Is it a strawberry or a tiny toxic waste bomb?
If this is the year you’ve promised yourself that you’re going to eat healthier, congratulations!
Maybe you’re opting for a fresh spinach salad topped with sliced tomatoes and green peppers (instead of being tempted with a plate of fried mozzarella!). Perhaps dessert tonight will be fresh fruit in place of some ice cream.
Filling your plate with more colorful fruits and veggies can do more to improve your health than just about anything else.
But there’s something in the produce aisle that can sabotage even the best efforts to clean up your diet.
The good news is, it’s something you can easily dodge by putting some “dirty” data to work for you!
More than just one bad apple
If life is just a bowl of cherries, it looks like some nasty pesticides – including one that’s been banned in Europe — were added for bad measure!
The Environmental Working Group has just released its annual “Dirty Dozen” report that lists a baker’s dozen of fruits and veggies that come to your table with the most pesticide residues. Unfortunately, they happen to be some of the most commonly consumed and nutrient-packed foods you can find.
Topping the list again this year is everyone’s favorite, strawberries. The EWG found that a full third of all the samples contained 10 or more pesticide residues. And one sample tested showed a whopping 22 different bug-killing chemicals.
These are a witches’ brew of toxins that can cause cancer and be extremely harmful to your brain and nervous system.
Of course, those who are at the greatest risk are our kids and grandkids. The American Academy of Pediatricians stated in a report issued several years ago that where children are concerned, these chemicals can cause developmental problems, asthma, and cancer.
Other bad actors on the EWG list are spinach, coming in at No. 2, followed by nectarines, apples, grapes, and peaches.
Cherries, at No. 7, contained a particularly toxic fungicide called iprodione that’s already been banned in Europe and was put on the “hit” list by Canadian officials over concerns about the risk it poses to human health.
As for the others, pears (ranked at No. 8) turned up with what the group called “high concentrations” of chemical residues. Next on the list come tomatoes, with one sample revealing residues of over 15 different pesticides.
Celery made the No. 10 slot, with findings of almost 100 percent of the samples still containing detectable levels of pesticides when reaching the supermarket.
Sadly for potato lovers, spuds made the list too. It turns out that they are especially prone to contamination from chlorpropham (applied to control sprouting during long-term storage!), a toxin that has been found in laboratory studies to cause “blood cell changes,” anemia, altered thyroid function, and fetal alterations in rats.
And all of this “dirty” data came out of samples taken by the USDA and FDA, not some private lab with an agenda.
Big Ag’s excessive use of chemicals, helped along by our industry-friendly regulators, has turned so many of our healthiest and most delicious fruits and veggies into toxic waste dumps!
But if you’re as fed up with it as I am, there’s a work-around. In fact, there are four!
- Always buy organically grown versions of produce, but especially of the items on the EWG’s list.
- If you can’t find organics in your supermarket, or they don’t look as fresh as you’d like, the next best thing to do is visit a local farmers market. Even if they’re not certified organic, smaller operations often tend to use fewer chemicals. Plus that, you’ll likely be able to talk directly with the growers and ask about what they use and how often.
- And if you don’t have access to your local farmer, why not plant some of these foods on your own? You may already know that tomatoes are incredibly easy to grow in containers, but so are spinach and peppers — and if you have the backyard space, you can even make a raised-bed organic garden of your own.
- Wherever you get your fresh produce from, remember to wash it well. Studies have found that while using one of those veggie-washing detergents doesn’t make much of a difference, a short soak in a solution of baking soda and water can be quite effective in removing pesticides — more so than simply rinsing.
“Strawberries again top 2018’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ fruits and veggies” Susan Scutti, April 10, 2018, CNN, cnn.com
