USA TODAY
Strawberries remain in the top spot on an annual list of fruits and vegetables found to have the highest traces of pesticides.
The 2021 Dirty Dozen, released Wednesday by the Environmental Working Group, ranked pesticide residue levels of fruits and vegetables based on samples taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
There were two noticeable changes to this year s list, said Thomas Galligan, an EWG toxicologist.
Collard and mustard greens joined the list at No. 3, sharing a spot with kale. The pesticide most frequently found on these greens was DCPA, a compound classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a possible carcinogen, Galligan added.
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PHILADELPHIA Strawberries continue to lead the Dirty Dozen list of fruits and veggies that contain the highest levels of pesticides, followed by spinach, a trio of greens kale, collard and mustard nectarines, apples, and grapes, according to the Environmental Working Group s 2021 Shopper s Guide to Pesticides in Produce.
Cherries came in seventh on the list of the 46 most contaminated foods, followed by peaches, pears, bell and hot peppers, celery, and tomatoes.
Avoiding pesticides is especially critical for babies and children, experts say, because of the damage they can cause to the developing brain. A 2020 study found an increase in IQ loss and intellectual disability in children due to exposure to organophosphates, a common class of pesticides.
An annual report
The EWG report, issued yearly since 2004, uses US Department of Agriculture test data to rank 46 foods that are the most and least contaminated with pesticide residues. The agency prepares the food as consumers would â washing, peeling or scrubbing â before testing each item. The USDA does not sample all 46 foods each year, so EWG pulls results from the most recent testing period.
A new entry on this year s list was collard greens and mustard greens, which joined kale in the No. 3 spot. Tests found these vegetables often contained the pesticide DCPA, classified by the EPA as a possible human carcinogen. It was banned by the European Union in 2009.
Tomatoes
If you follow the list annually, you ll notice that most of the ranking has remained steady since last year s review. Strawberries remain likely to contain higher amounts of pesticides on surfaces, alongside a recent addition of kale and spinach that raised eyebrows in 2020. But the pesticide residues affecting these leafy greens known as DCPA, a herbicide also sold under the brand name Dacthal have also affected other staples in this section of the produce aisle. Collard and mustard greens are lumped in with kale on this year s ranking as more than 90 different kinds of pesticide were traced backed to leafy greens as a whole; one sample of mustard greens had 20 different pesticides, for example, and kale and collards had as many as 17 in one sample.