Sometimes statistics are so compelling that they speak for themselves.  That struck me when I received a holiday e-card from Stonyfield Farm, an organic dairy company that works to ensure that families around the country, on both sides of the political aisle and on every wrung of the economic ladder, have access to dairy products that have been produced free of synthetic and artificial ingredients that might harm our children. 

At Stonyfield, they are not producing these products because they have to, they are doing it because they believe that exercising precaution when it comes to the health of our families and the environment that we live in is the right thing to do. 

And in 2010, Stonyfield’s purchases of organic milk for the use in their products alone:

PREVENTED over 9,000,000 (9 million!) pounds of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and 185,000 pounds of insecticides and weed-killers from entering air and contaminating our water, land and food supplies.

PRESERVED over 180,000 acres by keeping them free of toxic, persistent pesticides and chemical treatments (the kinds of chemicals that build up in our bodies and in our soil).

AVOIDED the use of over 425,000 livestock antibiotic and synthetic growth hormone treatments in “food animals” so that these drugs don’t find their way into the foods that we feed our families.

As it becomes increasingly obvious that legislation is not in place to protect children from the impacts that chemicals in our food, air, land and water have on the health of their developing immune systems, I, for one, am extremely grateful for the remarkable work that Stonyfield Farm and other corporations  are doing to protect the health of our families and preserve the integrity of our food supply by adhering to this higher standard of the precautionary principal.

And as we head into a new year, it’s important to remember that while none of us can do everything, all of us can do one thing. 

So do one thing in 2011: switch to rbGH-free milk (free of synthetic growth hormones), opt out of genetically engineered foods that containn conventional  corn and soy modified to enable increased doses of chemicals, or install a water filter under your kitchen sink to help reduce your families exposure to residues now found in our water supply. 

Remember, there’s no need to be perfect, just smart.