While I personally strive to only eat organic food, which can get tiresome and at times limiting (especially when eating out), there are some fruits and vegetables that you can feel reasonably confident about that are not organic.  I still recommend to buy organic wherever and whenever possible, but at the very least you should avoid the produce with the most pesticides.

Every Spring the Environmental Working Group (EWG) publishes a list of veggies and fruits that contain elevated levels of pesticides, the Dirty dozen, and a list of fruits and veggies that contain little to no pesticides, the Clean fifteen.

Fruits and Vegetables

Data is provided by the USDA and FDA which includes both produce grown in the USA and imported produce. It is important to note that the fruits and veggies are washed, peeled or scrubbed before testing and that they are NOT TESTED FOR GLYPHOSATE and other problematic pesticides.

From the EWG website:  “To compare foods, EWG looks at  this six measures of pesticide contamination:

  • Percent of samples tested with detectable pesticides.
  • Percent of samples with two or more detectable pesticides.
  • Average number of pesticides found on a single sample.
  • Average amount of pesticides found, measured in parts per million.
  • Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample.
  • Total number of pesticides found on the crop.”

Also from the EWG website:  “It is important to note that the USDA does not test for all pesticides used in crop production. It does NOT analyze GLYPHOSATE (ROUND UP) one of the most heavily used pesticide in the US”.

Glyphosate has been linked to different forms of Cancer and 27 countries have some sort of legislation or ban on its use. I will talk about the uses of this pesticide and risks in a future post.

Dirty Dozen:

  1. Strawberries
  2. Spinach
  3. Kale
  4. Nectarines
  5. Apples
  6. Grapes
  7. Peaches
  8. Cherries
  9. Pears
  10. Tomatoes
  11. Celery
  12. Potatoes

Clean Fifteen:

  1. Avocados
  2. Sweet corn
  3. Pineapple
  4. Onions
  5. Papaya
  6. Sweet Peas (Frozen)
  7. Eggplant
  8. Asparagus
  9. Cauliflower
  10. Cantaloupes
  11. Broccoli
  12. Mushrooms
  13. Cabbage
  14. Honeydew Melon
  15. Kiwi

You can find the EWG’s summary report on the following link:  https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php

USDA Pesticide Data Program (PDP):  https://www.ams.usda.gov/datasets/pdp