Twelve dangerous fruits and vegetables
Some scientists try to tell us that buying organic fruit and vegetables is a simple waste of money. One leading scientist (Prof. Gibney -UCD) even tells people that they may better flush their money down the drain rather than buying organic produce. He says that there is no scientific evidence that organic food is more nutritious than conventional food.
I’m not even going to entertain this issue. What concerns me more is the residue of pesticides in food that is consumed daily by ourselves and worse even – children.
Organic food –especially if produced in Ireland where there is very little environmental pollution or spray drift problems from neighbouring conventional farms- is the purest food available.
Unfortunately if you still buy some conventional food this is quite different. In the US, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) compiled a list of the Dirty Dozen Fruit and Vegetables 2015.
The 12 most dangerous fruits and vegetables are:
Apples, peaches, nectarines, strawberries, grapes, celery, spinach, sweet bell peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, imported snap peas and potatoes.
- All these contained a number of pesticide residues.
- You’ll notice it’s all the so-called healthy ones where all the goodness is in or just beyond the skin, but unfortunately that’s where all the pesticides linger.
- Imagine – 99% of all apple samples contained pesticide residues, 98% of peaches and 97% of nectarines. That means it’s impossible to find a single one of these fruits without pesticide residues.
- Potatoes had more pesticide residue per weight compared to other crops.
- One of the grape and pepper samples contained a medley of 15 pesticides.
The funny thing is that scientists will still tell us that these chemicals are probably completely safe. I think though that we should prioritise buying the dirty dozen as organic or better even – Grow them yourself.
On a better note, the EWG also produced a list of “Clean Fruit and Vegetables”
These include:
Avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, cabbage, frozen sweet peas, onions, asparagus, mangoes, papayas, kiwis, eggplant, grapefruit, cantaloupe, cauliflower and sweet potatoes.
These foods contain very few pesticide residues even if grown conventionally.
More information can be found on: