Pesticides on Fruits and Vegetables

“Eat your vegetables!” We’ve heard this countless times beginning with mom at an early age when we are children through adult life coming from our doctors and healthcare providers. And we do need to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables in our daily diet as they provide countless varieties of important micro-nutrients that help promote health and fight disease. On average, we should be eating about 9-13 servings of (ideally) fresh fruits and vegetables every day, favoring the vegetables as our most abundant food choice. Numerous studies have shown that the people who have the highest consumption of produce on a daily basis have the lowest risk for, and incidence of, most of the major diseases that are prevalent in our country such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Therefore, we should just load up our grocery carts in the produce section and start stuffing them in, right? Well, maybe not. We need to be a little more discerning than that given the state of our current agricultural system. If we were down on grandpa’s farm where he raised everything in an “uncontaminated” manner, it would be a no-brainer. But because chemicals are so prominent in the agricultural process now, we have to be more careful with our food selections.

Herbicides and pesticides are the biggest issues with our produce, aside from the concerns of trying to avoid genetically modified varieties. Many of the chemicals used on our foods are touted to be 100% safe by the companies that produce them, but research has shown that many act as hormone disruptors and possible carcinogens when ingested regularly. Not exactly what you want to hear when you’re trying to make food choices to IMPROVE your health. However, there is a way to hedge your bets on getting the most benefit and least risk: choose organic. The largest study of its kind found that people who "often or always" ate organic food had about 65 percent lower levels of pesticide residues compared to those who ate the least amount of organic produce.

Probably the biggest detractor from people making more organic choices is the issue of cost. If this is a concern, then here is a strategy to help maximize your budget while not sacrificing quality. Not every fruit or vegetable needs to be organic. Many that have thick or inedible skin or peels (avocados, pineapple, onions, etc.) or that aren’t subjected to heavy spraying are usually fine since the edible portions aren’t contaminated. Every year the Environmental Working Group puts out a list ranking tested produce from most to least contaminated and you can use this as a guide for the ones that should be bought organic. Here is their most recent list of the “dirty dozen” that have the highest content of pesticide residue, with 1 having the highest amount:

1. Strawberries

2. Apples

3. Nectarines

4. Peaches

5. Celery

6. Grapes

7. Cherries

8. Spinach

9. Tomatoes

10. Sweet bell peppers

11. Cherry tomatoes

12. Cucumbers


You can also visit their website at https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/list.php to see all 48 fruits and vegetables with pesticide residue data so that you can make the best decisions when stocking up on your health-boosting produce. 

In Health, 

Dr. Brad Niewierowski