Pesticides in food: What to eat and what to avoid

For visual learners, here’s a blog listing with great photos of the five best and five worst produce items, ranked in terms of their potential impact on human health due to pesticides, published by the Environmental Working Group. The list is a guide for purchases when certified organic food, which has far lower levels of residue, is not available.

The EWG evaluated about 96,000 data points from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration (2000-2008), mostly on fruit that has been rinsed and peeled. EWG ran 49 produce items through its process, analyzing for number of different pesticides and amount of pesticides per pesticide, as well as average and maximum amounts of pesticides per item.

Full story: Huffington Post (May 24, 2010)

To support greater organic supply and find available organic products, check out Rodale Institute’s Demand Organic section.