It’s that time of year again. Spring has sprung and the Environmental Working Group released their annual “Dirty Dozen” list.
I watched an interesting news segment about this list on CBS This Morning today. Their guest expert was a registered dietitian, who started off by emphasizing the necessity of washing your produce as well as incorporating lots of fruits and vegetables into your diet. Think about the dirt and germs that could be picked up as it moves from the field to the truck to the packaging facility to the grocery store shelves and then being handled by customers until someone drops it into their shopping cart. But I digress.
The conversation quickly towards organic, as expected, where one of the anchors chimes in with a story about his dad rolling his eyes at him when the anchor mentioned that he wanted to buy all organic foods when shopping for a family meal together. But they also discussed the cost of organic, suggesting that it’s okay if you can’t afford it, maybe just eat fewer fruits and vegetables to lower your exposure… 🤦♀️
Let me say this loud and clear: The benefits of eating fruits and vegetables outweigh the risks of any minute pesticide residue that might survive after washing your produce. The RD said this herself: The benefits far outweigh the risks.
Now let’s talk a bit about pesticide use. The news segment mentioned pesticide applicators wearing astronaut suits. That is not the norm. Sure, you should absolutely protect yourself when working with pesticides by wearing gloves and a respirator, but you also have to consider that they’re working with gallons and gallons of a pesticide that is going to be combined with water and used across an 80-acre field or more. In fact, most of what comes out of the sprayer is actually water! And think about how many millions of strawberries or kale plants or corn plants are in that 80-acre field. Not to mention the rules of pesticide use that typically mean that they cannot be used within so many days of harvest or after a plant has fruited.
Why do we use pesticides? First, let me explain the three main classes of pesticides. There are herbicides, used for weed control; fungicides, used to control diseases; and insecticides, used to eliminate insect pests. Beyond that, there are many different types of herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides, all targeting different types of weeds, diseases, and insects. Pesticides are not one-size-fits-all-pests, so it’s important farmers scout their fields and know what weeds, diseases, and insects are threatening their crop before considering using a pesticide. Besides, pesticides and applying pesticides are expensive – it’s not something you decide to use on a whim.
Looks are especially important in foods that you buy whole (so things like potatoes and apples and strawberries and lettuce). Not many customers are going to pick out the apples that have lots of insect bites or spots on the skin that were caused by disease. The use of pesticides to keep this damage to a minimum helps prevent food waste (minimizing the amount of pest-damaged produce) while also protecting the farmer’s crop from further damage or decimation.
Keep in mind that it’s not just one insect that attacks a field – it’s thousands or even millions. This isn’t like my vegetable garden, where I can easily stop insect pests from damaging my produce or pull every single weed I see by hand. We’re talking farms that are at a much larger scale. The average vegetable garden is probably a few hundred square feet on the larger side. For simplicity, let’s assume 100 square feet. One acre is 43,560 square feet, so about the size of 435.6 vegetable gardens. My family farms 500 acres, which would be the size of roughly 217,800 vegetable gardens. I don’t know about you, but I am not interested in weeding the area of 217,800 vegetable gardens – one is enough, thank you. Scale is an important factor here and pesticides have allowed us to maintain the overall cost of food by reducing the high cost of the labor it would take to remove pests manually (and even then, you can’t take care of a disease problem in a field by hand).
It’s also important to note that the EWG’s suggested alternative, organic, isn’t completely free from pesticide use. Certified organic products allow for the use of a specific list of pesticides. The only difference being that the pesticides on that list are not derived synthetically. And that’s not a bad thing.
I’m not against organic. There’s actually a bag of organic salad mix in my fridge right now (it happened to be the cheaper option at Aldi’s). But no one should be shamed into buying expensive food because “it’s the best” when there is a cheaper equivalent option available. The benefits of eating any fresh produce outweigh the risks of any minute pesticide residues that may be present. And please note, there are rules for pesticide residues. We’re talking about things measured in parts per million, if any is present at all!
The bottom line here: Don’t let the fear tactics get to you. You are the person who is best equipped to make food purchasing decisions for your family and you are doing a great job. 🙂
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