The Dirty Dozen List is a Myth

Each year, a “Dirty Dozen” list of fruits and vegetables is published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). The purpose of the list is to encourage consumers to buy only organic versions of the fruits and veggies on the list.

It’s important to understand the methodology behind these recommendations, what these residues may actually mean in terms of health risks, and how to handle and prepare fresh produce.

Bottom line: The Dirty Dozen List is a myth.

It’s About Fear, and Promoting the Organic Industry

There is no pesticide risk to worry about from your fruits and vegetables. There may be other types of risks associated with pesticides, such as pesticide exposure when someone does not follow protocol when applying the pesticides, or perhaps heavy pesticide exposure through the air.

However that’s not what the Dirty Dozen list is about. The goal of the list is to promote the organic industry and make people afraid to buy non-organic produce. Please don’t be fear-mongered into only buying organic!

Using fear has become a common technique used to sway you into believing (and/or fearing) something based on one small part of a story. This is what pseudoscience does. Usually it’s done by sharing some facts either out of context, or without a full background. In this case, the facts are that there is some residue present on the fruits and vegetables that they list. However they don’t give you all of the information – and it matters, because the residue amounts are not a risk for human health (keep reading).

The unfortunate consequence of the Dirty Dozen list is that it discourages people from eating adequate amounts of fruits and veggies. Organic produce is often more expensive, which limits the purchase and consumption overall. Fruits and vegetables are loaded with important health-promoting antioxidant vitamins. Conventional and organic produce can safely be put into your grocery cart.

Keep in mind that the EWG only tests conventional produce. Organic farming practices also allow for pesticide use, but they don’t test it for their list.

Toxicology Primer and Perspective

How much residue may be on some types of produce? Any pesticide residue that may remain on fruits or vegetables is measured in “parts per million” or PPM.

A part per million (PPM) is equivalent to 1 milligram of a chemical substance per liter of water.

This would look like one second in eleven and a half days. Or one single granule of sugar among 273 sugar cubes.

To get a better understanding about the impact of PPM in terms of pesticide residue, check out this calculator at Safe Fruits and Veggies.

It’s Better in Europe!

You may often hear on social media that “everything is better in Europe (EU)”. The EU often gets credit for having “better” or safer foods or ingredients. This isn’t true.

Why so? The EU makes decisions using a different system than the US. They use a “hazard model”, not a “risk model” as we do in the US. Their approach to evaluating the safety of food or other ingredients uses a Precautionary Principle, while the FDA uses a Risk Aversion paradigm. 

In other words, the EU allows regulators to act even when scientific evidence isn’t conclusive, just to appease the public. In my opinion, the FDA’s risk model is much more sound and logical, because it is based on the actual evidence of actual risk.

The United States has always had strict protocols in place when it comes to food safety. Both the FDA and the EPA uses risk assessment to characterize the nature and magnitude that any substance may pose in terms of human health risk. This includes an assessment of how much of a chemical is present in an environmental medium (e.g., soil, water, food), and how much contact (exposure) a person or ecological receptor has with the environmental medium.

Hazard VS Risk Review

As any toxicologist will tell you, “the dose makes the poison”, and this is an important concept to understand when we are discussing pesticide residues on food (or really any chemical in our environment).

Hazard is the property of a chemical having the potential to cause adverse effects with exposure. Risk however, is the probability of the adverse effect occurring. So for instance, if you do not work on a farm, your risk is much lower than the worker who applies the pesticide applications each year (yet also takes care to do so safely). And the residues (in PPM) that may be on some produce, are easily washed away with a water rinse. Even if they are not rinsed, they likely pose no risk at all to human health.

The EWG does not test organic produce for residues. They only test conventionally grown produce – and then evaluate it based on any minuscule amount of residue, even if there’s no actual health risk.

Wait, what?

Consumer lists, such as the “Dirty Dozen” use flawed methodology to determine residue. It also doesn’t relate the residue to human tolerance levels. Luckily there are science-based risk assessments.

A lot of work goes into regulating our food and environment. Very specific testing is done to determine the upper levels where there is ‘no observable adverse effect’ (NOAEL). Furthermore, the safety levels are set way below these upper levels.

The takeaway here is that the presence of pesticide residue does not equal “toxicity”. There’s no need to worry about pesticide residue on any type of produce. It’s always good practice to wash your fruits and vegetables (dirt, manure, or other residues can also be present). And most important – eat 5-8 servings of fruits and veggies daily!