An apple a day… could fill your body with pesticides.
A new study suggests that washing fruit, a precautionary measure taken by many consumers, is not enough to remove toxic chemicals and pesticide residues.
The study, published on Wednesday in the American Chemical Society’s journal Nano Letters, provides new insights into the debate about the health risks of pesticides and the threshold – if any – at which contaminated products are consumed.
The aim of the study was to present a technique that would make it easier to detect pesticides in food. However, it also became clear that washing alone is not enough to remove chemicals.
As the study notes, “cleaning measures cannot completely remove pesticides.”
Using their method to examine pesticide contamination of an apple, the researchers found that the pesticides penetrated far beyond the skin layer, through the peel and into the flesh.
However, when the apple peel and the top layer of pulp were removed, the contamination was significantly reduced.
Dongdong Ye, a professor at the Chinese School of Materials and Chemistry at Anhui Agricultural University and author of the study, hopes that people will reach for the peeler instead of panicking.
“Instead of creating unnecessary fears, research suggests that peeling removes almost all pesticide residues, unlike the commonly recommended washing.”
The study clearly concludes that “the risk of pesticide exposure via fruit cannot be avoided by simple washing, apart from peeling.”
While removing the peel can help prevent chemical exposure, it also reduces nutritional value.
As Healthline notes, a raw apple with the peel contains up to 332% more vitamin K, 142% more vitamin A, 115% more vitamin C, 20% more calcium, and up to 19% more potassium than a peeled apple.
In March, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit organization that promotes a cleaner food supply, released its infamous “Dirty Dozen” list of the most pesticide-prone produce.
The group found that a whopping 75% of conventional fresh fruit and vegetable samples examined contained residues of potentially harmful chemicals, and ranked apples eighth on their list of pesticide-contaminated products.
In May, Consumer Reports found about pesticide quantities that posed “significant risks”“for consumers in 20% of the fruits and vegetables tested. The nonprofit called on the Environmental Protection Agency to ban organophosphate and carbamate pesticides and lower legal limits. of contamination.
In a contradictory report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) claimed that 99 percent of the products tested contained pesticide residues within legal contamination limits and that these “posed no threat to consumer health and were safe.”
They also claim that more than a quarter of the products tested showed “no detectable residues at all”.
The EWG specifically points out that the health benefits of an environmentally friendly diet “outweigh the risks of pesticide exposure.”
However, if you want to limit your exposure, you should avoid pesticides and, if possible, eat organic foods that only contain natural pesticides.
