To Buy Organic or Not to Buy Organic: Fruits and Vegeables Guide

"People don’t like pesticides on the food they eat or in the water they drink. The most recent government pesticide tests establish the widespread presence of pesticide residues on conventionally grown fruits and vegetables and in tap water. "http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/methodology/ 

 Here is some great information I found on the EWG's website. 

This year's Dirty Dozen^™

• The most contaminated fruits, in alphabetical order, are apples, domestic blueberries, grapes, imported nectarines, peaches and strawberries.
• The most contaminated vegetables are bell peppers, celery, cucumbers, lettuce, potatoes and spinach.
• Every sample of imported nectarines tested positive for pesticides, followed by apples (98 percent) and imported plums (96 percent).
• The average imported nectarine had much higher total weight of pesticides than any other food crop.
• Grapes had 15 pesticides detected on a single sample. Blueberries and strawberries both had 13 different pesticides detected on a single sample
• As a category, grapes have more types of pesticides than any other produce, with 64 different pesticides.
• Some 96 percent of celery samples tested positive for pesticides, followed by potatoes (91 percent).
• A single bell pepper sample was contaminated with 15 different pesticides, followed by a single sample of celery with 13.
• Bell peppers had 88 different pesticide residues, followed by cucumbers (81) and lettuce (78).

 The Clean Fifteen^™

The Clean Fifteen^™ – the produce least likely to test positive for pesticide residues were these fruits -- domestic cantaloupe, grapefruit, kiwi, mango, pineapple and watermelon --  and these vegetables -- asparagus, avocado, cabbage, eggplants, mushrooms, onions, frozen peas, sweet corn and sweet potatoes.
Notable findings:

• Fewer than 10 percent of pineapple samples had detectable pesticides.
• Some 78 percent of mango, 75 percent of kiwi, 67 percent of watermelon and 60 percent of domestic cantaloupe had no residues,
• No single fruit sample from the Clean Fifteen^™ had more than 5 types of pesticides detected.
• Avocado, sweet corn and onions had no detectable pesticide residues on 98 percent or more of the samples tested.
• Multiple pesticide residues are extremely rare on Clean Fifteen^™ vegetables. No samples of sweet corn and onions had more than one pesticide. More than 90 percent of cabbage, asparagus, sweet peas, eggplant and sweet potato samples had no more than one pesticide detected..
• Of the Clean Fifteen^™ vegetables, no single sample had more than 5 different chemicals

For more informantion please visit the EWG's website. They provide up to date information on 
http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/methodology/