The Environmental Working Group (EWG) releases the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce every year, updating the list of foods that are the most at risk for pesticide contamination. As we move into fresh fruit season, there are some questions that need to be addressed. We are constantly surrounded by a rhetoric that places an item that carries the label of “organic” on a higher, better, more expensive rung. Some shoppers are willing to sacrifice the savings in order to guarantee a pesticide-free fruit, but what would drive this behavior and should you adjust your spending habits as well? Especially with all the toxins that contaminate our everyday life, shoppers need to know makes something organic and why it’s important.
When it really comes down to it, there’s not much to talk about. If something is organic, it means it was grown without using pesticides or other synthetic chemicals. When pesticides are used, they seep into the produce, which means washing and even peeling the food sometimes isn’t enough to avoid consuming the pesticides. Conventionally grown produce is not necessarily swimming in chemicals that will make you grow a third eye, but it’s difficult to know what you are actually ingesting when you take a bite of that apple.
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That’s where the EWG comes in: They’ve made a list, called the Dirty Dozen, that ranks produce based on pesticide load. Eating entirely organic may be the best way to avoid unwanted chemicals, but that’s pretty unfeasible for most consumers. With this list, shoppers can be aware of the produce they should really try to eat organic as they are the most at risk.
The 2016 list ranks strawberries as number one, but includes apples, nectarines, peaches, celery, grapes, cherries, spinach, tomatoes, sweet bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers. They say that the average potato had more pesticides by weight than any other produce, and a single sample of strawberries contained, on average, 17 different pesticides.
Unfortunately, it gets worse.
For the second year in a row, EWG has release a “Dirty Dozen Plus” to highlight two foods that are most likely to contain “highly hazardous pesticides." Leafy greens (collards and kale) and hot peppers are two American grown crops that have been found to carry toxic pesticides. Acephate, chlorpyrifos, and oxamyl are toxic insecticides that affect the human nervous system found on a portion of sampled peppers, are banned on most crops but still allowed on hot peppers. The USDA detected 51 pesticides on kale alone, several of which are highly toxic. Some of the chemicals were banned years ago, but since they persist in the soil, they continue to make their way onto leafy greens grown now. While neither leafy greens nor hot peppers contain enough pesticides to meet the traditional “Dirty Dozen” criteria, they received individual attention in the report because of the increased risk.
Before you give up all fresh food, check out the “Clean Fifteen” list of produce that is the least likely to contain any added elements. Relatively few pesticides were found on avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, cabbage, frozen sweet peas, onions, asparagus, mangoes, papayas, kiwis, eggplant, honeydew melon, grapefruit, cantaloupe, and cauliflower. Avocados, reinforcing their place as ultimate ruler of awesome, were the cleanest with only one percent showing any detectable sign of pesticides.
So, there’s hope for those health conscious eaters, but it’s all about knowing which foods to buy organic and which ones you can probably be fine with getting conventionally grown. I would definitely recommend the website for further reading if you are interested in knowing some long-term effects or about GMOs. It really can’t be said enough, and here I think it rings especially true: You are what you eat, so bite the bullet and buy that organic spinach.
