Chicago Tribune
By Monica Eng
Sorting out pesticides and food safety is a complicated business.
So every year, legions of consumers wait for the Environmental Working Group’s new “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15” lists that crunch multiple years of government numbers on pesticide residues on food, ranking those with the highest and lowest pesticide residues.
The consumer non-profit released its new lists today on the EWG site and users must type in their name, email address and zip code to get a pdf copy of them.
I don’t want to give away too much, but at the top of the latest Dirty Dozen (the produce with the highest composite pesticide residues) you will find apples, celery and strawberries while at the top of the Clean 15 (the produce with lowest composite levels of pesticides) you’ll find onions, corn and pineapples. That could make an interstesting chef challenge.
The Dirty Dozen list has come under fire in recent years from the commercial produce industry for allegedly scaring consumers away from eating produce because they feared pesticide exposure and couldn’t afford organic, which consistently show less pesticide exposure.
EWG representatives note that they have long reminded consumers — as they did on this year’s announcement of the list — “the health benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables outweigh the risks of pesticide exposure, and EWG strongly recommends that everyone follow USDA’s recommendation to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day.”
The group, however, does say that its lists are meant to guide consumers to fruits and vegetables with the lowest pesticide residues and to help them decide when to splurge on organic.
While most of the produce tested by the USDA in the latest report (from tests conducted in 2009) did bear pesticide residues even after washing, the vast majority of those residues were under the legal limits and from pesticides approved for that crop. The one outlier was cilantro, which was tested for this first time since the program began and featured at least 30 unapproved pesticides, surprising government officials.
Despite these low-level residues, activists and many scientists have become increasingly concerned that even very low levels of pesticide exposures can affect humans, especially in utero. The Alliance for Food and Farming, an industry group, put out its own take on safe levels of pesticide exposures with an online Pesticide Calculator last year. Unsurprisingly, EWG takes issue with its methodology.
“Pesticides are toxic,” said Sonya Lunder, Senior Analyst at EWG. “They are designed to kill things and most are not good for you. The question is, how bad are they?”
And that remains the crux of the standoff.
Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune
