United States government chemical testing of fresh produce showed that up to 95 percent of some of the most commonly purchased fruits and vegetables purchased in the U.S. had detectable levels of pesticides.
The findings are a result from inspection of non-organic produce testing data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Fruits and Vegetables Contaminated
Topping the list are strawberries, spinach, and the leafy greens of kale, collards, and mustard greens. Additionally, grapes, pears and peaches follow. Finally, the bottom half of the list includes green beans, apples, cherries, nectarines, peppers, and blueberries.
To determine the rankings, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), (a Washington, DC based health advocacy organization), creates a composite score based on test results that indicate three main criteria:
- How often a pesticide is detected
- The number of detected pesticides
- The amount of each one that is detected
Of the 46 items included in the researched analysis, these twelve fruits and vegetables were most contaminated with pesticides:
- Strawberries
- Spinach
- Kale, collard and mustard greens
- Grapes
- Peaches
- Pears
- Nectarines
- Apples
- Bell and hot peppers
- Cherries
- Blueberries
- Green beans
The fruits and vegetables on the list showed 209 pesticides. Across all 12 items, 95 percent of samples had pesticides.
More than 90 percent of samples of strawberries, apples, cherries, spinach, nectarines and grapes tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides.
More than 50 pesticides were detected on samples from each item on the list — except cherries.
The most pesticides were found on collards, mustard greens, and kale, with 103 individual chemicals found across the items in the category.
Hot peppers and bell peppers were next, with 101.
All of the produce on the list had at least one sample with at least 13 pesticides — and some had as many as 23.
And even though, the neurotoxic organophosphate insecticide acephate has been prohibited from use on green beans in 2011, it was detected on six percent of that sampled crops.
Ranking List of Toxins
The Environmental Working Group explained its description of the creation of the ranking lists.
“Before conducting tests, the USDA processes each piece of fruit or vegetable in the same way people tend to do at home. For example, those with inedible peels, like bananas, are peeled, and those with edible peels, like apples, are rinsed under cold water and drained before they are tested. So the test results are a good indication of consumers’ likely exposure.”
EWG Senior Toxicologist Alexis Temkin, PhD, EWG adds,
“Emerging evidence suggests many widely used fungicides may disrupt human hormone systems. But more studies are needed to better understand the risks they – and all pesticides – pose to humans, particularly children.”
However, a group called the Alliance for Food and Farming that represents both conventional and organic farmers pushed back on the release of the annual list. They refer to a 2011 paper in a peer-reviewed medical journal that was critical of EWG’s methodology for the rankings.
In a news release, the Alliance for Food and Farming also argued that the USDA, “consistently finds that over 99 percent of foods sampled had residue levels well below Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) safety standards with over 27 percent having no detectable residues at all.”
Clean Produce
In addition to the contaminated list fruits and vegetables, the EWG group also published a list it calls the “Clean Fifteen.” And with this list, they encouraged people to choose conventionally grown produce from that list since those items achieved the lowest scores in EWG’s analysis.
These 15 types of produce had the lowest amounts of pesticide residues, according to EWG’s analysis of the most recent USDA data.
- Avocados
- Sweet corn
- Pineapple
- Onions
- Papaya
- Sweet peas (frozen)
- Asparagus
- Honeydew melon
- Kiwi
- Cabbage
- Watermelon
- Mushrooms
- Mangoes
- Sweet potatoes
- Carrots
Almost 65 percent of Clean Fifteen fruit and vegetable samples had no detectable pesticide residues.
Fungicides on Produce
Overall, this year, EWG determined that 75 percent of all conventional fresh produce sampled had residues of potentially harmful pesticides. However, 95 percent of samples on the contaminated list contain pesticides.
EWG’s analyzes data from tests conducted by the Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration on 47,510 samples of 46 fruits and vegetables.
The USDA peels or scrubs and washes produce samples before they’re tested, whereas the FDA removes only dirt first. Even after these steps, the agencies’ tests still found traces of 254 pesticides in all fruits and vegetables tested – and 209 of these were on contaminated list of produce.
The clean list of the fruits and vegetables tested resulted with very low or no pesticide residues.
With attention to, four of the five pesticides found most frequently on the list are fungicides: pyraclostrobin, pyrimethanil fludioxonil, and boscalid.
Fungicides are applied on vegetables and fruits to prevent or kill fungal diseases like powdery mildew. In fact, they’re often applied after harvest to keep produce mold-free on its way to market. That’s probably why fungicide concentrations can be so high on some samples – higher than other pesticides applied earlier in the growing season.
The potential human health harms of fungicides aren’t as well studied as other pesticides. Nevertheless, rising evidence suggests many widely used fungicides may disrupt the hormone system.
These four mentioned fungicides are no exception. Notably, more studies are needed for all fungicides to understand the risks they pose to humans, particularly children.
Potential Harm
Studies of fludioxonil have found it can act like estrogen, increasing the proliferation of breast cancer cells. It also has the potential to harm the male reproductive system. Fludioxonil is found on 90 percent of peaches and nearly 30 percent of samples.
In addition, pyrimethanil has been linked to thyroid disruption and might block androgen receptors in the body. Pyrimethanil was the most frequently detected pesticide on pears, showing up on 54 percent of samples.
Some studies have suggested that pyraclostrobin could be associated with liver toxicity and metabolic disorders. Moreover, pyraclostrobin was found on 10 percent or more of each item, and about half of strawberry and cherry samples.
In animal studies, boscalid has been linked to cancer and thyroid dysfunction, and it may disrupt hormones. Boscalid was found on almost half of blueberry samples, and just over 50 percent of cherries and strawberries.
In fact, the list of contaminated items is laden with fungicides that can disrupt human hormone systems.
In the final analysis, EWG recommends consumers seeking fresh produce with low pesticide residues should buy organic versions of items on EWG’s contaminated fruits and vegetables list.
Either organic or non-organic versions of produce on the clean list of fruits and vegetables are recommended, as well.
There are also many organic and cleaner options in the frozen food aisle.
