We lack robust safety data on most of the estimated 30,000 chemicals in wide commercial use registered

under the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act, but the greatest concern may lie in the long-band

legacy chemicals that continue to contaminate

the food supply, known as plops, persistent lipophilic organic pollutants.

These include dioxins, PCBs, and insecticides such as DDT.

How do we drop the plops?

Today, most DDT comes from meat, particularly fish.

The oceans are essentially humanity's sewer. Everything eventually flows into the sea.

Hexachloral benzene is another band pesticide that may be carcinogenic, but is more evenly spread among animal food sources, whereas PCBs are also mostly a fish thing.

PCBs are a different set of banned chemicals, once widely used as insulating fluid and electrical equipment.

I studied more than 12,000 food and feed samples across 18 countries,

found that the highest PCB contamination was found in fish and fish

oil, followed by eggs, then dairy, then other meats.

Salmon may have the highest concentration with farm-raised salmon, having consistently higher

contaminant levels than wild caught, followed by canned tuna.

But since people don't tend to eat a lot of fish, other meat, may be the largest

exposure for most people.

The lowest contamination was found at the bottom of the food chain in plants, which can

average seven to twenty times fewer overall PCB and dioxin-like chemicals compared to ocean

or freshwater fish.

That's one of the advantages to even more plant-based in the modern world.

By eating from the lowest rung of the food chain, we suffer less exposure to the industrial

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