You Should Rinse All Produce, but Especially Wash These 12 Pesticide-Prone Fruits and Vegetables
whether you get The freshest fruit and vegetables deliveredShop at Supermarket organic food section Or peaches are hand-picked by the pound at local farms, where they need to be washed before eating or cooking. Because of the dangers of bacteria like E. coli, salmonella, and listeria, as well as the various chemicals that linger on vegetables in the form of pesticides or protectants, any vegetable should go through the sink before it goes into your mouth. Yes, this includes organic food because Organic doesn’t mean pesticide-free;it just means no poisonous Pesticides.
Before you get too sensitive to pesticides in your produce, consider this USDA Pesticide Data Program (PDF) More than 99% of the food samples tested were found to have residue levels that met safety standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency, and 27% had no detectable pesticide residue at all.
In short: some residue is OK, but not all chemicals found in food are harmful. For example, food-grade wax is sprayed on apples to replace the natural wax that is washed away during post-harvest cleaning. Trace amounts of pesticides usually don’t have a major impact on your health, but if you’re concerned that your food may have been exposed to pesticides or other chemicals, you might take a better-than-sorry approach to safety and wash your produce before eat.
Some varieties are more likely to contain persistent particulate matter than others, and to help distinguish the dirtiest produce from the not-so-bad ones, the food safety nonprofit Environmental Working Group has released a list of produce most likely to contain pesticides. Its name is “dirty twelve“Here’s a cheat sheet of fruits and vegetables that should be washed frequently.
Research shows that strawberries are the produce most likely to contain pesticides.
The team analyzed 47,510 samples of 46 fruits and vegetables tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture.
What’s the top culprit of pesticides in the group’s latest study? strawberry. In a comprehensive analysis, more total chemicals were found in this popular berry than any other fruit or vegetable.
Below you’ll find the 12 foods most likely to contain pesticides, and the 15 foods least likely to be contaminated.
The Dirty Dozen: Fruits and Vegetables to Wash Often
Foods most likely to contain pesticides, according to the FDA and USDA.
- strawberry
- spinach
- Kale, kale and mustard greens
- Grape
- peach
- pear
- nectarine
- apple
- Bell and Chili
- cherry
- blueberry
- green beans
Strawberries, spinach, and kale are some foods that are best washed thoroughly before eating.
The “Dirty Dozen” is a good indicator designed to alert consumers of the fruits and vegetables that need the most thorough cleaning. Even with a quick rinse or spray with water production washing Helpful.
You can also avoid much of the potential risk by purchasing Certified organic fruits and vegetables No agricultural pesticides are used. Knowing which foods are more likely to contain pesticides may help you decide where to spend that extra money on organic foods. as i was in a Organic and non-organic price analysisthey are not as expensive as you think.
Spending money on organic produce doesn’t always make sense.
More takeaways from the ‘Dirty Dozen’ study
- More than 95% of strawberry, apple, cherry, spinach, nectarine and grape samples tested positive for two or more pesticide residues.
- A total of 209 different pesticides were found in Dirty Dozen merchandise.
- Of the 209 crops, more than 50 different pesticides were detected for every crop on the list except cherries.
- Kale, collard greens, mustard greens, and peppers and bell peppers were the crops with the most pesticides detected, with a total of 103 and 101 pesticides respectively.
Instead, EWG found these 15 fruits and vegetables At least May contain pesticides.
Foods with natural protective skins are much less likely to contain potentially harmful pesticides.
The Clean 15: No-wash fruits and vegetables
According to the study, these are the fruits and vegetables least likely to contain pesticides:
- avocado
- sweet corn
- Pineapple
- onion
- pawpaw
- Sweet peas (frozen)
- asparagus
- cantaloupe
- kiwi
- cabbage
- watermelon
- mushroom
- mango
- sweet potato
- carrot
Clean 15 was found to have the lowest levels of pesticide contamination of all the samples tested, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t contaminated with pesticides at all. This, of course, does not mean that the fruits and vegetables you take home are also free from bacterial contamination. Statistically, it is safer to eat unwashed food from Clean 15 than food from Dirty Dozen, but rinsing is still a good rule of thumb all before eating fruits and vegetables.
EWG’s methodology involves six indicators of pesticide contamination. The analysis focused on which fruits and vegetables were most likely to contain one or more pesticides, but did not measure the levels of any one pesticide in specific produce. You can read more about EWG’s Dirty Dozen in Published Research here.
Washing Fruits and Vegetables FAQs
How did samples of the Environmental Working Group’s 2024 Shopping Guide “Dirty Dozen” test?
Of the test samples analyzed, EWG found that 95 percent of samples in the “dirty” fruit and vegetable category were coated with potentially harmful fungicides. On the other hand, nearly 65% of samples in the “Clean Fifteen” fruit and vegetable category had no detectable fungicide content.
What pesticides did the expert working group identify?
A diverse range of pesticides was discovered when the expert working group analyzed test samples. The organization found that four of the five most common pesticides were potentially hazardous fungicides: fludioxonil, pyraclostrobin, boscalid and pyrimethanol amine.
