For vegans, vegetarians, and everyone else!
EWG’s 2023 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™
Nearly 75 percent of non-organic fresh produce sold in the U.S. contains residues of potentially harmful pesticides, EWG’s 2023 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™ finds. In this year’s guide, blueberries and green beans join our Dirty Dozen™ list of the 12 fruits and vegetables sampled that have the highest traces of pesticides.
THE 2023 DIRTY DOZEN
Of the 46 items included in our analysis, these 12 fruits and vegetables were most contaminated with pesticides:
- Strawberries
- Spinach
- Kale, collard, and mustard greens
- Peaches
- Pears
- Nectarines
- Apples
- Grapes
- Bell and hot peppers
- Cherries
- Blueberries
- Green beans
- All of the produce on the Dirty Dozen had at least one sample with at least 13 different pesticides — and some had as many as many as 23.
- Kale, collard, and mustard greens, as well as hot peppers and bell peppers, had the most pesticides detected of any crop — 103 and 101 pesticides in total, respectively.
Sweet Potato Fries by Mark Bittman
Ingredients
- 2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- Heat the oven to 400.
- Cut the sweet potatoes into sticks ¼ to ½ inch wide and 3 inches long, and toss them with the oil.
- Mix the spices, salt and pepper in a small bowl, and toss them with the sweet potatoes. Spread them out on 2 rimmed baking sheets.
- Bake until brown and crisp on the bottom, about 15 minutes, then flip and cook until the other side is crisp, about 10 minutes. Serve hot.
The Best Way to Store Lettuce to Keep It Fresh and Crisp
There are two things salad greens need to stay crisp: moisture and air. Many people think that the best way to keep lettuce crisp is to seal it up in a bag with all the air squeezed out, even to the point of inserting a straw into the bag to suck out every last molecule of air before sealing it shut. But removing the air is exactly the opposite of what lettuce needs.