New “dirty dozen” produce list

The annual “dirty dozen” list of fruits and vegetables with the highest pesticide residues is out from the Environmental Working Group, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit organization that protects the public health and environment.

What tops the list this year? Apples. They were number four last year on the group’s list.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat apples. But it means you need to be weary of them if they are conventionally grown using pesticides. The group ranks produce based on food contamination data compiled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

?The rest of the dirty dozen (in order): celery, strawberries, peaches, spinach, nectarines (imported), grapes (imported), sweet bell peppers, potatoes, blueberries (domestic), lettuce and kale/collard greens. Cherries dropped off the list this year and lettuce came on.

?This is added incentive to buy these fruits and vegetables at local farmer’s markets or from local farmers, so you can ask about pesticide use. Many use organic practices, which involve growing without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.

?But many conventional farmers use pesticides to protect against insects, bacteria and rodents. Washing and peeling the produce lowers pesticide residues, but not completely.

?The environmental group’s “clean fifteen” list includes the fruits and veggies with the lowest levels of pesticides. It says there’s less need to buy organic versions of these products.

?The clean list, in order, includes: Onions, sweet corn, pineapples, avocado, asparagus, sweet peas, mangos, eggplants, cantaloupe (domestic), kiwi, cabbage, watermelon, sweet potatoes, grapefruit and mushrooms.

?The environmental group says if consumers choose their daily recommended five servings of vegetables and fruit from the least contaminated list, rather than the dirty dozen list, they could reduce the amount of pesticides ingested by 92 percent. But I’d have a hard time giving up blueberries, sweet peppers, grapes, lettuce and strawberries. Time to buy local or wash produce well.

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