced foods, well supplied with minerals, vitamins, trace elements, and bioactive substances, not contaminated by chemical pesticides, and free of foreign genes. So, what better way to access fresh, local organic vegetables at low prices than to establish a garden? In addition to the health benefits it generates, it allows us to connect with a fertile and generous nature and truly align with the rhythm of the seasons, the foundation of a life connected to nature, an essential cornerstone of our existence.

Yves Gagnon