New "Dirty Dozen" & "Clean 15" lists are out
- by Valerie Santiago
- in Medical
- — Apr 12, 2018
Recent research found that nearly 70 percent of conventionally grown fruits and vegetables are contaminated with pesticide residue.
When testing samples, the USDA personnel wash or peel produce to mimic consumer practices.
Avocados lead the list this year, followed by sweet corn, pineapples, cabbage, onions, frozen sweet peas, papayas, asparagus, mangoes, eggplant, honeydew melon, kiwi, cantaloupe, cauliflower and broccoli.
"One strawberry sample contained an astounding 22 pesticide residues", the EWG website says.
The roster - now in its 14th year and created to help consumers "make better choices and.reduce exposure" to chemicals - is based on analyzing recent pesticide-related tests by the Department of Agriculture.
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EWG said it bases its findings on almost 39,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture tests of 47 non-organic fruits and vegetables.
"We absolutely could not grow strawberries or peaches or plumbs in our climate without the help of pesticides". The residues are so low, in fact, that an independent toxicological report from Dr. Robert Krieger of the Personal Chemical Exposure Program, University of California, Riverside, found that a small child could eat 154 servings of apples every day without any impact from any residues that might be present.
Again this year, EWG has expanded the Dirty Dozen list to highlight hot peppers, which do not meet our traditional ranking criteria but were found to be contaminated with insecticides toxic to the human nervous system. And despite fruits and vegetables being an essential component of a healthy diet, consuming them, and the potential pesticides they're littered with, "may pose subtle health risks". Both studies drew from couples seeking treatment at a fertility clinic, and found that the frequency of eating fruits and vegetables with fewer pesticide residues was not associated with fertility outcomes.
Roughly one-third of all the strawberry samples had at least 10 pesticides, according to the research.
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The EWG says if consumers want to eat any of the Dirty Dozen they should buy organic. Or, if not organic, avoid eating a certain twelve fruits and vegetables all together.
If you take a more cautious approach to pesticides, but can't afford to shop exclusively organic, Lunder said choose conventional for those foods on the Clean Fifteen list.
No single fruit sample from the Clean Fifteen tested positive for more than four pesticides.
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