Pesticides in produce - what's the real deal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t realize that organic farmers use pesticides too. so what is the point of buying organic? Feel like I’ve been wasting a lot of money!

There are reasons - like supporting local farmers - but there is no health reason to chose organic.

[Anonymous]

It is best to grow your own.

A lot of produce labeled as organic is not, particularly produce that comes from overseas.

[Anonymous]

I work at a farmer's market. So I'm basically a produce professional. I ONLY buy organic, unless the produce comes in a shell that is NOT eaten. Melons, bananas, citrus fruits, pineapple - things like that are fine non-organic. Everything else, I buy organic. Oh, and don't forget potatoes. Even potato farmers will plant pesticide-free potatoes for their own personal use even if they don't sell organic potatoes, because of how deeply the pesticides get into the soil the potatoes grow in.

All berries, all stone fruits, all apples and pears, all produce that goes into a salad - I buy all of that organic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/15/health/dirty-dozen-produce-pesticides-2023-wellness/index.html

I am trying to focus on introducing more fruits and vegetables into my diet, but then I read stuff like the article above and it's frustrating. I feel like there's a middle ground but it's hard to tell what it is. Also, does thorough rinsing not help?

I will buy organic, but I don't necessarily prioritize it. Would like to hear common sense approaches.

Apparently you didn’t bother to read the article which details that yes, in fact, thorough rinsing of produce does help.

I carry a laminated card with the clean 15/dirty dozen in my wallet so I don’t forget when buying produce, and I try to buy organic for the dirty dozen whenever possible.

Beyond that, the benefits of veggies in fruits in the diet most certainly outweigh the pesticide exposure risk especially if you are washing your produce. Don’t forget that any processed food you buy is both far less nutritious and composed in part by things that were grown and once had pesticide on them and who knows how well the producer cleaned the ingredients before processing them?

You are very rude.

[Anonymous]

To address upthread, organic produce isn't grown with synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers. So no glyphosate/Roundup. Pesticides derived from natural sources are permitted.

In the ideal world, we could all buy local and know exactly what we're eating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The evidence is that if there is actually any risk from the tiny bits of pesticides they find, it's dwarfed by the health benefits of eating fruits and vegetables. I worry that people are being scared off of eating nutritious food for no reason.

From: https://cuttothechasenutrition.com/buy-the-dirty-dozen-dont-buy-into-it/

"Are YOU at risk? Are Your Kids?

Short answer: NO, ... to assess your own safety, and that of your family, you must know how toxic a pesticide is for the amount you’re eating.

The Alliance for Food and Farming is a non-profit organization that represents both organic AND conventional farmers of fruits and vegetables. Their Safe Fruits and Veggies Calculator is a fabulous tool that calculates how many servings of a fruit or vegetable you’d have to eat in 1 day to reach maximum allowable pesticide residue ever recorded for that food. They have calculations for men, women, teens, and children.

Let’s take strawberries and apply the calculations to young kids (average weight = 45 lb.):

Strawberries: 181 servings (1/2 cup is a serving) in ONE DAY “without any effect, even if the strawberries have the highest pesticide residue recorded for strawberries by USDA.” An adult woman? Figure 453 servings (226 cups!) before you’d reach that level."

This calculation makes no sense to me. And why does it have to be eaten in one sitting to be harmful? Also, what if the usda limits are wrong, which they probably are?

This is a group that is promoting the consumption of fruit and vegetables so I wouldn’t necessarily trust them over an independent source.

I agree we should all eat fruits and vegetables but I think we should be seriously questioning all these pesticides. Let’s not hide the problem if there is one.

They have to be eaten in one sitting because their effects aren’t cumulative. You can eat a tiny bit every day for the rest of your life and your body will break the pesticide down and eliminate it. It needs to be in a large single dose to be toxic. That’s why the EPA has acceptable levels.

Also, organic farming uses toxic pesticides as well. Unless you grow your own, there’s no avoiding them.

Problem is, that’s not definitively true - it’s just hard to prove the long term effect. Don’t you think it takes a toll on the liver and kidneys to break down poison every single day? EPA’s acceptable levels are influenced by lobbies and interests.

To your second point, the fact that organic produce contains pesticides (not as many) is not a reason to buy conventional. It’s yet another reason to cut back on pesticides. If they are harmful, then you want as few as possible.

Tin foil hat alert!

Yeah sorry but if you don’t believe lobbyists exist and affect regulations, then what separates us is not a tin foil hat, it’s a large pile of sand under which you’ve placed your head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The evidence is that if there is actually any risk from the tiny bits of pesticides they find, it's dwarfed by the health benefits of eating fruits and vegetables. I worry that people are being scared off of eating nutritious food for no reason.

From: https://cuttothechasenutrition.com/buy-the-dirty-dozen-dont-buy-into-it/

"Are YOU at risk? Are Your Kids?

Short answer: NO, ... to assess your own safety, and that of your family, you must know how toxic a pesticide is for the amount you’re eating.

The Alliance for Food and Farming is a non-profit organization that represents both organic AND conventional farmers of fruits and vegetables. Their Safe Fruits and Veggies Calculator is a fabulous tool that calculates how many servings of a fruit or vegetable you’d have to eat in 1 day to reach maximum allowable pesticide residue ever recorded for that food. They have calculations for men, women, teens, and children.

Let’s take strawberries and apply the calculations to young kids (average weight = 45 lb.):

Strawberries: 181 servings (1/2 cup is a serving) in ONE DAY “without any effect, even if the strawberries have the highest pesticide residue recorded for strawberries by USDA.” An adult woman? Figure 453 servings (226 cups!) before you’d reach that level."

This calculation makes no sense to me. And why does it have to be eaten in one sitting to be harmful? Also, what if the usda limits are wrong, which they probably are?

This is a group that is promoting the consumption of fruit and vegetables so I wouldn’t necessarily trust them over an independent source.

I agree we should all eat fruits and vegetables but I think we should be seriously questioning all these pesticides. Let’s not hide the problem if there is one.

They have to be eaten in one sitting because their effects aren’t cumulative. You can eat a tiny bit every day for the rest of your life and your body will break the pesticide down and eliminate it. It needs to be in a large single dose to be toxic. That’s why the EPA has acceptable levels.

Also, organic farming uses toxic pesticides as well. Unless you grow your own, there’s no avoiding them.

Problem is, that’s not definitively true - it’s just hard to prove the long term effect. Don’t you think it takes a toll on the liver and kidneys to break down poison every single day? EPA’s acceptable levels are influenced by lobbies and interests.

To your second point, the fact that organic produce contains pesticides (not as many) is not a reason to buy conventional. It’s yet another reason to cut back on pesticides. If they are harmful, then you want as few as possible.

Tin foil hat alert!

Yeah sorry but if you don’t believe lobbyists exist and affect regulations, then what separates us is not a tin foil hat, it’s a large pile of sand under which you’ve placed your head.

+1 How can someone in DC not know this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The evidence is that if there is actually any risk from the tiny bits of pesticides they find, it's dwarfed by the health benefits of eating fruits and vegetables. I worry that people are being scared off of eating nutritious food for no reason.

From: https://cuttothechasenutrition.com/buy-the-dirty-dozen-dont-buy-into-it/

"Are YOU at risk? Are Your Kids?

Short answer: NO, ... to assess your own safety, and that of your family, you must know how toxic a pesticide is for the amount you’re eating.

The Alliance for Food and Farming is a non-profit organization that represents both organic AND conventional farmers of fruits and vegetables. Their Safe Fruits and Veggies Calculator is a fabulous tool that calculates how many servings of a fruit or vegetable you’d have to eat in 1 day to reach maximum allowable pesticide residue ever recorded for that food. They have calculations for men, women, teens, and children.

Let’s take strawberries and apply the calculations to young kids (average weight = 45 lb.):

Strawberries: 181 servings (1/2 cup is a serving) in ONE DAY “without any effect, even if the strawberries have the highest pesticide residue recorded for strawberries by USDA.” An adult woman? Figure 453 servings (226 cups!) before you’d reach that level."

This calculation makes no sense to me. And why does it have to be eaten in one sitting to be harmful? Also, what if the usda limits are wrong, which they probably are?

This is a group that is promoting the consumption of fruit and vegetables so I wouldn’t necessarily trust them over an independent source.

I agree we should all eat fruits and vegetables but I think we should be seriously questioning all these pesticides. Let’s not hide the problem if there is one.

They have to be eaten in one sitting because their effects aren’t cumulative. You can eat a tiny bit every day for the rest of your life and your body will break the pesticide down and eliminate it. It needs to be in a large single dose to be toxic. That’s why the EPA has acceptable levels.

Also, organic farming uses toxic pesticides as well. Unless you grow your own, there’s no avoiding them.

Problem is, that’s not definitively true - it’s just hard to prove the long term effect. Don’t you think it takes a toll on the liver and kidneys to break down poison every single day? EPA’s acceptable levels are influenced by lobbies and interests.

To your second point, the fact that organic produce contains pesticides (not as many) is not a reason to buy conventional. It’s yet another reason to cut back on pesticides. If they are harmful, then you want as few as possible.

Tin foil hat alert!

Yeah sorry but if you don’t believe lobbyists exist and affect regulations, then what separates us is not a tin foil hat, it’s a large pile of sand under which you’ve placed your head.

+1 How can someone in DC not know this.

+2! Of course lobbyists impact our food regulation in a major way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/15/health/dirty-dozen-produce-pesticides-2023-wellness/index.html

I am trying to focus on introducing more fruits and vegetables into my diet, but then I read stuff like the article above and it's frustrating. I feel like there's a middle ground but it's hard to tell what it is. Also, does thorough rinsing not help?

I will buy organic, but I don't necessarily prioritize it. Would like to hear common sense approaches.

Look at the dirty dozen list from EWG. Some fruits/veggies absorb pesticides and you should buy them organic - like apples. Some don't, like bananas and you can buy those conventional.

This is absolutely not true. A close friend of mine works for the European Food Commission (a way better and stricter organization than what we have here), and if you could hear him talk about the pesticides sprayed on bananas, you would never eat one, let alone a non-organic one. And yes, some of those chemicals do penetrate through the peel/skin.

[Anonymous]

I don’t really care. I buy organic when I can if the price difference isn’t outrageous. But I’m not losing sleep over eating non organic produce now and then.

Eat nutritious foods, don’t be fat, exercise. Those are by far the most important things you can do for your health.