Should You Buy Organic Fruits and Vegetables?
Why should I care about pesticides?
What's a budget shopper to do?
EWG's "Dirty Dozen" list for 2019
- Strawberries
- Spinach
- Kale
- Nectarines
- Apples
- Grapes
- Peaches
- Cherries
- Pears
- Tomatoes
- Celery
- Potatoes
Some key findings from the report:
- More than 90 percent of samples of strawberries, apples, cherries, spinach, nectarines, and kale tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides.
- Multiple samples of kale showed 18 different pesticides.
- Kale and spinach samples had, on average, 1.1 to 1.8 times as much pesticide residue by weight than any other crop.
EWG's "Clean 15" list for 2019
The Shopper’s Guide also lets you know which conventional products are low in pesticide residue, so you can save your money and skip the organic versions. These are the 15 least contaminated fruit and vegetables, which means it's less risky to buy non-organic, according to the Environmental Working Group.
- Avocados
- Sweet corn
- Pineapples
- Frozen sweet peas
- Onions
- Papayas
- Eggplants
- Asparagus
- Kiwis
- Cabbages
- Cauliflower
- Cantaloupes
- Broccoli
- Mushrooms
- Honeydew melons
Some key findings:
- Avocados and sweet corn were the cleanest. Less than one percent of samples showed any detectable pesticides.
- More than 70 percent of Clean 15 fruit and vegetable samples had no pesticide residues.
- With the exception of cabbage, all other produce on the Clean 15 tested positive for less than four pesticides.
- Multiple pesticide residues are extremely rare on Clean 15 vegetables. Only 6 percent of Clean 15 fruit and vegetable samples had two or more pesticides.
At INTEGRIS On Your Health, we encourage readers to eat more fruit and vegetables, whether they're organic or not. If buying many organic foods isn't affordable or feasible for you, then a good strategy may be to buy organic versions of specific produce that ranks among the most heavily contaminated. Conventional foods that are least contaminated can save you some money.