Jim Hightower -- Why Your Organic Lettuce Has Rocket Fuel In It

Alternet -- Not only is pollution nasty and deadly, but it's also a spoiled-brat kind of substance that just won't stay put. You dump it over here and – oops! – it pops up over there, or way out that way...or maybe even in that bag of organic baby lettuces you just bought.


Indeed, organic baby lettuce is one of the surprising places that the Environmental Working Group recently found perchlorate, having run scientific tests on 22 types of lettuce being sold in California supermarkets. Perchlorate is not something you want to find in your salad or on your BLT. It's a rocket-fuel ingredient. It's known to cause brain damage and other health problems, especially in children, even when exposed only to trace amounts.


The tests found way more than traces, however – one-fifth of the lettuces tested contained at least five times the amount of perchlorate that's considered safe.