No one likes to think about the pesticides and chemicals we may be ingesting that come on our food, but it’s a scary reality of modern life. So every year, the Environmental Working Group lets us know which fruits and vegetables contain the most pesticides in its “Dirty Dozen” list.
They test the foods we eat every day and warn us which ones to watch out for and to buy organic. And this year, they seem super concerned about kale, and say more than “92% of kale samples had two or more pesticide residues” and some had as many as 18!
And with that, here’s 2019’s Dirty Dozen list. These are the fruits and vegetables to buy organic:
- Strawberries
- Spinach
- Kale
- Nectarines
- Apples
- Grapes
- Peaches
- Cherries
- Pears
- Tomatoes
- Celery
- Potatoes
And on the flip side, the organization also does an annual “Clean Fifteen” list that tells us the top 15 kinds of produce that have “few, if any” pesticide residues. This is 2019’s list:
- Avocados
- Sweet corn
- Pineapples
- Cabbages
- Onions
- Sweet peas (frozen)
- Papayas
- Asparagus
- Mangoes
- Eggplants
- Honeydew melons
- Kiwis
- Cantaloupes
- Cauliflower
- Broccoli
Source: USA Today