According to Environmental Working Group (EWG) research, you could easily be consuming an average of 10 pesticides a day and not even know it. But that’s only if you are eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables around.
These 12 conventionally grown fruits and vegetables, or the “dirty dozen” as EWG calls them are: peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, imported grapes, carrots and pears.
EWG, by the way, is not recommending that you stop eating these fruits and vegetables. Instead, they recommend that you simply buy organic.
Why not download a copy of EWG’s convenient and easy to read A Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides to take with you when grocery shopping? Not only does it list which fruits and vegetables to buy organic, but also lists the “Clean 15″ conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables that have the lowest pesticide levels. Definitely a guide worth having.
They also stress that rinsing the fruit and vegetables might reduce but not eliminate any pesticides that are present.