Organic. It’s lower in pesticides. Honest.

[Guest guest]

Source: Consumer Reports

http://www.consumerreports.org

Organic. It’s lower in pesticides. Honest.

Almost by definition, organically grown fruit and vegetables contain fewer

pesticides than conventionally grown produce. How much lower? Quite a bit.

 

Four scientists from Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, and the

Organic Materials Review Institute, a research organization in Eugene, Ore.,

have just published the first detailed analysis of pesticide-residue data in

foods grown organically and conventionally. The study shows that people who

buy organic produce are one-third as likely to encounter pesticide residues

as those who buy conventionally grown foods.

 

Data from Consumers Union tests and multiyear surveys conducted by the U.S.

Department of Agriculture and by the California Department of Pesticide

Regulation all yielded similar results. The USDA data show that 73 percent of

conventionally grown produce contains at least one pesticide residue, while

only 23 percent of organic produce does. Conventionally grown crops are six

times as likely as organic ones to contain residues of more than one

pesticide, the data show.

 

Why should organically grown food have any pesticide residues at all? When

the authors excluded residues of long-banned insecticides such as DDT, which

persist in the environment, the fraction of organic samples containing

pesticide dropped almost by half, to 13 percent. Beyond this past pesticide

use, " drift " from spraying at nearby nonorganic farms and possible

mislabeling may account for some remaining traces.

For a summary of the study and information on how to purchase the full text

(for $22), go to www.consumersunion.org.

 

WHAT YOU CAN DO

 

There is no definitive proof that organic produce offers a nutritional

advantage over conventionally grown fruit and vegetables. Nor is it known how

much risk is entailed in consuming the tiny quantities of pesticides on food

over a lifetime. Still, if you want to limit pesticide intake from foods,

consider these two points:

 

It will soon be easier to identify organically grown foods. A USDA

organic-food standard that takes effect this fall will require all certifiers

of organic foods to conform to one standard.

 

You can remove a substantial amount of most pesticides from conventionally

grown food. Wash produce in a highly diluted solution of liquid dish soap,

rinse thoroughly, and then do what you would normally do: Peel carrots, stem

strawberries, and so on. A study by the Southwest Research Institute found

that the amount of produce containing detectable levels of pesticide residue

dropped by half with washed samples. Where residue remained, levels were

reduced by 29 to 98 percent.