TIP:  1/8 cup regular chlorine bleach to 1 gal cold water is an excellent and inexpensive wash/sanitizer for fruits and vegetables.  Submerge for one to three seconds – rinse thoroughly under fresh running water, air dry or store immediately in fridge.

Food For Health – For the fourth year running, the environmental working group (a non-profit public health organization) says that apples are the dirtiest produce out there. What do they mean by that? They mean pesticides. 99 percent of apples that were checked had some sort of pesticide residue on them.

Apples top the “Dirty Dozen” produce list, followed by strawberries, grapes, celery and peaches rounding out the five.

So what is “clean” produce? Clean produce is something that has some sort of skin on it. Avocados are the cleanest. Corn, pineapple, frozen sweet peas, with their thick skin, also make the “Clean Fifteen” list.

The environmental working group explains:

Other fruits and vegetables on the Dirty Dozen are strawberries, grapes, celery, peaches, spinach, sweet bell peppers, imported nectarines, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, potatoes and imported snap peas. Leafy greens – kale and collard greens – and hot peppers were frequently contaminated with insecticides that are particularly toxic to human health. EWG details this problem in a section called Dirty Dozen-Plus.

EWG’s Clean Fifteen consists of conventional produce with the least amount of pesticide residues. Avocados were the cleanest, with only 1 percent of samples showing any detectable pesticides. Other items on the list include corn, pineapples, cabbage, frozen sweet peas, onions, asparagus, mangoes, papayas, kiwi, eggplant, grapefruit, cantaloupe, cauliflower and sweet potatoes.  (link)