Clean 15 & Dirty Dozen 2016 List
EWG's 2016 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce™
“Eat organic whenever you can. Follow the Environmental Working Group’s list of “Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen” to identify the worst and least contaminated fruits and vegetables.”- Dr. Mark Hyman
Dirty Dozen: Each of these foods tested positive for a number of different pesticide residues and showed higher concentrations of pesticides than other produce.
1. Strawberries
2. Apples
3. Nectarines
4. Peaches
5. Celery
6. Grapes
7. Cherries
8. Spinach
9. Tomatoes
10. Sweet bell peppers
11. Cherry tomatoes
12. Cucumbers
Hot peppers*
Kale/ Collard greens*
Potatoes*
Key findings:
◦ More than 98 percent of strawberry samples, peaches, nectarines, and apples tested positive for at least one pesticide residue.
◦ The average potato had more pesticides by weight than any other produce.
◦ A single grape sample and a sweet bell pepper sample contained 15 pesticides.
Single samples of strawberries showed 17 different pesticides.
* Leafy greens - kale and collard greens - and hot peppers do not meet traditional Dirty Dozen™ ranking criteria but were frequently found to be contaminated with insecticides toxic to the human nervous system. EWG recommends that people who eat a lot of these foods buy organic instead.
Clean Fifteen: Relatively few pesticides were detected on these foods, and tests found low total concentrations of pesticides on them.
1. Avocados
2. Sweet corn*
3. Pineapples
4. Cabbage
5. Sweet peas frozen
6. Onions
7. Asparagus
8. Mangos
9. Papayas*
10. Kiwi
11. Eggplant
12. Honeydew melon
13. Grapefruit
14. Cantaloupe
15. Cauliflower
Sweet potatoes
Mushrooms
* A small amount of sweet corn, papaya and summer squash sold in the United States is produced from GE (genetically engineered) seedstock. Buy organic varieties of these crops if you want to avoid GE produce.
Key findings:
◦ Avocados were the cleanest: only 1 percent of avocado samples showed any detectable pesticides.
◦ Some 89 percent of pineapples, 81 percent of papayas, 78 percent of mangoes, 73 percent of kiwi and 62 percent of cantaloupes had no residues.
◦ No single fruit sample from the Clean Fifteen™ tested positive for more than 4 types of pesticides.
◦ Multiple pesticide residues are extremely rare on Clean Fifteen™ vegetables. Only 5.5 percent of Clean Fifteen samples had two or more pesticides.
Clean your produce from pesticides:
While buying organic produce is preferred it can quickly add up financially especially if you are on tight budget. You can clean your produce from pesticides and bacteria by soaking them in cold water, sea salt and apple cider vinegar for about 5 minutes. According to the Centre for Science and Environment, washing with 2% of salt water will remove most of the contact pesticide residues that normally appear on the surface of the vegetables and fruits. About 75-80% of pesticide reduces are removed by cold water washing.
Directions: Mix 10% of apple cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sea salt into a large bowl of cold water (90%). Soak fruits and vegetables for about 5 minutes. Rinse thoroughly with water.