Chemicals in Foods
The last Memo focused on nutrients from foods versus nutrients from supplements. Coincidently, a long-time reader sent me a link to an article about the Dirty Dozen, recently published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Paula also sent me articles to read on our exposure to chemicals in cleaning products and our environment. As a result, I’m going to write about chemicals in our food, our environment, and our water. Then I’ll cap it off with how we can deal with these chronic chemical exposures.
EWG annually publishes two lists of vegetables and fruits: The Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen (1). Topping the Dirty Dozen list this year were strawberries followed by two superfoods: spinach and kale. The top of the Clean Fifteen was avocadoes.
There are two things to understand. First, this is the EWG’s assessment of data pubished by U.S. Department of Agriculture according to standards they’ve set. Second, EWG does no testing of the foods themselves. Our taxes pay for the testing. You can read the rationale used for inclusion in the list in the EWG report (2).
The USDA Summary Report is also available for your viewing (3). Here are a couple of stats I found interesting. In 2021, over 99% of the samples tested had residues below the tolerances established by the EPA: 24.0% having no detectable residue. Residues exceeding the tolerance were detected in 0.53% (54/10,127 samples tested). The complete list of all samples tested along with results is found in the addendum to the USDA Report.
What does this mean? It depends on your point of view. If you have zero tolerance for any pesticide residues, there will be few vegetables and fruit you can eat. The question is this: what do we consider an acceptable risk? We’ll get to that, but we’ll look at chemicals in our environment on Saturday.
What are you prepared to do today?
Dr. Chet
References:
1. https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/full-list.php
2. https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php
3. https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/2021PDPAnnualSummary.pdf
