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The Environmental Working Group (EWG) released a list of the 12 fruits and vegetables with the most pesticide residue. Billed as The Dirty Dozen by EWG, the list includes some of our favorite fruits and vegetables.

Few salads are made without lettuce, and what mom doesn't rely on carrots and celery with a tempting cup of peanut butter or ranch dip to entice her kids to eat their vegetables? If decisions are to be made on which produce items deserve the extra budget for organic, these items may be worth the extra cost.

EWG assimilated results from more than 87,000 tests by the USDA and selected the 47 most popular fruits and vegetables consumed by Americans. Each fruit or vegetable received a score from 1 (least amount of residue) to 100 (most residue). Peaches are the only item to receive a discouraging score of 100.

EWG concluded: In a simulation of thousands of consumers eating high and low pesticide diets shows that people can lower their pesticide exposure by almost 80 percent by avoiding the top twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating the least contaminated instead.

Note that the U.S. Department of Agriculture says "measured residues on most products, both organic and nonorganic, do not exceed governement-defined thresholds for safe consumption." To be certfied organic, growers must be certified under federal rules established in 2002.

The EWG's Dirty Dozen
(ordered from most pesticide residue to least)
Peaches
Apples
Bell Peppers
Celery
Nectarines
Strawberries
Cherries
Kale
Lettuce
Imported Grapes
Carrots
Pears

The EWG also published a list of their Clean 15, those fruits and vegetables with the least pesticide residue.
(ordered from least to most residue)
Onions
Avocados
Sweet Corn (frozen)
Pineapples
Mangoes
Asparagus
Sweet Peas (frozen)
Kiwifruits
Cabbages
Eggplants
Papayas
Watermelons
Broccoli
Tomatoes
Sweet Potatoes

The lists are available for download as an iPhone app or in a PDF document.

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