Environmental Working Group’s latest Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce helps consumers reduce the amount of pesticides they consume in their diets.
Apples are once again at the top spot of the
Environmental Working Group’s 2014 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce. This makes the fourth year in a row that conventional apples were declared the dirtiest fruit or vegetable based on their pesticide load. Last week, the EWG released a report that revealed that the most common pesticide found on conventional apples in the U.S. (diphenylamine, known as DPA) is banned in the EU due to health concerns.Don’t worry. You don’t need to stop eating apples. You do, however, need to eat organic apples, in order to avoid pesticide contamination. The same goes for all of the Dirty Dozen. The Clean Fifteen can be eaten, in non organic form, without significant risk of contamination.
Here’s the entire list of the Dirty Dozen, the 12 conventionally grown fruits and vegetables found to have the highest pesticide load.
- Apples
- Strawberries
- Grapes
- Celery
- Peaches
- Spinach
- Sweet bell peppers
- Nectarines – imported
- Cucumbers
- Cherry tomatoes
- Snap peas – imported
- Potatoes
EWG analyzed the pesticide tests of 48 popular domestic and imported fruits and vegetables. The results for domestic and imported nectarines, blueberries and snap peas had sharply different results, so they appear on the list twice.
The full 2014 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticide list is on EWG’s website.
How can shoppers use this list to help them make choices when buying produce? By understanding which fruits and vegetables have a higher pesticide load, consumers can choose which produce to buy organic or from farmers they trust to farm with as few chemicals as possible. If they don’t have the extra money in their budget to buy organic produce, they can opt to choose the conventional produce items at the bottom of the list, known as the Clean Fifteen. Here are the items on that list.
- Sweet potatoes
- Cauliflower
- Cantaloupe
- Grapefruit
- Eggplant
- Kiwi
- Papaya
- Mangoes
- Asparagus
- Onions
- Sweet peas – frozen
- Cabbage
- Pineapples
- Sweet corn
- Avocados