Pesticides in Food: This article discusses pesticides in food, with a guide on avoiding pesticide residue in food.

BAD RESIDUALS FROM DAILY RERUNS OF “EATING YOUR FOOD”
Reduce Your Exposure to Pesticides in Food Through
Smart Food Choices

At Grinning Planet, we think the high level of toxic pesticides used to grow most of the world's food is probably the worst idea man ever came up with. Well, maybe second worst, after reality TV shows like "Survivor: Twelve Angry People with Machetes." Consumers are quickly recognizing that the residual levels of pesticides in food—especially pesticide residues in non-organic food—are contributing to the chemical "body burden" in all of us. Chemical effects in the human body are worth worrying about, especially when it comes to kids, who are more affected than adults. To that end, we think pesticides in food are worth avoiding as much as possible.

By now, most people understand that buying organic food is a great way to reduce one's exposure to pesticides in food. But that avenue may not be possible for everyone or in every food choice. Perhaps you can't always afford the extra cost often associated with organic food, and organic fruits and vegetables may sometimes be unavailable in your grocery store.

There is a good compromise solution! Today's article tells you how to minimize your exposure to pesticides in food without going fully organic—by making smart food choices based on which fruits and vegetables have the highest and lowest levels of pesticide residue.

PESTICIDES IN FOOD

Health Effects

Before we get to the good stuff—the list of foods with the most and least pesticide residue—here's a quick recap of some of the harmful things pesticides can do to us humans:

• cause low birth weight and birth defects;
• interfere with child development and cognitive ability;
• cause neurological problems;
• disrupt hormone function;
• cause a variety of cancers, including leukemia, kidney cancer, brain cancer, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Children and fetuses suffer more of these effects from pesticides than do adults because children's bodily systems are still developing. Additionally, children are much less able than adults to detoxify most pesticides. Pesticide effects in the unborn and in infants can have lifelong effects. For instance, the risk of neurological or behavioral problems following early pesticide exposure extends through puberty, as the reproductive system, nervous system, and brain continue to grow.

It's also worth noting that farm workers suffer more than their share of bad pesticide effects; and birds, beneficial insects, and other wild critters are impacted, too.

Pesticide exposure can occur through means other than food intake, but research shows that reducing pesticide intake via food has an immediate observable effect on body-burden levels of pesticides. So, when in the produce aisle, pick organic when you can, and when you can't, try to avoid foods with high pesticide residues and substitute those with low pesticide residues. The next section explains how to do that.

PESTICIDES IN FOOD

Foods with Highest and Lowest Pesticide Residue

So, what fruits and veggies are best and worst when it comes to pesticide residues? We present a summary of pesticides-in-food data below. The main source is research conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), but we have augmented those results with additional information from analyses performed by Charles M. Benbrook, PhD, an agricultural specialist, and by Consumers Union. There are four categories, ordered left to right from worst to best.

THE RED ZONE . . . AVOID UNLESS ORGANIC! Peaches Apples Sweet Bell Peppers Celery Nectarines Strawberries Cherries Carrots Pears Frozen Winter Squash

SO-SO LEVELS . . . SO USE CAUTION! Spinach Grapes Lettuce Potatoes Green Beans Hot Peppers Cucumbers Mushrooms Cantaloupe Oranges Fresh Winter Squash

BETTER . . . BUT NOT PERFECT! Apple Sauce Raspberries Plums Grapefruit Tangerine Apple Juice Honeydew Melon Tomatoes Sweet Potatoes Watermelon Cauliflower

AHH . . . BEST OF THE BUNCH Broccoli Orange Juice Blueberries Papaya Cabbage Bananas Kiwi Canned Tomatoes Sweet Peas Asparagus Mango Canned Pears Pineapple Sweet Corn Avocado Onions

Click here to open a wallet-sized PDF or Excel version of this table.

The closer to the left a food item is on the chart, the harder you should try to buy only organic for that item. In particular, avoid non-organic purchases from the red and orange columns, especially the red. Even the foods listed in the green column were not always found to be pesticide-free, but they were consistently low in pesticide residues and are your best bets for non-organic food. An EWG simulation showed that people can lower their pesticide exposure 90% by avoiding the most contaminated fruits and vegetables.

It may be tempting to think you can "beat the list" by extra washing and peeling, but the fruits and vegetables listed above were tested as they would be eaten by a consumer. For instance, bananas were peeled before testing and apples were washed before testing.

Additionally, some pesticides are taken up internally by the plants and find their way into in the parts of the plant you eat; thus, the pesticides cannot be washed off. Other pesticides are designed to bind tightly to the surface of the fruit or vegetable so rain doesn't wash them off, which means you cannot easily wash them off either. Peeling does reduce exposure to surface-level pesticides for many of these foods, but you often lose valuable nutrients and roughage when you throw away the peel. And anyway, how are you going to peel spinach or a strawberry?

It's also important to remember that the best-to-worst list applies not only to fresh fruits and vegetables but often to the same items when they are in canned or frozen form, as well as to processed foods and restaurant meals that contain those particular fruits or vegetables. It is worth noting, though, that the Benbrook study found less contamination in processed food than fresh food; but you'll loose valuable vitamins, enzymes, antioxidants, and other phytonutrients if you decide to avoid fresh food. (You may want to see our article on the nutritional differences between Living Food and Dead Food.)

PICKY, PICKY You'll note that fruits dominate the list of foods with the most pesticide residue. The main reason for this is that consumers have become very, very picky about fresh produce, and growers have discovered that, from an economic standpoint, it makes sense to douse everything with toxic chemicals so the fruits are completely blemish-free. But now that you know the dirty little secret about the pesticide residue in those "perfect" fruits, does it really make sense to put a higher priority on food beauty than on food safety? Moreover, organic growers have come a long way since the early days (a few decades ago) and now routinely deliver excellent-quality produce, both in terms of appearance and taste. In fact, most people find that organic fruits taste better than conventionally grown fruits, and research has shown that organic fruits and vegetables are often higher in antioxidants. (See our article on Organic Food Myths ... and Realities.)

Benbrook also noted that "IPM" and "No Detectible Residue" labeled produce had slightly less pesticide residue than conventional produce but far more than organic produce. And in case you're wondering why there should be even a low level of pesticide residue in some organic food—it's because of groundwater contamination and pesticide drift from neighboring farm fields, and from prior soil contamination with now-banned but still-present persistent organic pollutants (such as DDT). Steps are taken by organic farmers to minimize such contamination, but it's not a perfect world.