The Environmental Working Group has released its annual report of the Dirty Dozen – the produce with the most pesticide residue (see the 2011 list here). These are the fruits and vegies to avoid buying non-organic whenever you can. Do you really want to be ingesting pesticides? I know I’m pretty sure that rinsing my fruit before eating is not all that effective against chemicals soaked into the soil and directly sprayed on the crop. Not convinced? When I was reading up on how the EWG comes up with this list annually, the following excerpt from their website gave me pause: “All categories were treated equally; for example, a pesticide linked to cancer is counted the same as a pesticide linked to brain and nervous system toxicity.” Yummy!
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| Make sure your apples are organic! |
Peaches have fallen from the top spot this year, down to number 4 on the list. Last year’s runner up, the apple, has claimed the distinction of being the most contaminated of all the produce tested. Potatoes also make it into the top 12, and bring up an interesting point. If a fruit or vegetable is peeled before eating, as potatoes often are, and bananas always are (number 30 on the list), doesn’t that make the pesticide rating a non-issue? Not really. Think about when you peel a potato, the peeler is cutting through the skin, and touching all the flesh, transferring all those contaminants. And peel and skin are only so much barrier against these chemicals – they do seep into the edible portion.
For a positive spin, the EWG has also released the Clean Fifteen list, with the 15 fruits and vegies least likely to be contaminated by pesticides. If you’re trying to save money, these would be what you can hedge your bets on and skip the organic section.
