Pesticides and your food

​Clean Eating Starts with Clean Food!
 
Consider this scenario:

You are at a party and see a fresh fruit plate; you make a beeline toward the fruit. When you reach for the bright red strawberry, do you think about whether the food was washed, how it was washed, or where it was grown?

Did you know that strawberries are one of the dirtiest fruits we ingest? They typically carry pesticides and pesticide residue. Conventional strawberries contain as much as 10 times more pesticide chemicals than organic strawberries.

While most pesticides are designed to kill “pests”, some pesticides can also impact our health. The likelihood of this impacting our health depends on the amount we are exposed to, how often we are exposed to it, the type of pesticide used, and even interactions with other chemicals that are in the products we use.

​It is time we recognize these facts and begin to consider them before we eat. Knowing where our food comes from and how it will affect us is a crucial step in taking responsibility for our health. Knowing the foods that have the highest amount of pesticides is a positive first step.

​Check out one of my favorite websites https://www.ewg.org/ where you will find information on the “Dirty Dozen”, an up-to-date list of produce that contains higher concentrations of pesticides. While on the website, please check out the “Clean Fifteen”, a list of produce that has fewer pesticides and lower total concentrations of pesticide residues.
 
Facts:

• An annual report by the Environmental Working Group found that nearly 70% of samples of 48 types of conventionally grown produce were contaminated with pesticide residue. 
• More than 98% of samples of strawberries, spinach, peaches, nectarines, cherries and apples tested positive for residue of at least one pesticide.
• A single sample of strawberries showed 20 different pesticides.
• Spinach samples had, on average, 1.8 times as much pesticide residue by weight than any other crop.

 
Though studies have shown that washing our produce can reduce the pesticide residue, it will not eliminate them altogether. We must choose our fruits and vegetables wisely and clean our food thoroughly before we ingest it. Clean food always makes for healthier bodies!

​Chef Ryann