2024-08-12 15:00:00
When you get home from shopping, do you just rinse your fruits and vegetables under tap water, thinking that’s enough to remove dirt and pesticides? That’s not enough. Regardless, a recent study by researchers at the American Chemical Society shows just that.
Pesticides detected in apples
To reach this conclusion, a team of scientists developed a new method to detect the presence of pesticides on and within food. They “developed a high-tech imaging method Detecting low-level pesticide contaminationand its use on fruits suggests that current food safety practices may not be adequate,” according to an American Chemical Society press release (Source 1).
Researchers found that after traditional washing of apples with water, pesticides were not only present on the surface of the apples, but also in the pulp. “Pesticides will penetrate from the skin layer to the pulp layer. So, Simple cleaning cannot avoid the risk of ingesting pesticides through fruits. Traditional fruit cleaning operations do not completely eliminate pesticides,” the study states (Source 2).
How to remove pesticides from fruits and vegetables?
So how to remove pesticide residues from apples? So the only really effective solution is Peel. “We believe thatPeeling can effectively avoid the harm of pesticides “In the skin of the fruit and in the pulp close to the skin, thereby reducing the likelihood of pesticide ingestion,” the study’s authors estimate. In fact, the intensity of pesticide presence is related to the depth of the apple. Therefore, at 30 μm, no traces of pesticides were observed. Peeling removes material larger than 30 microns, ensuring the remainder of the apple is pesticide-free.
In addition to washing and peeling fruits and vegetables, another solution is to favor organic farming, which restricts the use of phytosanitary products more than conventional farming.
Which fruits and vegetables contain the most pesticides?
The fruits and vegetables we eat every day are largely contaminated with pesticides. A survey conducted by Générations Futures in February 2024 (Source 3) showed that 73% of non-organic fruits and 48% of vegetables in the French study contained at least one pesticide residue. The most affected fruits are cherries, grapefruits, nectarines, peaches, grapes and finally clementines and mandarins. For vegetables, there’s celery root, melon, endive and parsnips.
Additionally, in May 2024, the U.S. Environmental Working Group developed List of fruits and vegetables containing the most pesticides 47,000 samples of 46 fruit and vegetable species were analyzed (Source 4). Here are the top 10 situations to avoid:
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