12 Fruits and vegetables to wash before eating
It’s true that vegetables there may be some healthiest food you put on your plate, but some involve more foods pesticides than others and it may be worth washing before cutting or peeling and eating. Although trace amounts of pesticides typically do not cause major health problems, they can do so if consumed in larger quantities.
Before you worry too much about pesticides in non-organic produce, keep in mind that the U.S. Department of Agriculture Pesticide Data Program (PDF) found that more than 99% of foods sampled measured residue levels that met Environmental Protection Agency safety standards, with 27% containing no detectable pesticide residues at all.
Bottom line: A little residue is okay and most products you find in grocery stores are safe to eat without washing them. But if you’re concerned about leaving out pesticides or other chemicals that your food may have been exposed to, it’s better to err on the side of caution and wash your produce before eating it.
To help separate the nastiest produce from the not so bad, the Environmental Working Group, a food safety nonprofit, publishes a list of produce most likely to contain pesticides. It’s called “The Dirty Dozen” and it’s a cheat sheet of which fruits and vegetables you should always wash.
According to the research, strawberries are the product most likely to contain pesticides.
The group analyzed 46,569 samples of 46 fruits and vegetables tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture.
The No. 1 pesticide offender in the group’s latest survey? Strawberries. A total of more chemicals were found on the popular berries than on any other fruit or vegetable included in the comprehensive analysis.
Below are the 12 foods most likely to contain pesticides – and the 15 foods least likely to be contaminated.
The Dirty Dozen: the fruits and vegetables you should always wash
Foods Most Likely to Contain Pesticides, According to FDA and USDA Data.
- Strawberries
- Spinach
- Kale, kale and mustard greens
- Peaches
- Pears
- Nectarines
- Apples
- Grapes
- Paprika and hot peppers
- Cherries
- Blueberries
- Green beans
Strawberries, spinach and kale are foods that are best washed thoroughly before eating.
The Dirty Dozen is a good indicator intended to alert consumers to the fruits and vegetables that need to be washed most thoroughly. Even a quick rinse with water or a spritz of produce laundry helps.
You can also avoid much of the potential risk by purchasing certified organic fruits and vegetables that are free from the use of agricultural pesticides. Knowing which foods are likely to contain pesticides can help you decide where to spend that little extra money on organic produce. As I learned from an analysis of organic and non-organic prices, they are not as expensive as you might think.
It does not always make sense to spend on organic products.
Even more insights from the Dirty Dozen study
- More than 90% of samples of strawberries, apples, cherries, spinach, nectarines and grapes tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides.
- A total of 210 different pesticides were found on Dirty Dozen items.
- Of those 210, more than 50 different pesticides were found on every type of crop on the list except cherries.
- Kale, kale and mustard, as well as hot peppers and peppers, had the most pesticides detected of all crops: 103 and 101 pesticides in total, respectively.
Conversely, the EWG found these 15 fruits and vegetables East likely contain pesticides.
Foods with naturally occurring protective skin are much less likely to contain potentially harmful pesticides.
The Clean 15: You can skip washing fruits and vegetables
According to the research, these are the fruits and vegetables least likely to contain pesticides:
- Avocados
- Sweet corn
- Pineapple
- Onions
- Papaya
- Sweet peas (frozen)
- Asparagus
- Honeydew melon
- Kiwi
- Cabbage
- Mushrooms
- Mangoes
- Sweet Potatoes
- Watermelon
- Carrots
The Clean 15 were found to have the lowest levels of pesticide contamination of all samples tested, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t contaminated with pesticides at all. It certainly doesn’t mean that the fruits and vegetables you bring home aren’t contaminated with pesticides. It’s safer to consume unwashed foods from the Clean 15 than from the Dirty Dozen, but it’s still a good rule of thumb to rinse all your fruits and vegetables before eating them.
EWG’s methodology includes six pesticide contamination measures. The analysis focuses on which fruits and vegetables are most likely to contain one or more pesticides, but does not measure how much of a particular pesticide is on a particular piece of produce. You can read more about the EWG’s Dirty Dozen in the published research here.
Frequently asked questions about washing fruits and vegetables
What were the results of the Environmental Working Group’s 2024 Shopper’s Guide Dirty Dozen sample tests?
Of the samples tested, EWG found that 95% of the Dirty Dozen fruit and vegetable category samples were coated with potentially harmful fungicides. On the other hand, almost 65% of the samples from the Clean Fifteen fruits and vegetables category showed no detectable amounts of fungicide.
What pesticides were identified by the EWG?
The EWG identified a number of pesticides during the analysis of tested samples, and the organization found that four of the five most common pesticides were potentially hazardous fungicides: fludioxonil, pyraclostrobin, boscalid and pyrimethanil.
