Kerry McClure – Practical Wellness
February 27, 2015
I’m all about eating seasonal, organic, unprocessed and local foods as much as budget, time, and availability allows. Here is a great tool that can help you make more informed decisions about when to purchase organic and when not.
Every year, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) breaks down which fruits and vegetables have the most pesticides and which have the fewest. Their mission is to make our food supply more transparent in order to help you decide when it’s worth spending extra for organic produce.
The report is broken down into “The Dirty Dozen™” and “The Clean Fifteen™” and “The Dirty Dozen PLUS™”
The fruits and vegetables are listed in order of which foods have the most pesticide exposure (apples in the Dirty Dozen list and the cleanest (avocados on The Clean Fifteen list).
Highlights of Dirty Dozen™ 2015
EWG singles out produce with the highest pesticide loads for its Dirty Dozen™ list. This year, it is comprised of Apples, Peaches, Nectarines, Strawberries, Grapes, Celery, Spinach, Sweet Bell Peppers, Cucumbers, Cherry Tomatoes, Snap peas (imported), Potatoes
Each of these foods tested positive a number of different pesticide residues and showed higher concentrations of pesticides than other produce items.
Key findings:
99% of apple samples, 98% of peaches, and 97% of nectarines tested positive for at least one pesticide residue.
The average potato had more pesticides by weight than any other produce.
A single grape sample and a sweet bell pepper sample contained 15 pesticides.
Single samples of cherry tomatoes, nectarines, peaches, imported snap peas and strawberries showed 13 different pesticides apiece.
The Clean Fifteen™
EWG’s Clean Fifteen™ list of produce least likely to hold pesticide residues consists of Avocados, Sweet Corn, Pineapple, Cabbage, Sweet Peas – Frozen, Onions, Asparagus, Mangoes, Papayas, Kiwi, Eggplant, Grapefruit, Cantaloupe, Cauliflower, Sweet Potatoes.
Relatively few pesticides were detected on these foods, and tests found low total concentrations of pesticides on them.
Key findings:
Avocados were the cleanest: only 1% of avocado samples showed any detectable pesticides.
Some 89% of pineapples, 82% of kiwi, 80% of papayas, 88% of mango and 61% of cantaloupe had no residues.
No single fruit sample from the Clean Fifteen™ tested positive for more than 4 types of pesticides.
Multiple pesticide residues are extremely rare on Clean Fifteen™ vegetables. Only 5.5% of Clean Fifteen samples had 2 or more pesticides.
Dirty Dozen PLUS™
For the third year, EWG has expanded the Dirty Dozen™ with a Plus category to highlight two types of food that contain trace levels of highly hazardous pesticides.
Leafy greens – kale and collard greens – and hot peppers do not meet traditional Dirty Dozen™ ranking criteria but were frequently found to be contaminated with insecticides toxic to the human nervous system. EWG recommends that people who eat a lot of these foods buy organic instead.
Sources:
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/…/12-fruits-veggies-with-the-m…
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