How to Easily Remove Pesticides From Your Fruits and Vegetables

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How to Easily Remove Pesticides From Your Fruits and Vegetables

Did you know that 65% of produce samples analyzed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture test positive for pesticide residues? Unless you’re buying certified organic food, the chances are that you’re consuming a significant amount of chemicals with every portion of your ‘healthy’ greens.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is trying to inform the public about the level of exposure to often toxic chemicals commonly found in our fresh produce. They publish an annual list of most and least contaminated fruits and vegetables, the so called ‘Dirty Dozen’ and ‘Clean Fifteen’ lists.

Apples, strawberries, grapes, celery, peaches, spinach, sweet bell peppers, imported nectarines, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, imported snap peas and potatoes are all on the EWG’s Dirty list.

You should be careful when consuming these produce, as they contain a number of different pesticide residues and have high concentrations of pesticides relative to other produce items.

The cleanest fruits and veggies, which are least likely to hold pesticides, include avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, cabbage, frozen sweet peas, onions, asparagus, mangoes, papayas, kiwis, eggplant, grapefruit, cantaloupe, cauliflower and sweet potatoes. Avocados are the cleanest, with only 1% showing any detectable pesticides (you can find here more healthy reasons to eat avocado).

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Use Vinegar and Water to wash pesticides and chemicals
There is a simple and cheap trick that can help you get rid of those nasty chemicals. You can simply wash your fresh produce in distilled white vinegar and water solution.

Gayle Povis Alleman, a registered dietician, suggests soaking your veggies and fruits in a solution of 10% vinegar to 90% water. Make the mixture, and let the produce sit in for 15 to 20 minutes. When you remove them, you’ll notice that the water left in the bowl is dirty and may contain some gunk. Rinse fruits and vegetables in fresh water, and then enjoy your cleaner product.

This method shouldn’t be used on fragile fruits, such as berries, as they have a very porous skin and might get damaged and soak in too much of the vinegar. With other fruits, there should be no lingering vinegar aroma. If you wish, you can also use lemon juice.

Water and salt is also helpful
According to the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), it also helps to wash your fruits and vegetables with 2% of salt water. This should remove most of the contact pesticide residues that normally appear on the surface.

In a scientific study, researchers washed cabbage for 20 minutes in vinegar, a salt water solution, or tap water to eliminate concentration of pesticide residues. The researchers found that vinegar and salt water solutions were significantly better than tap water in removing pesticides from the cabbage.

They discovered that a 10% salt water solution was the most effective, and far better than washing with plain water.

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Isolated Town, 1962 — This Is What 10 Generations of Inbreeding Created. In 1840, deep within the Appalachian wilderness exists a town that shouldn’t exist. Milbrook Hollow was founded in 1640 by 43 families fleeing religious persecution. And for 200 years, not a single outsider has entered or left. What began as a sanctuary became a genetic prison. “This is the account of Dr. Samuel Huitt, a physician who stumbled upon Milbrook Hollow while searching for his missing brother, and what he discovered about 10 generations of absolute isolation will challenge everything you think you know about human evolution, family bonds, and the true cost of purity.” The town kept meticulous records, every birth, every marriage, every death documented in leatherbound journals spanning two centuries. But some things were never written down. Some truths were too horrifying to commit to paper. The map was wrong. Dr. Samuel Huitt had been certain of that for the past 3 hours, as his horse picked its way through increasingly dense forest, where no trail should exist. The October air in the Appalachian Mountains carried that peculiar cold that seeps into bones, and the afternoon sun barely penetrated the canopy above. His brother’s last letter, dated June 12th, 1840, had mentioned a town called Milbrook Hollow, a place Samuel could find on no map, in no census record. In no traveler’s account he’d consulted across four different libraries in Richmond. Thomas Huitt, a surveyor by trade, had written that he’d stumbled upon something extraordinary during his mapping expedition for the Commonwealth of Virginia. “A complete society,” Thomas had written in his precise hand, “untouched by the modern world, operating under principles that would astound the learned men of our time.” That was 4 months ago. No letter had followed. Samuel had waited 2 weeks before worry overtook him, another three weeks before he could arrange leave from his practice in Richmond. He was 34 years old, had delivered over 200 babies, set countless broken bones, and watched fever claim patients despite his best efforts with mercury and bloodletting. He considered himself a rational man, educated at the College of William and Mary, skeptical of superstition and frontier tales. But Thomas was his only living family since their parents died of cholera in ’36, and the silence was unlike him. Thomas wrote weekly religiously, even if just to complain about mosquitoes or comment on geological formations. Four months of nothing meant something was terribly wrong. The horse, a sturdy bay mare named Constance, suddenly stopped and refused to move forward. Samuel dismounted, his medical bag heavy across his shoulder, and examined the ground. Here the forest changed. The trees grew differently, their trunks twisted in unusual spirals, and the underbrush seemed deliberately arranged, though he couldn’t say why it struck him that way. Then he saw it, a cairn of stones, weathered and moss-covered, stacked in a formation that was clearly human-made. Beyond it, barely visible through the trees, stood another cairn, and another beyond that. A path marked by those who didn’t want outsiders to find it, but

Isolated Town, 1962 — This Is What 10 Generations of Inbreeding Created. In 1840, deep within the Appalachian wilderness exists a town that shouldn’t exist. Milbrook Hollow was founded in 1640 by 43 families fleeing religious persecution. And for 200 years, not a single outsider has entered or left. What began as a sanctuary became a genetic prison. “This is the account of Dr. Samuel Huitt, a physician who stumbled upon Milbrook Hollow while searching for his missing brother, and what he discovered about 10 generations of absolute isolation will challenge everything you think you know about human evolution, family bonds, and the true cost of purity.” The town kept meticulous records, every birth, every marriage, every death documented in leatherbound journals spanning two centuries. But some things were never written down. Some truths were too horrifying to commit to paper. The map was wrong. Dr. Samuel Huitt had been certain of that for the past 3 hours, as his horse picked its way through increasingly dense forest, where no trail should exist. The October air in the Appalachian Mountains carried that peculiar cold that seeps into bones, and the afternoon sun barely penetrated the canopy above. His brother’s last letter, dated June 12th, 1840, had mentioned a town called Milbrook Hollow, a place Samuel could find on no map, in no census record. In no traveler’s account he’d consulted across four different libraries in Richmond. Thomas Huitt, a surveyor by trade, had written that he’d stumbled upon something extraordinary during his mapping expedition for the Commonwealth of Virginia. “A complete society,” Thomas had written in his precise hand, “untouched by the modern world, operating under principles that would astound the learned men of our time.” That was 4 months ago. No letter had followed. Samuel had waited 2 weeks before worry overtook him, another three weeks before he could arrange leave from his practice in Richmond. He was 34 years old, had delivered over 200 babies, set countless broken bones, and watched fever claim patients despite his best efforts with mercury and bloodletting. He considered himself a rational man, educated at the College of William and Mary, skeptical of superstition and frontier tales. But Thomas was his only living family since their parents died of cholera in ’36, and the silence was unlike him. Thomas wrote weekly religiously, even if just to complain about mosquitoes or comment on geological formations. Four months of nothing meant something was terribly wrong. The horse, a sturdy bay mare named Constance, suddenly stopped and refused to move forward. Samuel dismounted, his medical bag heavy across his shoulder, and examined the ground. Here the forest changed. The trees grew differently, their trunks twisted in unusual spirals, and the underbrush seemed deliberately arranged, though he couldn’t say why it struck him that way. Then he saw it, a cairn of stones, weathered and moss-covered, stacked in a formation that was clearly human-made. Beyond it, barely visible through the trees, stood another cairn, and another beyond that. A path marked by those who didn’t want outsiders to find it, but