Healthy, Nutritious, Delicious, Pesticide-Laden

"Each of these foods [dozen foods that included strawberries, spinach, nectarines, apples peaches, pears, cherries, grapes, celery, tomatoes, sweet bell peppers, cucumbers] tested positive for a number of different pesticide residues and contained higher concentrations of pesticides than other produce." "Pears and potatoes were new additions to the Dirty Dozen, displacing cherry tomatoes and cucumbers from last year’s list."
"Apples tend to have the most pesticides because of the chemicals applied to the crop before and after harvest to preserve them longer."
Environmental Working Group Dirty Dozen list

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Apples are likelier than any other fruit, because of their portability, ease of eating, taste and reputation as a healthy fruit, to be included in most peoples' packed lunches, including those that mothers prepare for their school-age children. That old adage, "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" didn't appear out of nowhere; it recognized the health benefits of eating an apple daily. The benefits, from cleaning teeth, to providing roughage and minerals and vitamins galore, are numerous.

Sadly, the apple appears as number four on the Environmental Working Group's list of the twelve most pesticide-ridden foods. Their residue load is taken to be harmful to human health. We do, of course, know that we are supposed to wash fruits and vegetables before using them. And that certainly includes fruits with skins that are discarded, like  oranges, grapefruits, and melons, for example, as well as bananas, just as much to remove harmful moulds that might be present, as pesticides.

Placing grapes in a bowl of clear, cool water to which lemon juice has been added, works well to clean pesticides and dirt off grapes, followed by a thorough rinsing. In Japan fastidious consumers go so far as to peel grapes before eating them. Potatoes can be left unpeeled, but well scrubbed with a stiff brush, then rinsed. Researchers at University of Massachusetts produced a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry recently, suggesting that soaking apples in a baking soda solution is the best method of removing pesticide residues.

Apples have already gone through a commercial bleach solution wash before they appear on supermarket s helves. According to the study's lead author Lili He, that initial washing is meant to remove dirt and contaminants, not necessarily pesticide residues. And her study points out that the longer produce sits unwashed, the deeper the chemicals can be absorbed. So much for the common wisdom that produce lasts longer if washed only before eating.

Testing the efficacy of three variants on washing of organic Gala apples was undertaken by the UMass Amherst researchers after they had been sprayed with two often-used pesticides. The apples were left for 24 hours after spraying, then they were washed with plain water, or the bleach solution commercially used, alternately a baking soda-water solution. In two minutes' time the baking soda solution succeeded in removing the most pesticides, while plain water turned out to be more effective than the bleach solution.

However, for the baking soda solution to succeed in entirely removing pesticide residue, a 12 to 15-minute bath in baking soda solution  was required. "One thing that surprised us was how long it took to wash the pesticides away", added Dr. He. Her successful formula was to dissolve one teaspoon of baking soda for every two cups of water, to soak the fruit for a minimum of two minutes, then rinse with tap water prior to consuming.

The short cut of peeling apples before eating, thus bypassing the pesticide residue issue completely, sacrifices the nutritional benefits of the skin's fibre and nutritious qualities.

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