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Environmental Working Group, Food and Drug Administration, Fruit, Pesticide, United States Department of Agriculture, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Vegetable
We all need to eat our fruits and vegetables. They are delicious, and they say they are good for us, but fruits and veggies containing pesticides should definitively be avoided.
Pesticides are known to cause damage to the nervous system, birth defects, and cancer. And according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) children are especially sensitive to pesticides, as their organs are still developing and maturing.
Every year The Environmental Working Group (EWG) produces a list of the most pesticide-contaminated produce, using analysis of more than 28,000 samples tested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. According to the EWG, the organization’s ranking uses “six measures of pesticide hazards, among them, the number of pesticides detected on a crop and the percent of samples testing positive”.
On the EWG’s Dirty Dozen list, apples came in #1, followed by strawberries, grapes and celery. They also have a Clean Fifteen list containing fruits and veggies with the lowest pesticide contamination. That list included corn, onions, pineapples and avocados.
“When given a choice, more consumers are choosing organic fruits and vegetables or using EWG’s Shopper’s Guide to find an easy, affordable way to avoid toxic chemicals,” said Sonya Lunder, and EWG senior analyst. “They want to eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables without eating too many pesticides. And they want to support local farms and agriculture that is better for the environment”.
So let’s think twice before we buy our produce. Where are they coming from? How are they grown? Buying local and organic is probably the best way to go.
Related articles
- Dirty Dozen: EWG Releases 2013 List Of Most Pesticide-Heavy Fruits And Veggies (huffingtonpost.com)
- EWG’s 2013 Guide to Pesticides in Produce (lachicaorganica.wordpress.com)
- Apples Top EWG’s Dirty Dozen (yubanet.com)
- 2013′s updated Dirty Dozen produce list (dprogram.net)