Strawberries, spinach and collard greens – generally considered the healthiest foods one can eat – have been cited among the produce containing the most pesticides.
The Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group (EWG) this week named its foods the “dirty dozen,” meaning they were considered America’s fruits and vegetables to contain the most chemicals.
Grapes, peaches, pears and nectarines also made the list.
Peppers and green beans — which are often found in health-conscious recipes — were also on the ignominious list.
Human ingestion of pesticides can damage the nervous system or even cause cancer. been linked to premature births, birth defects and spontaneous abortions in previous research.
More than 95 percent of samples of strawberries, apples, cherries, spinach, nectarines and grapes contained at least two pesticides, the EWG found.
It is advisable to clean fruits and vegetables before eating them to reduce pesticide levels, but once they have been added, “no washing method is 100% effective in removing all pesticide residue.” said the National Pesticide Information Center.
For 2024, EWG studied 47,510 aisle samples of 46 non-organic commodities and found that 75% of freshly grown produce in America contains harmful pesticide residue.
For items on the Dirty Dozen list, 95 percent of samples contained pesticides.
“We find that what ends up on one list versus another reflects how those fruits and vegetables are grown,” said Alexis Temkin, EWG’s senior toxicologist. “Avocados, for example, don’t require a lot of pesticides, while strawberries grow very close to the ground and harbor many pests.”
More than 250 different pesticides have been discovered on fruits and vegetables, some of which have been banned in the United States or Europe due to their effects on human health.
For the first time, researchers looked at reported levels of fungicides, a type of pesticide used to kill fungal diseases such as powdery mildew.
Four of the five most frequently detected chemicals on the Dirty Dozen are fungicides: fludioxonil, pyraclostrobin, boscalid and pyrimethanil.
According to the report, two of them, fludioxonil and pyrimethanil, had the highest concentration on the Dirty Dozen list of all other pesticides.
Fludioxonil was found on 90 percent of peaches tested and pyrimethanil was found on 65 percent of pear samples, 30 percent of apples, 27 percent of grapes, 26 percent of strawberries and 24 percent of nectarines .
Both fungicides may be endocrine disruptors that can harm the male reproductive system.
Fungicides are added to fruits and vegetables to prevent or kill fungal diseases like powdery mildew, or to keep produce from becoming moldy as it travels to grocery stores.
Pyraclostrobin, which has been linked to liver toxicity and metabolic disorders, was also found in 10% or more of every item on the Dirty Dozen list, and in about half of the strawberry and cherry samples.
EWG has also compiled a “Clean 15” list: products containing the fewest pesticides found.
Nearly 65 percent of the products on that list contained no detectable pesticide residue, according to the report.
Critics of the report fear it could dissuade people from eating fruits and vegetables.
Neil Nagata, whose family has grown organic and conventional strawberries in Oceanside, Calif., for decades, told CNN: “Every time a report comes out, or there’s an alert about imported strawberries, we see our sales fall.
“It’s not like we’re doing anything wrong or incorrect, we’re actually producing very healthy and safe food. We actually live in a strawberry field and my dad is 100 and my mom is 97, and they still eat strawberries.
The EWG stressed that people should continue to eat fruits and vegetables, even if they are not organic.
Mr Temkin said: “Everyone – adults and children – should eat more fruit and vegetables, whether organic or not. A diet rich in agricultural products has many health benefits.