Pesticide Management at Home

Everyone knows that pesticide poses problem to the society at large; but yet, some of us just don't plain  care. All of us should know that proper cleaning of produces should be done wholeheartedly to prevent excess residues of pesticides to accumulate in our body. detoxification therapy is centred around this idea, where accumulated toxins get detoxified. According to Doctor Leon Chaitow, detoxification therapy is likened to a little nudge to our body, where normally it will perform neutralisation of toxins naturally and automatically.

For everyone's convenience sake, I have listed a few food that are rich in contaminants. Bear in mind that this data is procured from the United States and this might not be representative of all data in the whole wide world. I am not even sure will this data be applicable to food imported from the states.

Here is the list:

Test Results: Complete Data Set

Rank (worst to best)	Commodity	Combined Score	Percentage of Samples Tested with Detectable Pesticides	Percentage of Samples With Two or More Pesticides	Average Number of Pesticides Found on a Sample	Average Amount (in ppm*) of All Pesticides Found	Maximum Number of Pesticides Found on a Single Sample	Number of Pesticides Found on the Commodity in Total
1	Peaches	100	96.6%	86.6%	3.1	1.134	9	42
2	Apples	96	93.6%	82.3%	2.8	0.894	9	50
3	Sweet Bell Peppers	86	81.5%	62.2%	2.4	0.138	11	64
4	Celery	85	94.1%	79.8%	3.0	0.413	9	30
5	Nectarines	84	97.3%	85.3%	3.0	0.576	7	26
6	Strawberries	83	92.3%	69.2%	2.3	0.799	8	38
7	Cherries	75	91.4%	75.8%	2.8	0.290	7	25
8	Lettuce	69	68.2%	44.2%	1.7	0.142	9	57
9	Grapes - Imported	68	84.2%	53.2%	1.8	0.284	8	37
10	Pears	65	86.2%	45.7%	1.6	0.586	6	33
11	Spinach	60	70.0%	31.2%	1.1	1.240	6	24
12	Potatoes	58	81.0%	18.0%	1.0	1.655	4	18
13	Carrots	57	81.7%	48.3%	1.6	0.046	6	31
14	Green Beans	55	67.6%	42.0%	1.4	0.199	6	35
15	Hot Peppers	53	55.0%	27.5%	1.0	0.290	6	51
16	Cucumbers	52	72.5%	31.7%	1.2	0.057	6	40
17	Raspberries	47	47.9%	23.3%	0.9	0.906	6	21
18	Plums	46	74.0%	27.1%	1.1	0.666	4	15
19	Oranges	46	85.1%	34.6%	1.3	0.100	4	18
20	Grapes - Domestic	46	60.5%	23.4%	0.9	0.104	7	31
21	Cauliflower	39	84.6%	14.6%	1.0	0.004	5	15
22	Tangerines	38	66.7%	33.3%	1.2	0.375	3	4
23	Mushrooms	37	60.2%	22.3%	0.9	0.158	5	16
24	Cantaloupe	34	53.3%	19.4%	0.8	0.026	4	25
25	Lemon	31	55.6%	10.0%	0.7	0.188	5	10
26	Honeydew Melon	31	59.2%	14.2%	0.8	0.012	4	16
27	Grapefruit	31	62.9%	15.2%	0.8	0.056	4	9
28	Winter Squash	31	41.3%	11.6%	0.6	0.017	5	26
29	Tomatoes	30	46.9%	13.5%	0.6	0.029	5	16
30	Sweet Potatoes	30	58.4%	10.0%	0.7	0.198	3	17
31	Watermelons	25	38.5%	13.2%	0.6	0.021	4	13
32	Blueberries	24	27.5%	10.0%	0.4	0.327	4	11
33	Papaya	21	23.5%	5.0%	0.3	0.053	4	19
34	Eggplant	19	23.4%	6.9%	0.3	0.013	4	15
35	Broccoli	18	28.1%	3.2%	0.3	0.004	3	19
36	Cabbage	17	17.9%	4.8%	0.2	0.121	3	18
37	Bananas	16	41.7%	2.0%	0.4	0.029	2	7
38	Kiwi	14	15.3%	3.4%	0.2	0.160	3	8
39	Asparagus	11	6.7%	0.6%	0.1	0.026	2	19
40	Sweet Peas - Frozen	11	22.9%	2.3%	0.3	0.010	2	5
41	Mango	9	7.1%	0.5%	0.1	0.057	2	13
42	Pineapples	7	7.7%	0.6%	0.1	0.002	2	7
43	Sweet Corn - Frozen	2	3.8%	0.0%	0.0	0.005	1	3
44	Avocado	1	1.4%	0.0%	0.0	0.001	1	2
45	Onions	1	0.2%	0.0%	0.0	0.000	1	2

Note: We ranked a total of 44 different fruits and vegetables but grapes are listed twice because we looked at both domestic and imported samples.

* ppm means parts per million

*This is procured from http://www.foodnews.org/fulldataset.php and Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce by Environmental Working Group is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

The Bad News

Time to list out the top Twelve of the Most sinister Produces.

12 MOST Contaminated Fruits and Vegetables

• Apples
• Bell Peppers
• Celery
• Cherries
• Imported Grapes
• Nectarines
• Peaches
• Pears
• Potatoes
• Red Raspberries
• Spinach
• Strawberries

Those produces used in the test were prepared in a standard manner i.e. washed, peeled, cored etc. as they are prepared before we ate them. Latest FDA standard dictates that a large amount of the produces be used for sampling so the data procured here is not just estimation, this is real hard cold data (for the States).

The problem we have here is this; the twelve most contaminated food are eerily common and consumed almost routinely. What options do we have here then? Surely all of you have heard of detoxification therapy (this is the best bet) but is this a long run to exhaust our body (i.e, consuming toxic to burden our liver, kidney etc.)? How about organic food? That is another best bet but sometimes, how organic is ORGANIC food? Some of them don't even pass tests and their certificates are counterfeited. This has appeared a number of times in the news and has cause quite an uproar in the community.

So, buy organics that you have confirmed its authenticity. Do not buy food arbitrarily without any verification on the organic certification. Check with your local authority to ensure this.

The next best thing to do is to clean them thoroughly. What I feel as a best tool is to wash them thoroughly with a teaspoon of sea salt (richer in ionic content) and a tablespoon of vinegar (half of a lemon might be more appropriate) added to a Basin of water. This will remove most of those chemical residues in the produce. Peel apples, melons, and cucumbers even tough the skin is supposedly to be good for all of us. The amount of pesticides just does not worth it. If you want to eat those peels, try buying organic produces that you have verified.

Good News

Then those produces least contaminated (consistently clean) are:

12 LEAST Contaminated Fruits and Vegetables

• Asparagus
• Avocados
• Bananas
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Corn (sweet)
• Kiwi
• Mangos
• Onions
• Papaya
• Pineapples
• Peas (sweet)

So maybe it is better for us to eat food from the LEAST contaminated group than the MOST contaminated group. This is, no doubt, common sense but some of us just prefer the food in the MOST list (just because of habit?). It is time to rethink our food intake...

The Apothecarist's Solution

However, if you are still unconvinced and wanted something that will work well to rid yourself of pesticides, herbicides, fertilisers, and slow suicides, our apothecarist has sourced in a reliable but yet economical solution. It is our apothecarist's very own brand: Mayura Apothecary VegeFruit Wash. This enzyme-based fruit wash will help you to remove unwanted additives while remaining gentle to your hands and vegetables as well as fruits.

Take a look at the product by clicking on this link: http://www.mayuranatural.com/webshaper/store/viewProd.asp?pkProductItem=12

A short and comprehensive guide can be downloaded, http://www.foodnews.org/pdf/EWG_pesticide.pdf.