Here are some of the highlights:

“Human fertility has been decreasing since the birth of intensive agriculture over 50 years ago.  Average sperm counts among healthy American men dropped 58 percent between 1938 and 1988. In Europe, sperm counts dropped by 3.1 percent each year between 1971 and 1990.  Studies from Belgium, France and Scotland have also shown losses in sperm quality, motility, development and the number of normally shaped sperm.

The reason for falling sperm quality and quantity is thought to be a cocktail of dietary hormones  and pesticides , some of which can disturb the body’s own hormones. Some pesticides have been linked to masculinisation of female animals, feminization of male animals, eggs found in the testes of roach in UK rivers, low egg viability, enlarged ovaries and reduced penis size in Florida alligators and female-female paring in birds.

A study published in The Lancet in 1994 found that organic farmers had much higher sperm counts than other blue-collar workers.  Sperm counts were more than twice as high in organic farmers (363 million sperm per milliliter of semen) as in a control group of welders and printers (164 million per milliliter).

Men who consume mostly organic produce have higher sperm counts and greater sperm quality than men eating regular, pesticide-treated produce. And conventional farmers who do not eat organic food have a significantly lower proportion of normally-shaped sperm.”

If you and your partner have been trying to conceive without success and you consume conventionally (pesticide rich!) foods please consider switching to organic food.  If your think that eating organic food is too expensive you can refer to one of my previous article titled “Pesticides”.  It will give you a list of most and least pesticide contaminated foods.

To read the original article click here.

Image source: http://www.scienceprogress.org

peaches
apples
bell peppers
celery
nectarines
strawberries
cherries
lettuce
grapes
spinach

Now for the good news: there are some fruits and vegetables that didn’t rank as high on the pesticide scale. These items are ones that you can afford (speaking from a health perspective) to buy the “regular” versions of:

onions
corn (frozen)
avocado
pineapple
mango
sweet peas (frozen)
asparagus
kiwi
bananas
cabbage
broccoli
eggplant

More info: Environmental Working Group