Conventionally Grown Apples Top 2011 List of Fruits and Vegetables High in Pesticides
January 26, 2012 Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis Informing consumers about the amounts of pesticides sprayed onto conventionally grown fruits and vegetables, and their potential effects on the human body (especially children), the Environmental Working Group has come out with its seventh annual “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce.”
Photo courtesy of arch1design.com.
The shopper’s guide updates information on 53 fruits and vegetables, highlighting the worst pesticide offenders with its “Dirty Dozen” list and the cleanest conventional fruits and vegetables with its “Clean 15” list.
The six worst offenders of the dirty dozen (from highest pesticide levels to least) are: apples, celery, strawberries, peaches, spinach, and imported nectarines.
The rankings were synthesized by analysts at the EWG and based on data collected from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 2000 to 2009.
The produce was ranked on a composite score, weighing factors including: the percent of individual produce tested and found to have detectable levels of pesticide on them; and the percent of individual produce with two or more pesticides on them.
Of the apples tested, 97.8 percent had detectable levels of pesticides on them, and of those with pesticides on them, 92 percent contained two or more pesticide residues, according to the findings.
To make matters worse, most samples were washed and peeled prior to testing, so the rankings reflected the amount of chemicals likely present on the foods when eaten.
Celery, spinach, sweet bell peppers, potatoes, lettuce and greens (kale and collards) were the vegetables most likely to retain pesticide contamination.