Thanks for the info!

The big problem with these lists is they over-simplify things.

Residues mean little without context...type of residue means a lot within context of exposure.

Potatoes are #12 on the list, but I'd be a lot more concerned about the residues on that over about 8-10 others on the list ranked above it even though they have more or more types of residues.

Heck, plums (17), cherries (18), and pears (20) I would be more concerned about than a lot of things listed above them.

It would be nice if they weighted concern/danger of types of pesticides/herbicides in their rankings.

Beyond that...wash your produce...it should be standard practice no matter how it was grown unless you know where it came from and how much you can trust it's growing practice.

I used to live in a commercial apple orchard. If people only knew what they did. One piece of advice: never never never eat apple butter.

Apples easily would make my #1, too. I work in the chemical agriculture industry and I have had co-workers over the years spanning many different workplaces that wouldn't touch apples without cleaning the heck out of them or peeling them.

Thiabendazole (fungicide) and azinphos methyl (pesticide) are commonly used...especially thiabendazole which is pretty much an industry standard.

Thiabendazole on apples isn't really a huge concern, but it's the amount of thiabendazole used across so many produce+meat industries that's more of a concern along with apples being a place where you're going to get the biggest dose of it. Even though it's hard to get a major exposure to thiabendazole, it's easy to get it almost every turn you make in the food system for foods that are prone to fungal/mold issues and animals who are treated with thiabendazole for parasites. It's rather boring and mostly safe in common exposure...but there's a lot of it in our food system opening up some people to higher exposure even if it's not many people. It's one of those chemicals that needs a bit less cross-industry usage.

You're also going to find carbaryl used on too many (imo) apple crops even if it's use is in decline...and this is one you don't want to regularly ingest even if it's small amounts. There's safer options than carbaryl out there. It's used on a small portion of apple crop production (10-ish%, tops), but it should be much closer to 0%.

There's other chemicals used in orchards, but azinphos methyl and carbaryl are ones that I am not a fan of. Thiabendazole is a concern because of how much of it is in our cross-industry food supply and is a minor concern compared to azinphos methyl and carbaryl...but there's many that would like to see less of it used so much.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Wed, Apr 30, 14 at 1:27

Organic label is supposed to eliminate all or nearly all of these concerns, right? How much fraud is there in that regard, do we suppose?

There is a lot of fraud in organic. Especially dairy, although we cut out dairy completely after discovering it was increasing my back pain 2-5 times in intensity. If you care to try this for yourself read labels and give it 10 days, then go back to generous amounts for a couple days and see it it matters to your aches and pains.

When buying organic look at the label for the country of origin. If US, Cananda, or western Europe (france, Britian, Holland, Germany etc) then assume 90% true. All other countries assume 100% false.

"wash your produce"
I thought that the residues were inside the produce, because some of the sprays were done at early stages (as in flower, etc.), not just the ripe stage. Is that an incorrect assumption?

"I thought that the residues were inside the produce, because some of the sprays were done at early stages (as in flower, etc.), not just the ripe stage. Is that an incorrect assumption?"

Some are inside/systemic, a lot are on the surface, and some of the surface stuff can permeate the skin a little bit. It's hard-to-impossible to get 100% "clean" even if you wash because of this, but you'll take care of a good amount of it...especially the nastier stuff.

Oh I agree, anything organic from central/south america or asia is likely to be a scam. We do buy organic bananas nonetheless, just on hope, which hope is backed up by the fact that they generally taste much better.

This is why it is important for the consumer, especially of foods, know the source of that food.

I guess I'd better buy a little organic banana-farm, then.

Pat, Maybe I shouldn't post this, but......How much better do those organic bananas taste? Guess I tend to be a bit of a sceptic..lol.