It's Wise to Wash All Produce, but These 12 Fruits and Veggies Are the Dirtiest

Cleaning your fridge and freezer is important to do every so often, but what about the food sitting inside it? Specifically, that bottom drawer, where fruits and veggies go to retire. Even the healthiest-looking produce can carry unwelcome hitchhikers like dirt, bacteria and trace pesticides. Now, don't freak out. According to the USDA's Pesticide Data Program, over 99% of tested foods were well within the EPA's safety limits -- and more than a quarter didn't have a speck of pesticide residue. But still, giving your produce a quick rinse before eating is an easy habit that pays off in peace of mind (and fewer surprise crunches of dirt). So before you bite into that apple like you're in a commercial, maybe give it a little scrub first. Certain varieties of produce are more likely to have persistent pesticide residues than others. To help consumers identify which fruits and vegetables are the most contaminated, the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit focused on food safety, publishes a list known as The Dirty Dozen. The group examined 47,510 samples of 46 fruits and vegetables tested by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture, highlighting those with the highest pesticide levels at the time of sale. Strawberries are the produce most likely to have pesticides, according to the study. Angela Lang/CNET What's the no.1 offender for pesticides in The Dirty Dozen's latest study? Strawberries. It might be hard to believe, but the popular berries had more total instances of chemicals found on them than any other fruit or vegetable included in the analysis. Below you'll find the 12 foods most likely to contain pesticides -- and the 15 foods least likely to be tainted. The Dirty Dozen: The fruits and vegetables to always wash Foods most likely to contain pesticides, according to FDA and USDA data. Strawberries Spinach Kale, collard and mustard greens Grapes Peaches Pears Nectarines Apples Bell and hot peppers Cherries Blueberries Green beans Strawberries, spinach and kale are foods you'd be wise to wash thoroughly before eating. Mitatzgrzkan/500px/Getty Images The Dirty Dozen is a good indicator meant to alert consumers to the fruits and vegetables most in need of thorough washing. Even a quick rinse with water or a spritz of produce wash helps. You can also sidestep much of the potential risk by buying certified organic fruits and vegetables that are free from the use of farming pesticides. Knowing which foods are more likely to contain pesticides might help you decide where to spend that bit of extra money on organic. As I learned in an analysis of organic and nonorganic prices, they aren't as expensive as you might think. It doesn't always make sense to splurge on organic produce. Jupiterimages/Getty More takeaways from the Dirty Dozen study More than 95% of samples of strawberries, apples, cherries, spinach, nectarines and grapes tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides. of strawberries, apples, cherries, spinach, nectarines and grapes tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides. A total of 209 different pesticides were found on Dirty Dozen items. were found on Dirty Dozen items. Of those 209, over 50 different pesticides were detected on every type of crop on the list, except cherries. were detected on every type of crop on the list, except cherries. 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. Conversely, the EWG found these 15 fruits and vegetables Ieast likely to contain pesticides. Foods with naturally occurring protective skin are far less likely to contain potentially harmful pesticides. Westend 61/Getty Images The Clean 15: Fruits and vegetables you can skip washing These are the fruits and vegetables least likely to contain pesticides, according to the study: Avocados Sweet corn Pineapple Onions Papaya Sweet peas (frozen) Asparagus Honeydew melon Kiwi Cabbage Watermelon Mushrooms Mangoes Sweet Potatoes Carrots The Clean 15 were found to have the lowest levels of pesticide contamination across all of the tested samples, but that doesn't mean that they aren't contaminated by pesticides at all. It certainly doesn't mean that the fruits and veggies you're bringing home aren't contaminated with bacteria, either. You'd be statistically safer consuming unwashed food from the Clean 15 than the Dirty Dozen, but it's still a good rule of thumb to rinse all of your fruits and vegetables before eating them. EWG's methodology involves six measures of pesticide contamination. The analysis focuses on which fruits and vegetables are most likely to contain one or more pesticides but does not measure how much of any one pesticide is on a given piece of produce. You can read more on the EWG's Dirty Dozen in the published study here. Washing fruit and vegetables FAQs What were the results of Environmental Working Group's 2024 Shopper's Guide Dirty Dozen sample testing? Out of the analyzed tested samples, EWG found that 95% of the samples from the Dirty Dozen fruits and vegetables category were coated in potentially harmful fungicides. On the other hand, nearly 65% of the samples from the Clean Fifteen fruits and vegetables category displayed no detectable amounts of fungicide.