Finding Healthier Food

You can lower your pesticide consumption by nearly four-fifths by avoiding the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables and instead eating the least contaminated produce, according to EWG calculations. When you eat the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables, you’ll be exposed to an average of 10 pesticides a day. When you choose fresh produce from the 15 least contaminated fruits and vegetables, you’ll consume fewer than 2 pesticides per day.

The Dirty Dozen™

Of the 12 most contaminated foods, 7 are fruits: peaches, strawberries, apples, domestic blueberries, nectarines, cherries and imported grapes. Notable findings:

  • More than 96 percent of peaches tested positive for pesticides, followed by nectarines (95.1 percent) and apples (93.6 percent).
  • Nearly 86 percent of peaches contained 2 or more pesticide residues ‚ followed by apples (82.3 percent) and nectarines (80.6 percent).
  • Strawberries and domestic blueberries each had 13 pesticides detected on a single sample. Peaches and apples were second, with 9 pesticides on one sample.
  • Peaches had been treated with more pesticides than any other produce, registering combinations of up to 67 different chemicals. Strawberries were next, with 53 pesticides and apples with 47.

Celery, sweet bell peppers, spinach, kale, collard greens and potatoes are the vegetables most likely to retain pesticide contamination:

  • Some 95 percent all celery samples tested positive for pesticides, followed by imported cucumbers (84.5 percent) and potatoes (84.2 percent).
  • Nearly 85 percent of celery samples contained multiple pesticides, followed by sweet bell peppers (61.5 percent) and collard greens (53.2 percent).
  • A single celery was contaminated with 13 different chemicals, followed by kale (10), and collard greens, domestic green beans, spinach and lettuce (9).
  • Celery had been treated with as many as 67 pesticides, followed by sweet bell peppers (63) and kale (57).

The Clean Fifteen™

The vegetables least likely to test positive for pesticides are onions, sweet corn, sweet peas, asparagus, cabbage, eggplant and sweet potatoes.

  • Asparagus, sweet corn, and onions had no detectable pesticide residues on 90 percent or more of samples.
  • More than four-fifths of cabbage samples (82.1 percent) had no detectible pesticides, followed by sweet peas (77.1 percent) and eggplant (75.4 percent).
  • Multiple pesticide residues are extremely rare on vegetables low in overall contamination. No samples of onions and corn showed more than one pesticide. Sweet potatoes showed multiple pesticides in 9.3 percent of samples.
  • The most contaminated single sample among the low-pesticide vegetables showed 4 different chemicals.

The fruits least likely to test positive for pesticide residues are avocados, pineapples, mangoes, kiwi, domestic cantaloupe, watermelon, grapefruit and honeydew.

  • Fewer than 10 percent of pineapple, mango, and avocado samples showed detectable, and fewer than one percent of samples had more than one pesticide residue.
  • Nearly 60 percent of honeydew melons had detectable pesticides but only 14.2 percent of samples contained more than one residue. Grapefruit had residues on 54.5 percent of samples, and 17.5 percent showed multiple pesticide residues.

Methodology

The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides ranks pesticide contamination for 50 popular fruits and vegetables based on an analysis of 89,000 tests for pesticides on these foods, conducted from 2000 to 2008 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the federal Food and Drug Administration. The 49 fruits and vegetables analyzed in the guide are the top 49 most consumed fruits and vegetables, as reported by the USDA, with a minimum of 100 pesticide tests between 2000 and 2009. Nearly all the studies on which the guide is based tested produce after it had been rinsed or peeled.

Contamination was measured in 6 different ways:

  • Percent of samples tested with detectable pesticides
  • Percent of samples with two or more pesticides
  • Average number of pesticides found on a single sample
  • Average amount (level in parts per million) of all pesticides found
  • Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample
  • Total number of pesticides found on the commodity

For each metric, we ranked all of the foods based on their individual USDA test results, then normalized the scores on a 1-100 scale (with 100 being the highest). To get a commodity's final score, we added up the six normalized scores from each metric. The full Shopper's Guide list shows the fruits and vegetables in order of these final scores. For individual results and final scores, click here.

The goal is to include a range of different measures of pesticide contamination to account for uncertainties in the science. All categories were treated equally; for example, a pesticide linked to cancer is counted the same as a pesticide linked to brain and nervous system toxicity, and the likelihood of eating multiple pesticides on a single food is given the same weight as the amounts of the pesticide detected or the percent of the crop on which pesticides were found.

The EWG’s Shopper’s Guide is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables. This approach best captures the uncertainties of the risks of pesticide exposure and gives shoppers confidence that when they follow the guide they are buying foods with consistently lower overall levels of pesticide contamination.