Fruit & Vegetable Pesticide Risk To Consumers Possibly Overblown

Last summer, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released its annual “dirty dozen” list of fruits and vegetables with the highest pesticide residues.  This year, the list includes apples, celery, strawberries, peaches, spinach, imported nectarines, imported grapes, sweet bell peppers, potatoes, domestic blueberries, lettuce and kale/collard greens.

The report also included the “clean 15”—fruits and veggies with the lowest levels of pesticides: onions, sweet corn, pineapples, avocado, asparagus, sweet peas, mangoes, eggplants, domestic cantaloupe, kiwi, cabbage, watermelon, sweet potatoes, grapefruit, and mushrooms. 

According to the EWG, if consumers chose their daily-recommended five servings of fruit and vegetables from the least-contaminated list over five from the dirty dozen, they would reduce the amount of pesticides ingested by 92%.  Yet the National Institute of Environmental Health Services acknowledges that scientists do not have a full understanding of the health risks associated with exposure to agricultural pesticide residues through food, soil, water or air.

Some toxicologists say that the EWG is guilty of overestimating risk to consumers and that their list is not risk-based.  What does this really mean to people trying to eat healthier and get more fruits and vegetables in their daily diets?

“Consumers who are concerned about pesticide residues can follow the simple advice from the Federal Food and Drug Administration:  wash your fruits and vegetables,” say boomer generation health experts Dian Griesel, Ph.D., and Tom Griesel, authors of the new books TurboCharged: Accelerate Your Fat Burning Metabolism, Get Lean Fast and Leave Diet and Exercise Rules in the Dust (April 2011, BSH) and The TurboCharged Mind (January 2012, BSH).   

“The FDA states that just washing under running tap water can remove and often eliminate any minute pesticide residues that may be present,” say the Griesels.  “People should not be afraid to follow the recommendations by nutritionists, health officials and now the USDA to eat more fruits and vegetables.”

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