Despite the false propaganda of pesticide and herbicide producers who claim agricultural chemicals disappear after being sprayed on crops, a new research project from the Environmental Working Group has found that 70% of U.S. fresh produce is contaminated with pesticide chemicals.
All pesticide chemicals are toxic to life. Otherwise, they wouldn’t kill the living organisms that threaten crops. There is no such thing as a “non-toxic” synthetic pesticide.
The EWG’s research — released as the 2019 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce — found that 92% of grocery store kale contains two or more pesticides. From the EWG’s announcement:
“We were surprised kale had so many pesticides on it, but the test results were unequivocal,” said EWG Toxicologist Alexis Temkin, Ph.D. “Fruits and vegetables are an important part of everyone’s diet, and when it comes to some conventionally grown produce items, such as kale, choosing organic may be a better option.”
Notably, the EWG’s report relied on USDA data which may be skewed in favor of pesticide producers, meaning the real severity of the pesticide problem across U.S. produce may be far worse than what is being reported. Here at Natural News, we have our own in-house mass spec laboratory for testing foods for pesticides and herbicides (see below for details).
Even if you take the USDA data as accurate, it means Americans are eating toxic, cancer-causing poisons at nearly every meal while food producers are profiting from the sale of toxic products that, much like smoking cigarettes, causes cancer and death.
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. kale found contaminated with a toxic pesticide that’s banned in the EU
Additional tests found that about 60% of U.S. kale tested positive for DCPA (Dacthal), a cancer-causing chemical that has been banned in the EU for the last decade. Strawberries and spinach were also found to be heavily saturated with pesticide chemicals, while the research found that pineapples and avocados had the lowest concentrations of pesticides. (That’s because they naturally have thick skins and are difficult for pests to eat.)
Some kale samples were found to contain 18 different pesticides. As reported by The Guardian, “90% of Americans have detectable pesticide levels in their urine and blood.”
The corrupt EPA has also sold out to the pesticide industry and is now pro-pesticides across the board. As The Guardian explains, the EPA is currently working to protect a toxic chemical that causes birth defects:
The Environmental Protection Agency sets rules for how pesticides are used, but those rules do not necessarily prevent cumulative exposure in a person’s diet. The agency is fighting a court order to ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that is associated with development disabilities in children.
All these pesticides were found even after washing and peeling fruits and vegetables
As the EWG explains:
USDA’s tests found a total of 225 different pesticides and pesticide breakdown products on popular fruits and vegetables Americans eat every day. Before testing, all produce was thoroughly washed and peeled, just as consumers would prepare food at home, showing that simple washing does not remove all pesticides.
Many consumers mistakenly believe that washing or peeling fruits and vegetables can remove the pesticide chemicals. This is a myth. In reality, pesticides are grown into the fresh produce and are found in every living cell of the food. That’s why, at our laboratory where we test foods for pesticides and herbicides, we don’t have to use the peeling of the food sample. We simply grind up the entire food item and extract pesticides from all the cells at the same time.
Other Key Findings From EWG’s 2019 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce
- More than 90 percent of samples of strawberries, apples, cherries, spinach, nectarines and kale tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides.
- Kale and spinach samples had, on average, 10 to 80 percent more pesticide residue by weight than any other crop.
- Avocados and sweet corn were the cleanest. Less than 1 percent of samples showed any detectable pesticides.
- More than 70 percent of fruit and vegetable samples on the Clean Fifteen list had no pesticide residues.
- Multiple pesticide residues are extremely rare on Clean Fifteen vegetables. Only 6 percent of Clean Fifteen fruit and vegetable samples had two or more pesticides.
- As in the past, this year EWG has expanded the Dirty Dozen list to highlight hot peppers, which do not meet our traditional ranking criteria but were found to be contaminated with insecticides toxic to the human nervous system.
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