A SHOPPER'S GUIDE TO
PESTICIDES IN PRODUCE
A SHOPPER'S GUIDE TO
PESTICIDES IN PRODUCE
An exhaustive review of Federal government data shows that you can reduce by half your health risks from pesticides in fruits and vegetables and still eat a diet rich in all the nutrients and benefits they supply. How? Buy organic produce whenever possible. A second option is to minimize consumption of items that consistently carry the largest quantity and most toxic pesticides.We analyzed the results of Food and Drug Administration pesticide tests of 15,000 food samples performed in 1992 and 1993. We then ranked 42 fruits and vegetables according to seven different measures of pesticide contamination, such as the percent of the crop with detectable residues and the potency of the average amount of cancer causing pesticides found each year on that crop. The results of this study were incorporated into a report, A Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce, to help consumers minimize their exposure to pesticides in produce and maximize the nutritional benefits of the fruits and vegetables they eat.
What we found
More than half of the health risks from pesticides in these 42 crops are concentrated in twelve fruits and vegetables that are consistently contaminated with the highest levels of the most toxic pesticides. Avoiding these will reduce pesticide health risks by half, and still provide a diet rich in fruits and vegetables with all the nutritional and health benefits they provide. (see table below)
You decide
The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce does not tell people what to eat. Instead, the Guide provides easily understood ranking of fruits and vegetables, from highest to lowest toxic contamination. It also provides a simple selection of nutritious alternative fruits and vegetables with consistently lower pesticide risks.
For example, the Guide does not recommend that people never eat strawberries. The Guide does tell consumers, however, that strawberries have the highest combined score for pesticide contamination and toxicity of all fruits and vegetables examined, and that there are many equally or more nutritious alternatives containing fewer pesticides. Similarly the Guide does not tell people to eat avocados, but it clearly reveals that avocados have the lowest levels of the fewest number of pesticides of all 42 crops examined.
Written by: Richard Wiles, Kert Davies and Susan Elderkin, Excerpted with permission from the San Diego Earth Times
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