In our ratings, the “cleanest” product is rated Excellent or Very Good, while fruits and vegetables that carry the highest risk are rated Fair or Poor. They take into account the total number of pesticides, the level of each in fruits and vegetables, the frequency with which they were detected, and their toxicity.
To account for toxicity, we use the EPA chronic reference dose for each pesticide (the amount you think is unlikely to cause lifetime harm), then we apply the FQPA safety factor to known neurological toxins or suspected endocrine disruptors, even when EPA doesn’t. ‘t. The goal was to “minimize the possibility of risks being underestimated,” says Chuck Benbrook, PhD, a consultant who helped develop the CR risk scores.
This means that fruits and vegetables with residues of many different pesticides can still receive a Very Good or even Excellent rating if the amounts are low compared to what we consider harmful, or if the pesticides have low toxicity. But others score poorly if they have even a very small amount of a more dangerous pesticide.
For example, fresh, non-organic tomatoes are rated Very Good despite having 65 pesticide residues because the amounts were not of concern and / or were found in only a few samples. On the other hand, imported non-organic summer squash rated poor because it had worrying amounts of a particularly harmful pesticide in a single sample.
Thirty-one of 49 non-organic fruits and vegetables, including fresh, frozen, dried, and canned, score Good or higher in domestic and / or imported forms.
But for the 18 non-organic fruits and vegetables with a rating of Fair or Poor, CR experts say that everyone – especially pregnant women, babies, and young children – should try eating the organic versions. If you can’t find them at an affordable price, choose a similar higher-rated alternative such as broccoli over green beans. Still, if that’s not possible, occasionally eating a low-rated fruit or vegetable does not pose a serious health risk.
There were some articles where organic products scored less than Excellent. For those rated Very Good, the likely reason is that the pesticides banned in organic farming came from fields where non-organic crops were grown. But Drift probably doesn’t take into account the Fair or Poor scores for three organic items: imported frozen cherries, imported fresh peas, and fresh US-grown spinach.
All but one of the contaminated frozen cherry samples were imported from Turkey. In recent years, questions have been raised about the integrity of the organic label on Turkish imports.
Imported organic peas are classified as acceptable because one of the 15 samples was contaminated with high levels of dimethoate, a potent neurotoxin.
And finally, organic spinach grown in the US received a poor rating because 33 pesticides were found in 76 percent of the samples. For some of these, the levels were similar to non-organic ones. That includes famoxadone, a pesticide banned in organic farming and a possible hormone disruptor.
“The vast majority of USDA data shows that while pesticides are sometimes found in organic foods, the levels are typically 10 percent or less of what is found in non-organic foods, which would be consistent with the It drifts from a neighboring field, ”says CR’s Hansen. “When the organic and non-organic levels are similar, government agencies should take a closer look.”
A spokesperson for the USDA’s National Organic Program says fewer organic than non-organic fruits and vegetables are tested, which may skew the findings. And when you have questions about compliance, you first contact the certifier for that operation, who can usually help identify underlying issues and get the farm or business back into compliance quickly. When there are indications of fraud or other serious problems, the program investigates and, when justified by the evidence, removes the offender from the organic system.
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