In the Garden with Pat Rubin

Bee garden writer Pat Rubin writes about everything that grows, from flowers and trees to vegetables and lawns. Pat volunteered for several years as a Placer County Master Gardener and has written about gardening for many national and regional publications. In addition to gardening, she spends time raising and showing miniature horses and miniature donkeys.

In the Garden will include news, events, advice and other gardening tidbits. Pat will also answer reader questions.

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November 28, 2007

What's on your produce?

The November/ December of issue of Utne Reader lists the 12 most and least pesticide contaminated produce as compiled by the not-for-profit Environmental Working Group.

The complete listing, which ranks 43 popular fruits and vegetables, is “based on the results of nearly 43,000 tests for pesticides on produce collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration between 2000 and 2005,” according to a press release.

The study isn’t perfect, says Utne Reader, because “the rankings do not account for relative toxicity, a shortcoming reported by the Nutrition Action Healthletter (July/Aug. 2007); a fruit with a small amount of a highly toxic pesticide could rank cleaner than one carrying multiple less-harmful residues.”

Utne Reader suggests buying organically grown produce whenever possible.

For a complete listing and an explanation of how the findings were derived, visit www.foodnews.org.

Most contaminated 12:
1 Peaches
2 Apples
3 Sweet bell peppers
4 Celery
5 Nectarines
6 Strawberries
7 Cherries
8 Lettuce
9 Grapes (imported)
10 Pears
11 Spinach
12 Potatoes

Least Contaminated 12:
1 Onions
2 Avocados
3 Sweet corn (frozen)
4 Pineapples
5 Mangoes
6 Sweet peas (frozen)
7 Asparagus
8 Kiwi
9 Bananas
10 Cabbage
11 Broccoli
12 Eggplant

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