Fw: Environmental Working Group's latest consumer guide on pesticide residues

March 20, 2009

- Joel Gruver

Friday, March 20, 2009 9:00 AM

Environmental Working Group's latest consumer guide on pesticide residues

Hello folk, The table appended below is from EWG's latest consumer guide on pesticide residues. A discussion of the data follows the table.

http://www.foodnews.org/fulllist.php

RANK

FRUIT OR VEGGIE

SCORE

1 (worst)

Peach

100 (highest pesticide load)

2

Apple

93

3

Sweet Bell Pepper

83

4

Celery

82

5

Nectarine

81

6

Strawberries

80

7

Cherries

73

8

Kale

69

9

Lettuce

67

10

Grapes - Imported

66

11

Carrot

63

12

Pear

63

13

Collard Greens

60

14

Spinach

58

15

Potato

56

16

Green Beans

53

17

Summer Squash

53

18

Pepper

51

19

Cucumber

50

20

Raspberries

46

21

Grapes - Domestic

44

22

Plum

44

23

Orange

44

24

Cauliflower

39

25

Tangerine

37

26

Mushrooms

36

27

Banana

34

28

Winter Squash

34

29

Cantaloupe

33

30

Cranberries

33

31

Honeydew Melon

30

32

Grapefruit

29

33

Sweet Potato

29

34

Tomato

29

35

Broccoli

28

36

Watermelon

26

37

Papaya

20

38

Eggplant

20

39

Cabbage

17

40

Kiwi

13

41

Sweet Peas - Frozen

10

42

Asparagus

10

43

Mango

9

44

Pineapple

7

45

Sweet Corn - Frozen

2

46

Avocado

1

47 (best)

Onion

1 (lowest pesticide load)

What's the Difference?An EWG simulation of thousands of consumers eating high and low pesticide diets shows that people can lower their pesticide exposure by almost 80 percent by avoiding the top twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating the least contaminated instead. Eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables will expose a person to about 10 pesticides per day, on average. Eating the 15 least contaminated will expose a person to less than 2 pesticides per day. Less dramatic comparisons will produce less dramatic reductions, but without doubt using the Guide provides people with a way to make choices that lower pesticide exposure in the diet.

Most Contaminated: THE DIRTY DOZENConsistent with two previous EWG investigations, fruits topped the list of the consistently most contaminated fruits and vegetables, with seven of the 12 most contaminated foods. The seven were peaches leading the list, then apples, nectarines and strawberries, cherries, and imported grapes, and pears. Among these seven fruits:

Nectarines had the highest percentage of samples test positive for pesticides (97.3 percent), followed by peaches (96.7 percent) and apples (94.1 percent).

Peaches had the highest likelihood of multiple pesticides on a single sample - 87.0 percent had two or more pesticide residues — followed by nectarines (85.3 percent) and apples (82.3 percent).

Peaches and apples had the most pesticides detected on a single sample, with nine pesticides on a single sample, followed by strawberries and imported grapes where eight pesticides were found on a single sample of each fruit.

Peaches had the most pesticides overall, with some combination of up to 53 pesticides found on the samples tested, followed by apples with 50 pesticides and strawberries with 38.Sweet bell peppers, celery, kale, lettuce, and carrots are the vegetables most likely to expose consumers to pesticides. Among these five vegetables:

Celery had the highest of percentage of samples test positive for pesticides (94.1 percent), followed by sweet bell peppers (81.5 percent) and carrots (82.3 percent).

Celery also had the highest likelihood of multiple pesticides on a single vegetable (79.8 percent of samples), followed by sweet bell peppers (62.2 percent) and kale (53.1 percent).

Sweet bell peppers had the most pesticides detected on a single sample (11 found on one sample), followed by kale (10 found on one sample), then lettuce and celery (both with nine).

Sweet bell peppers were the vegetable with the most pesticides overall, with 64, followed by lettuce with 57 and carrots with 40.

Least Contaminated: THE CLEAN FIFTEENThe vegetables least likely to have pesticides on them are onions, sweet corn, asparagus, sweet peas, cabbage, eggplant, broccoli, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes.

Over half of the tomatoes (53.1 percent), broccoli (65.2 percent), eggplant (75.4 percent), cabbage (82.1 percent), and sweet pea (77.1 percent) samples had no detectable pesticides. Among the other three vegetables on the least-contaminated list (asparagus, sweet corn, and onions), there were no detectable residues on 90 percent or more of the samples.

Multiple pesticide residues are extremely rare on any of these least contaminated vegetables. Tomatoes had the highest likelihood, with a 13.5 percent chance of more than one pesticide when ready to eat. Onions and corn both had the lowest chance with zero samples containing more than one pesticide.

The greatest number of pesticides detected on a single sample of any of these low-pesticide vegetables was five (as compared to 11 found on sweet bell peppers, the vegetable with the most residues on a single sample).

Broccoli had the most pesticides found on a single type of vegetable, with up to 28 pesticides, but far fewer than the most contaminated vegetable, sweet bell peppers, on which 64 were found.The fruits least likely to have pesticide residues on them are avocados, pineapples, mangoes, kiwi, papayas, watermelon and grapefruit.

Fewer than 10 percent of pineapple, mango, and avocado samples had detectable pesticides on them, and fewer than one percent of samples had more than one pesticide residue.

Though 54.5 percent of grapefruit had detectable pesticides, multiple residues are less common, with only 17.5 percent of samples containing more than one residue. Watermelon had residues on 28.1 percent of samples, and just 9.6 percent had multiple pesticide residues.

METHODOLOGYThe Shopper's Guide to Pesticides ranks pesticide contamination for 47 popular fruits and vegetables based on an analysis of 87,000 tests for pesticides on these foods, conducted from 2000 to 2007 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. Nearly all the studies used to create the list test produce after it has been rinsed or peeled. Contamination was measured in six different ways and crops were ranked based on a composite score from all categories.The six measures of contamination we used were:

Percent of the samples tested with detectable pesticides

Percent of the samples with two or more pesticides

Average number of pesticides found on a sample

Average amount (level in parts per million) of all pesticides found

Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample

Number of pesticides found on the commodity in totalThe philosophy behind the guide is simple: give consumers the information they need to make choices to reduce pesticides in their diets. In this spirit, the Guide does not present a complex assessment of pesticide risks, but instead simply reflects the overall load of pesticides found on commonly eaten fruits and vegetables. This approach best captures the uncertainty of the risks of pesticide exposure and the value judgments involved in the choice to buy food with less pesticides.Pesticides cause many adverse effects in well designed animal studies, from cancer to nervous system damage to reproductive effects. Rather than assign more weight to cancer than birth defects, we simply assumed that all adverse effects are equal. There is a significant degree of uncertainty about the health effects of pesticide mixtures. This ranking takes this uncertainty into account in the most defensible way possible, by simply ranking fruits and vegetables by their likelihood of being consistently contaminated with the greatest number of pesticides at the highest levels.The produce listed in the Guide was chosen after an analysis of USDA food consumption data from 1994-1996. The 47 selected were those reported eaten on at least one tenth of one percent of all "eating days" in the survey and with a minimum of 100 pesticide test results from the years 2000 to 2007. An eating day is one day of food consumption reported to USDA by one individual, some of whom were followed for three days.Joel Gruver Dept of Agriculture Western Illinois University jgruv

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