Debunking the Clean Fifteen and the Dirty Dozen
According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), the "Clean Fifteen and the Dirty Dozen" refer respectively to the fruits and vegetables that are the least and most contaminated by pesticide use within the United States. With so many Aussies referring to this list as a 'go-to' guide for pesticide exposure, I thought it was high time I do some research to see if this list is even applicable to us.
In the USA, the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration have published in thousands of pesticide-related reports. Unfortunately, we simply don't have this pool of data in Australia to make the same conclusions. Although there is some overlap with the EWG findings, we also must be hesitant in making too many assumptions given that we don't have this huge pool of data.In saying this, I did find a few resources. Most of the data I looked at comes from the 23rd Australian Total Diet Study (ATDS), which was conducted in 2008. This examined the dietary exposure of the Australian population to 214 agricultural and veterinary chemicals, 9 contaminants, 12 mycotoxins and 11 nutrients (more on this here) in 92 different foods. Friends of the Earth also have a good report which is worth reading if you're keen to learn more. Importantly, they discuss the pesticide residue found in foods other than fruit and vegetables; like wheat (and bran), bread, biscuits and imported tea.Digging Deeper into the Dirty DozenAlthough many of the foods on the American chart haven’t even been tested in Australia, roughly half of the foods DO deserve to be on the chart. Australia's version of the 'Dirty Dozen' would look something like this - Apples, cabbage, strawberries, capsicum, tomatoes, celery, lettuce, mushrooms, nectarines, grapes, cucumber and oranges. All of these foods showed varying levels of pesticide residue. Some very high… apples, strawberries and lettuce I’m looking at you!What about the Clean Fifteen?I’m in agreeance regarding sweet peas and onions. However, yet again there were quite a few foods on the EWG list which weren’t even tested in Australia (such as eggplant and asparagus)! And interestingly; broccoli, lettuce, mushrooms and oranges all had higher levels of contaminants than the USA. Overall, Australia's ‘cleanest’ were sweet peas, onions, bananas, carrots, frozen corn and watermelon.
