Top 12 Most CONTAMINATED Fruits & Vegetables You Should AVOID

you might be surprised to find some of your most favorite fresh food snacks that you buy from the supermarket could be tainted with lethal poisons we do have a consumer alert for you tonight a harmful pesticide used on wheat and oat products is turning up in popular breakfast items the FDA is recalling over 54,000 boxes of a certain Yogi tea because of a higher level of pesticide residue a healthy diet consists of eating plenty of fruits and vegetables but some of the chemicals that are often used by produce Farmers to help control bugs fungi and weeds raise concerns when it comes to your health in this video I'll give you the top 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables and I'll write them easy medium hard on level of difficulty to grow at home organically without any chemicals let's get into it every year the ewg which is based in the USA publishes a list of the 12 most contaminated fruits and veggies you can get from the supermarket This research is collected from laboratory tests done by the US Department of Agriculture some of these chemicals they have found in these foods are particularly bad for men and boys potentially harming the male reproductive system causing ADHD and cancer women and girls don't get away with it either with some of the pesticides detected in these foods have know on links to thyroid problems and could pose a significant risk during pregnancy so here's the most contaminated list of foods in reverse order from the least contaminated to the most contaminated according to the ewg and they call it the dirty dozen number 12 green beans yes just normal green beans re recent studies showed that 90% of samples tested positive for pesticides and that's a rise of 15% since 2016 some samples contained up to 16 different pesticides green beans or most beans are easy to grow and are great for beginner gardeners and children and no I'm not going to do one of my fart jokes in this segment just because we're talking about beans this is too much of a serious subject for that type of low brow humor beans are also a really good complete food so I do recommend because of their easiness to grow that people even start with them if they're beginning a veggie garden number 11 is blueberries the worst pesticide that they found on blueberries is known to be a neuro Agent toxic to the human nervous system also really bad for children's brain development again pesticide side amounts and types have increased substantially from 2014 until now in 2024 at a time when blueberry consumption has tripled since the early 2000s two types of pesticides that are band in Europe due to human risk and environmental risk are still used in the USA blueberries are a medium difficulty to grow at home because they require a more acidic soil mix than most other crops so buing the plants into the ground or a container without much thought or knowledge often leads to failure yes there are places where blueberries do grow naturally and grow really well in the wild but in most areas they don't so care needs to be taken to know how to grow them to grow them well number 10 is cherries yum who doesn't love cherries here in Australia they're are particularly sought after food to eat around Christmas time and boy are they expensive however a fungicide that is banned in Europe not in Australia or America was found detected in the fruit as reported by the ewg nothing like a cherry bomb full of chemicals cherries require a specific climate to grow well needing a significant number of hours of low chill for successful cropping I'm trailing a new Cherry variety that I've been after for a very long time and it's meant to be breed for warmer climates but overall I would consider cherries a hard crop to grow for the average home Gardener number nine Bell and hot peppers capsicum and chilies in Australia there were over 100 different types of pesticides found in capsicum and Chili's which surprises me because I've always found hot peppers or chilies crazy easy to grow some of the thick walled varieties like jalapenos will get stung by fruit fly here in southeast Queensland so they do need to be netted for protection but generally nothing much touches chilies because they burn the larger bell peppers that are not hot can be medium to hard to grow for the backyard grower but there are varieties to try that offer better disease resistance than others number eight apples 80% of apples tested contain a chemical called damine which is a chemical used to prevent oxidization on Apple skins when they're kept in Cold Storage it stops them from going brown and black out of the 12 apples to me seem the least problematic because the science is not settled on how bad if at all this chemical treatment is for humans so from what I've read I still believe an apple a day keeps the doctor away app apples are a Hardy tree and I consider them easy to grow at home in ground or in containers you can get dwarf apple trees for smaller areas and low chill varieties for warmer climates number seven nectarines more than 90% of nectarines tested had two or more different pesticides in or on them nectarines are just a smooth skin to Peach and I'll cover peaches soon further up the list a nectarine tree is super easy to grow and you can also get some tiny varieties for smaller areas that thrive in pots number six is pears no that's a lemon tree the alarming thing about pears is how much pesticide residue on the fruit and in it is accelerating over this past decade in 2010 only 3% of peirs tested contain pesticides compared to 61% in 2022 and in the same period the amount of pesticide residue found on pairs has doubled 58% in 12 years seriously shouldn't pesticide use in this day and age with the increase in so-called technology and AI shouldn't it be going down not up if you're in the right climate cool Winters and dry Summers traditional peirs are easy to grow otherwise you might have better success like we do here here in the subtropics growing nashy pears instead number five peaches life isn't always peaches and beaches we might have to change that saying to peaches and hospital with over 99% of 900 samples tested showing contamination with up to 59 different pesticides there's not a lot of research done to show how different pesticides react with each other especially in the human body but Common Sense tells me it's probably bad peaches like most stone fruit are not hard to grow especially in cooler climates and they can fruit prolifically in the right conditions however everything loves to eat peaches even when they're green so to grow them organically you need to net them well and this can take a lot of work I've often been beaten by the birds and the insects when growing peaches therefore I rate them as medium for a backyard Gardener to grow number four is grapes 90% of grapes tested positive to two or more pesticides which seems odd to me because grapes never get attacked by insects here at our place disease isn't really much of a problem either but the birds do love them growing grapes at home is probably on the medium to hard scale of grow ability because you must prune them each season have room to grow them net the fruit from birds and other animals and not all climates or areas are suited to grapes number three is kale collards and mustard greens I often say hail the kale in my videos because kale is one of those super foods and so are the other two almost 60% of kale in the USA tested positive for dacal a pesticide that has been banned in Europe for 15 years Kyle collards and mustard greens are the third most contaminated food on the dirty list with 86% of all samples containing two or more residues of different pesticides the good news is all three of these veggies are some of the fastest and easiest to grow at home they typically don't attract pests especially if you plant them at the right time of year for your climate and are Hardy to grow in most areas number two is spinach in my best popy voice hey Olive spinach by white has the most pesticide residue of any other produce and ranked second out of the 12 embedded with the most pesticides alarmingly 40% of spinach tested by the American Department of Agriculture contain traces of DDT a potent pesticide banned worldwide in the ' 70s that stuff is really toxic to humans spinach is a superfood high in vitamins and antioxidants which hopefully cancels out all those chemicals spinach is also very easy to grow at the right time of year if you try growing it out of season the insects will destroy the crop and drum roll if you haven't cheered already number one on the dirty dozen list is strawberries yes it's terrible but it's nothing to get too hung about Beetle song If you don't know but the reason why strawberries top the list is because they are the most likely fresh produce to be contaminated heavily with pesticides and chemicals some fruits tested contain residues of 82 different pesticides we live in an area that has several strawberry farms around us and I can tell you when you drive past sometimes when they're spraying you can smell the pesticide and I often wonder how much of these poisons escape and inadvertently destroy good insects like bees in surrounding Bushland and even in our own backyards growing strawberries at home is easy for most people they don't take up much space and have a wide tolerance of climate and soil conditions you certainly do not need to use pesticides and fungicides to grow strawberries at home even though we live in an area that has two species of fruit fly which is a serious pest that that stings fruit and lays maggots inside there's no need to spray because strawberries aren't generally targeted by this Pest and the main crop is growing through our winter when fruit fly isn't prevalent anyway so that's the dirty dozen it's pretty sobering news isn't it or is it scare mongering it wouldn't be right of me not to point out that the ewg has its critics and it has a lot of them people saying that they're just an activist organization and the dirt doesn't list is biased and exaggerated propaganda one Theory even goes as far as accusing the ewg of making up The Dirty Dozen because they are paid off by the organic Growers food industry what do I think firstly without Farmers the world would starve and I'm sure that 99% of them use chemicals responsibly so that it limits the contamination in the food that we eat no doubt they eat their own food that they produce so it's in their own interest to ensure the produce isn't contaminated and unfortunately as much as I and you probably hate it pesticides and fungicides are necessary in big agriculture to be able to grow enough food to be able to feed the masses and also make a profit often the use of chemicals is mandated by the government for example as a biocurity measure to prevent the spread of disease and pests then there's the ch chemicals that settle on the food after they are shipped to the supermarket from the farm you've got fumigation in store and that can also settle on the food so I would definitely recommend anything you buy from the store anywhere really or even from your own garden when you pick it give it a good wash underneath the tap uh because you never know what's been sitting on there even possum pee or bat pee could be pretty dangerous of course washing the fruit and veg helps but systemic pesticides and fungicides penetrate the skin and hang around in the flesh or pulp of the produce so at the end of the day if we eat food not grown organically by ourselves or someone else and most of us do then we have no choice but to trust farmers do the right thing when it comes to spraying or dipping produce we also must trust the relevant food authorities as usually the government who test these foods and uphold these standards and make sure that they are doing their job to keep everyone in check otherwise what's the point of it all I know government cutbacks and all that it seems like the first services to go are the most important ones I still have faith in the system regardless of all the videos that I do but I also think that the DWG has its place because without them keeping the food industry honest and Publishing these reports well then there's no outside pressure well limited this is one of the main organizations that publish these reports and look right deeply into it and I think it's a good thing so I'm on their side as well I think it's good to keep the food industry honest and on the other hand farming is getting harder mainly because of poor government decisions making the economics of running a farm far more difficult could the extra complications and costs and pressures that farmers have to go through lead to cutting Corners at the expense of safety well that's one of my main worries the Family Farm is being destroyed and taken over by industry with employees who aren't as connected to the land food food or Community like historical family farmers are or were now I just wanted to jump in real quickly as I was editing this video I thought of a very important point that I wanted to put in it and that was although chemicals in Fresh Foods are very concerning processed foods are even worse because there are pesticides that can be more concentrated in these foods and there are chemicals like preservatives sugars salts and other additives including uded in these products that are just as bad for us as smoking in other words The Dirty Dozen is still healthier for us than most fast or processed foods in my opinion my other main worry is how safe are these allowable limits of chemicals in our food I mean do they build up and can they cause illness over time because of that buildup my gut feeling says they can therefore it makes sense to me anyway that growing your own chemical-free food and or sourcing certified organically ground produce where possible is the way to go we might not fully eliminate all the chemicals that gets absorbed into our body by doing that but at least we can make a bit of a dent into it and somehow limit the amount of chemicals that are going into our body by being more choosy about what we eat and where we get our food from and maybe growing a bit of Our Own no matter how big or small your property is I think I think you know it's better than nothing I think it's a wise idea that's my opinion though what's yours i' welcome them down in the comments section below I know it's a contentious issue contentious issue this is I'm I'm trying to get through this real quick because I've got some R bananas here I've just spied and I want to eat one of them they I can smell them from here but yeah I know it's contentious I I still think that doing these videos is relevant just to make people aware of it um whether you believe it or not and I'm happy for you to disagree with me or agree with me in the comment section below well I hope you enjoyed the video if you did make sure you give it a big dirty thumbs up and share it around cuz that helps a lot and uh subscribe of course if you haven't already thanks a lot for watching bye for now cheers you can't get fresher than this and I guarantee you there's no chemicals on this although it's possible there could be some bat pee on it I'm I'm going to risk it I'm in heaven

Channel: Self Sufficient Me

Views: 850,062

Keywords: pesticides in food, pesticides in food chain, pesticides analysis in food products, pesticides in our food, pesticides in fruits and vegetables, dirty dozen, fruits and vegetables pesticides, dirty 12, the dirty dozen, organic food, environmental working group, top contaminated sprayed fruits vegetables, organic fruits and vegetables, presence of insecticides and pesticides in fruits and vegetables, how to reduce pesticides in fruits and vegetables

Id: j-TGNJ61L7M

Length: 19min 11sec (1151 seconds)

Published: Sun May 26 2024