As examples of the smiles of other scammers, there are farmers who sell pesticide-free vegetables. I believe that this is not the case for everyone, but only for some. There are people who, while claiming to be pesticide-free farmers, actually use pesticides to some extent, and yet they smile in a way similar to Steve Jobs, claiming that their products are pesticide-free. For example, when I directly asked a salesperson at a farmers market, "How can you grow ⚪︎⚪︎ without pesticides?" they smiled and replied, "Yes, we do." I was once deceived by such stories when I was young, but now I can recognize the smiles of scammers. Once, a part-time worker or son of a farmer at a farmers market was chatting with me, and when the topic turned to pesticide-free products, he seemed to have some guilt, and confessed, "Actually, we use a little bit of pesticides. You can't grow ⚪︎⚪︎ without pesticides." However, the owner of the farm was smiling and promoting their products as pesticide-free.

Furthermore, some pesticide-free farmers say, "Even if pesticides are detected, it's unavoidable because the neighbors are using them," and pretend not to know anything. Not all pesticide-free farmers have such a lack of ethics; there are those who are proud of their work. However, from what I have seen, there are a considerable number of farmers who promote their products as pesticide-free with a smile. That is because they can sell them at a higher price, and that is probably the reality.

In fact, my hometown is a bit rural, and the house next door is a small farm. At one point, they claimed to grow pesticide-free vegetables, but they were actually using pesticides. When I directly asked, "Are you not using pesticides?" they got angry and retorted, "It's okay to use them a few times!" There are such unethical pesticide-free products, and I think that farm's ethics would allow them to do such things.

I remember a scene from a famous Showa-era movie where a child says, "Hey, you're using pesticides, even though you say it's pesticide-free." In that scene, the grandmother smiles and says, "It's okay to use pesticides a few times; it's still pesticide-free!" Since that scene appears in a movie, I think that such a way of thinking exists in various places in Japan. There were probably places and families where that was considered normal. I don't think it has disappeared in the last few decades, so it probably still exists to some extent. And they smile, or rather, smirk, while claiming to sell pesticide-free vegetables at a high price. People are grateful for that, and they eat them, but sometimes the vegetables are old, poorly grown, or have been treated with pesticides. It is common for pesticide-free vegetables to not have pesticides, but the vegetables themselves develop resistance to pests, which makes them bitter and affects the taste. In some cases, farmers grow pest-repellent weeds around the crops to create toxins in the surrounding area. Although it depends on the method, some resistance develops in the vegetables, and there seems to be a widespread, blind belief that resistance is good for the body, even though it is not. This is dangerous because it completely ignores the question of whether resistance is actually good or bad for the body. In reality, properly grown pesticide-free vegetables from the Edo period are sturdy and last a long time, but most pesticide-free vegetables nowadays are easily perishable. There is a 99% chance that they are healthy, but there is a 1% chance that eating recently contaminated vegetables could cause stomach problems or food poisoning. If a knowledgeable housewife manages the food and prepares meals stably, it is fine, but if not, or if you cook at home, it is safer to eat safe vegetables that have been treated with a small amount of pesticides. I think that modern vegetables are perishable and not suitable for pesticide-free cultivation.

Some products are more delicious and I like them when they are pesticide-free, but basically, I am skeptical of what farmers say is pesticide-free.

There have been times when people say things like "farmers are not trustworthy," and conversely, "farmers are kind-hearted." However, I think that many people are deceived because they are superficially good but actually cunning and deceitful. It's not that everyone is like that, but I think that in some regions, 10-20% of farmers are cunning. I think that about 80% are quite ordinary. Sometimes, there are people who say that all farmers are kind-hearted, but they are ignorant of the reality of farmers and are being deceived by their superficial kindness. Of course, there are also excellent people, but they are less than 10%, and 80% are just trying to manage their family business, and 10-20% are cunning farmers. An environmental activist I spoke with previously had a certain amount of influence, but she said "farmers are all kind-hearted," and she was quite naive. However, because her words spread, people believe it.

This is just my subjective opinion, and it is based on my experiences seeing the situation in the neighborhood where I grew up, talking to people at farmers' markets after moving to the city, and various things I heard and saw through my involvement with NPOs and NGOs in environmental activities for about 5 years when I was young.

On the other hand, an activist I met through environmental activities made a bombshell statement decades ago, saying "most pesticide-free farmers are actually using pesticides!" I wonder how true that is. Has the situation changed now? I heard that JIS-certified pesticide-free products are highly reliable because they are difficult to obtain, but I don't know the reality of those who claim to be pesticide-free. Some self-proclaimed pesticide-free farmers who have YouTube channels or accept volunteers may actually be using pesticides. They may be using pesticides while appearing to be pesticide-free, attracting volunteers and using them as free labor. It seems that by claiming to be pesticide-free, they can attract environmental activists and recruit volunteers for free labor. Truly, some farmers are cunning.

And as a common thread among these cunning people, there is a smile like that of a con artist like Jobs. There are a certain number of farmers who are selling ordinary vegetables as pesticide-free with a smile like Jobs'. I don't know the exact percentage, but I think there are surprisingly quite a few.

When I was young, I sometimes directly confronted farmers with my opinions. However, I was often yelled at and told things like, "It's okay to use pesticides a few times (apparently, they still consider it organic)," which justified the use of pesticides. Or, I was given excuses like, "The neighbors are using them, so that's why pesticides are sometimes detected (!). The waterways are connected, so pesticides can be carried by the wind or in the water."

When vegetables are grown without pesticides, they may develop resistance to pests, which can make them bitter. Also, it seems that the impact of these resistant bacteria on human health is not often considered. These types of resistant bacteria are essentially neurotoxins, and they accumulate in the body over time. People who promote organic farming often make vague and blind statements like, "The toxins produced by the food itself are not a problem." I hear this same thing repeatedly in various places, so there must be someone spreading this misinformation. However, it's just a superstition. For example, potato sprouts contain neurotoxins, but when I point this out, they say, "Yes, that's true," but their statements are inconsistent, and they are unconcerned about the resistant bacteria (toxins) that are produced by organic farming. In fact, someone I knew who was very careful about organic food developed such severe vision problems that they were certified as disabled. It seems that even with careful attention to health, they lost their vision. In such cases, it might be safer to eat food that has been treated with conventional pesticides.

I think that if you haven't properly researched these things, saying "organic" doesn't really mean much. Sometimes, I heard people who promote organic food confidently and proudly making statements like, "Actually, the food we eat these days is too clean. It's better to have a little bit of bacteria." Whether this is true or not is unknown, but it seems like someone has spread misinformation in the same way. These kinds of statements are essentially just an attempt to justify their unhealthy and unsafe food products. It's just a marketing strategy, a convenient story for promotion.

While people talk about the benefits of organic food, few people actually conduct thorough research and comparisons. Unless a knowledgeable housewife carefully manages and selects organic vegetables, I believe that ordinary people and young housewives would be healthier eating food that has been treated with conventional pesticides. This is not just a matter of theory, but also because some of the people who sell organic food have a suspicious smile and are actually scammers, so I am even less inclined to buy organic food. I do buy some good organic products, but I don't buy them blindly just because they are organic.

It is the reality that, considering the risk of bacterial infections exploding due to not using pesticides, even if the vegetables themselves produce resistant bacteria, "no pesticide" is a dangerous option. When you buy vegetables that are "no pesticide," they tend to rot quickly and can spread to the surrounding vegetables, creating a terrible situation. Also, "no pesticide" vegetables are not very popular compared to regular vegetables, so they are often harvested a long time ago, which increases the risk of bacterial infection.

Organic vegetables that were properly cultivated during the Edo period were fundamentally different, and it seems that they produced vegetables that were so well-made that they could be stored for a long time. However, many of the current organic and "no pesticide" farming methods are simply made by people who want to claim that, and they are often made for profit, and the quality is nothing compared to the vegetables of the Edo period. I think that is probably the case.

Considering these things, it is quite difficult to eat vegetables made in the old ways on a regular basis. Therefore, eating vegetables that use pesticides is probably the most optimal and realistic option from a health perspective.

Recently, pesticides have become much safer than in the past, so they may be safer than the bacteria that vegetables produce on their own or the risk of bacterial infections exploding. What do you think?

All of this is because people who promote "no pesticides" blindly hate pesticides, some sell vegetables that use pesticides as "no pesticides," or they say delusional things like "toxins that food produces on its own are not a problem."

When I point out these things, they often avoid the topic by saying, "It's because the neighboring farms are using pesticides," or by using the things I mentioned earlier, or they try to change the subject by saying something nonsensical like, "If you eat vegetables without seeds, you will become seedless," and laugh.

What I want to know is, which is better, vegetables that use pesticides or vegetables that do not use pesticides? However, they don't take it seriously. They often don't want to talk about it at all, saying, "If you're not a farmer, you wouldn't know." In any case, farmers seem suspicious.

That being said, I know that not everyone is a scammer, and there are many farmers who are doing things seriously. However, I think that the issue of pesticides is not really related to whether they are doing things seriously or not. In the world, there is a correlation between whether they are doing things seriously and whether they are using pesticides, but in my opinion, these factors are independent and not very related. Serious farmers are serious, and unserious farmers are unserious. Moreover, there are many cases where unserious farmers use pesticides on vegetables and sell them as "no pesticides" to make a profit.

In order to identify scammers in places like this, life experience is necessary. Most of the time, people only exchange polite greetings, and few people will tell you the truth.