Canadian Food Focus reports:
Each year, the activist group known as the Environmental Working Group (EWG) releases a document called the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, which ranks pesticide residues found on 46 popular fruits and vegetables.
This release includes a popular shortlist of the top twelve “dirty’’ and the top fifteen “clean” fruits and vegetables, AKA The Dirty Dozen and The Clean Fifteen. It’s catchy. The media thinks so too, and predictably, it gets picked up by media outlets worldwide without adequate scrutiny about what the list is actually telling us.
As a solution, the EWG strongly urges consumers to purchase [organic](https://canadianfoodfocus.org/health/what-does-organic-…
Canadian Food Focus reports:
Each year, the activist group known as the Environmental Working Group (EWG) releases a document called the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, which ranks pesticide residues found on 46 popular fruits and vegetables.
This release includes a popular shortlist of the top twelve “dirty’’ and the top fifteen “clean” fruits and vegetables, AKA The Dirty Dozen and The Clean Fifteen. It’s catchy. The media thinks so too, and predictably, it gets picked up by media outlets worldwide without adequate scrutiny about what the list is actually telling us.
As a solution, the EWG strongly urges consumers to purchase organic fruits and vegetables to avoid pesticide residues, which they claim pose a risk to our health.
Are pesticide residues found in the Dirty Dozen a health risk?
Unequivocally, no. And here’s why.
To assess the risk of pesticide residues on our produce, we need to know a few simple things.
- The specific type of pesticide (chemical) found
- The amount of residue found on the food
- How the amount (or dose) we consume compares to the dose we know might cause harm.
The Dirty Dozen simply looks at the overall number of residues found, and compares each fruit and vegetable to one another, essentially ranking them.
It ignores the dose completely. This is a huge omission.
As with any chemical, the dose matters. A lot. Just because a residue is present, doesn’t mean it poses a risk to our health.
With today’s advanced technology, we can now identify residues in amounts as small as parts per billion (think one drop of water in an Olympic-sized swimming pool).
How do we know current residue levels are safe?
Health Canada’s Pesticide Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) sets . . .
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